Spanish
What are some pitfalls to avoid, specific to this language, a client should be aware of when translating into this language?
- English source text may contain ambiguous language. This ambiguity usually cannot be carried forward into the translation. Gender and number agreement rules in Spanish require complete clarity regarding which words are modified by which other words and which verbs go with which subjects.
- Spanish usually requires more words than English to express the same thing (mainly due to articles and prepositions). On the average, the same text will be about 25% longer in Spanish than in English.
- Plays on words should be avoided in text to be translated, since they practically never can be reproduced. One example would be a PowerPoint slide revolving around words that begin with the same letter. Another would be advertising based on a word with a double meaning in English.
What are characteristics of this language that are unique or different from English and/or other languages?
One of the main differences between English and Spanish is gender and number agreement. In Spanish all nouns are masculine or feminine, and articles and adjectives must agree with them both in gender and number (there is no equivalent for “it”). Thus, in English one says “the white house” and “the white houses”, and “the white dog” and “the white dogs” while in Spanish one says “la casa blanca” and “las casas blancas”, and “el perro blanco” and “los perros blancos”.
Another important difference between English and Spanish is the conjugation of verbs. English verb forms are very simple, and endings are different between persons only in the present tense. In Spanish, the endings are different for all persons in all tenses.
Capitalization rules differ in English and Spanish. For example, days, months, nationalities and languages are not capitalized in Spanish. Also, only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized in titles.
Punctuation rules differ in English and Spanish. This includes the use and placement of quotation marks, parentheses and dashes. Spanish is the only language that uses both opening and closing question and exclamation marks.
Spanish is one of the most widely used languages in the world. While scholarly and scientific language is pretty uniform in all countries, there are many areas in which vocabulary and usage vary greatly according to country. Food, sports, animals, plants are especially rich in variation according to locale. The more colloquial the language to be translated, the more important it is to identify the exact target audience and translate accordingly.
How do these characteristics make it important to use properly qualified, professional translators?
The fact that a person speaks a language does not mean that he or she can write or translate properly. Native speakers do not necessarily have good spelling or grammar and may be unaware of the finer points of the rules of punctuation. Some people have no formal education in a language they speak. Some people with degrees in engineering and medicine, for example, may be excellent in their own field but poor writers. Professional translators are language experts. They are also highly skilled in research and familiar with numerous vocabulary resources.
Spelling, grammar and punctuation errors make a document with correctly translated technical terms look unprofessional and may lead to serious problems of misinterpretation.
Do you know examples where translation or localization mistakes have occurred with this language, such as, problems with text expansion, date/time formats, counting errors, character encoding, etc., or mistakes with the translation itself? Perhaps you’ve been asked to review a translation that did not seem to be the work of a properly qualified, professional translator.
Date/time formats often cause problems in translation, since the US usually (but not always) uses mm/dd/yy while other countries usually (but not always) use dd/mm/yy. This could lead to confusion on deadlines in bids, priority dates in patents, sequence of events in lawsuits, etc.
Another problem area is the US use of decimal points and commas for thousands while most other countries use decimal commas and points for thousands. There is an international convention requiring the use of spaces for thousands and preferably commas for decimals, but it is seldom respected.
Abbreviations are frequently problematic. The Spanish translator needs to know the expansions, either to translate them or to give them the proper gender and number agreements.
My husband, a native Spanish-speaker, worked at a company that sold welding equipment. It was preparing literature for its stand at an international trade fair and had already printed up a machine-translated brochure in Spanish. My husband saw it a couple of days before the fair and told his boss it was incomprehensible. I had to stay up all night translating it correctly so it could be printed in time. That brochure on very costly equipment was to be seen by company executives and engineers from around the world. The poor literature would have made the company seem ignorant and careless, and the welding equipment vendor could have lost potential buyers. In this case, the company saved face and money because it happened to have a Spanish-speaking employee who happened to notice the problem and happened to have a professional translator as a spouse.
Relate an example or two where you found a website page or form difficult to use because it was poorly localized into your language/locale. How might a business lose money, prestige or incur legal risk due to this bad translation?
The following is the original English text from a web page on office furniture:
Black Hat and Coat Stand Extruded Polymer with 3 Tough Hooks
The Spanish translation offered is:
Un sombrero negro y el escudo de un extruido polímero resistente con 3 ganchos.
This is what the Spanish actually says:
One black hat and the shield of a resistant polymer extrudate with 3 hooks.
A Spanish-speaker would scratch his or her head, laugh or be outraged. It would be highly unlikely that he or she would take the company seriously.
If possible, provide one example of a particular phrase or concept that only a properly qualified, professional translator would be able to correctly communicate.
The following has been taken from the November 27, 2007 issue of the Clarín newspaper:
El pasado lunes 12, Miguelito había sido dado por muerto por una médica al momento de nacer. Cuando se descubrió que vivía, el caso generó un escándalo en el Hospital San Juan Bautista. El fiscal Penal Alejandro Dalla Lasta y la dirección del hospital iniciaron una investigación.
Translation:
Last Monday, the 12th, Miguelito had been pronounced dead at birth by a doctor. When he was found to be alive, the case set off a scandal at Hospital San Juan Bautista. Criminal Prosecutor Alejandro Dalla Lasta and the hospital administration opened an investigation.
Examples of issues to be decided by the person doing the translation:
- “El pasado lunes 12” What is the best way to express the date (literally “the past Monday 12”)?
- “Hospital San Juan Bautista” Should the name be translated or left as is?
- “fiscal Penal” “Fiscal” can be a noun meaning “prosecutor, government representative or election supervisor” or an adjective meaning “pertaining to public funds, financial, pertaining to the prosecutor, auditor or controller,” among other things. “Penal” can be a noun meaning “prison or penitentiary” or an adjective meaning “criminal or penal.” Which meanings should be used?
A professional translator is acquainted with set phrases in both languages and can avoid meaningless literal translations. A professional translator knows that standard usage is not to translate proper names unless the client specifically requests that this be done. A professional translator explores all of the possible meanings of words and chooses the right one according to the context.
