We may like or hate it, but this phenomenon is among us. And I’m not refering to Spanglish, but specifically to Reggaeton. The truth is that this musical style is strongly associated with not just one country’s or region’s culture, but throughout Latin America. Whether it “represents” us or not, or whether all Latin Americans feel its lyrics represent us or not, is up for debate. And, in fact, it’s already being debated.

The site Reggaeton in Cuba (which includes a dictionary of terms to help understand the lyrics) argues: “Reggaeton became, initially, well known in Panama and in particular in Puerto Rico. But its popularity moved rapidly to other countries such as the Dominican Republic, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua and parts of Cuba. In recent times, it has surfaced in the United States, particularly in urban areas, like New York and Miami, that have large concentrations of Latinos. Currently, Reggaeton is known in almost all Hispanic countries, including, of course, Spain. There it entered the music market with great force, even fusing with flamenco. The tremendous popularity it has reached in Latin urban centers has prompted some to consider the possibility that this new genre will quickly replace Salsa or Merengue, among others. ”

The author of the blog  Indie.cl argues that “Reggaeton is inevitable, uncontrollable, unstoppable and contagious. Its sound is expansive. It’s invading radios around the world and breaking down cultural barriers with its bold rhymes in Spanglish. Then she adds: “It increasingly surprises us by looking for novelty and variety, and delivers lyrics that are completely provocative, talkative and humorous, of undoubted Latin character.

In these examples we can see some of that:

There are also many people who don’t like the content of the lyrics in Reggaeton. Several websites, from different parts of Latin America, have comments like these:

“The reaggeton denigrates WOMEN, treats them as sexual objects and subordinates men to the fullest. And of course there’s a mega dose of sickly and ridiculous Latin machismo (…) ”

“(…) something so insulting or abusive, even verbally, directed to a man or woman, doesn’t have my respect: I’m a musician, (…) and I’ve never gotten into this kind of music, by its lack of respect for poetry and music. ”

Even on Facebook you can join “L.A.C.E.R. (Latinos Together Against Reggaeton) and say (against, of course).

It’s easy to find a site to download audio and video files and lyrics, even in English translated into Spanish (although with many spelling mistakes), or other languages. While doing research for this article, I found clear examples of this striking mixture of English and Spanish, or the direct use of  Spanglish in lyrics (copied unedited):

As they say in the Cuban site, “You can say that Reggaeton is ‘fashionable’.” Someone in a forum said: “I believe that Reggaeton is a good musical style and that it makes many people, who have limited resources and live in poor areas throughout Latin America, happy. I like becuase it represents us as Latinos in the European countries and North America.” It’s one opinion.

Source: Spanglish en el Reggaeton

A dictionary is a simple tool which helps us with the pronouciation, spelling and grammar needed for correct and effective communication. A glossary is an alphabetical list of technical terms in some specialized field of knowledge. The list below are helpful resources for general and specialized terminology in English and Spanish aimed for students, teachers, professionals and the general public.

English and Spanish Dictionaries and Glossaries

Biology Glossary English – Spanish glossary of technical terms used in ecology, evolution, and systematics

Business Dictionary English to Spanish terminology and vocabulary

Child Welfare Glossary English – Spanish child welfare terms from the Child Welfare  Children’s Bureau

Deaf & Blind Glossary English – Spanish glossary of concepts and terms from the National Consortium of Deaf-Blindness

English Spanish Glossaries Portals and search engines that take you to a large number of glossaries on every topic imaginable, as well as general dictionaries, encyclopedias and other resources for translators. If you are looking for a very particular glossary that does not fall in the other categories, check the portals in this section

“Spanglish” is the title of the 2005 comedy starring Adam Sandler (John), Tea Leoni (Deborah) and the Spanish actress Paz Vega (playing a Mexican housekeeper, named Flor), in which the characters come to understand each other without words. According to the executive producer of the film, in which an American married couple and a Latino housekeeper are faced with a language barrier, “the word ‘Spanglish’ is a metaphor for the collision of cultures in this house. It’s also a metaphor for the general limitations of language. To some extent, whether or not we speak the same language, we’re always interpreting the behavior of others.” The writer/director notes that “the cultural differences in our heterogeneous society can be profound. But with Flor and John, their similarities are profound.”

This film is unique because the main theme is Spanglish. Yet there are other films and several television series that are incorporating Latino characters and mixing Spanish in the dialogue. Abc guionistas discuss a study by Professor Nieves Jiménez Carra, from the University Pablo de Olavide (UPO) in Seville, Spain, about 5 television series (The West Wing, Friends, Without a Trace, Cane, and Dexter) and 2 movies (Quinceañera and Real Women Have Curves). The researcher analyzes the strategies used by the original writers to include Spanish in the script or characters of Latin American origin, and also discusses the subtitling and dubbing strategies that translators in Spain use to translate these “bilingual” scripts. It says that American writers tend to include English subtitles when the Spanish is spoken in a series or movie if it’s important to the story line. However, subtitles are not included if what the character is saying is not as important. “They prevent the public from knowing what Spanish speaking characters are saying,” says Jiménez Carra. “If there’s a recurrent character who speaks Spanish, as in Cane or Dexter, the character sometimes translates his or her own words. For example, if the character says, “¿Como estás?” it’s sometimes followed by “How are you?”

Maybe the answer is to teach Spanish at an early age … The same thing that happens in the above-mentioned series is even more obvious in children’s programs. PBS Kids, Disney Channel and Nickelodeon focus on acceptance over discrimination, and there are already several bilingual programs that feature Latin American culture.

Bebés Latinos, a site “for Latino parents throughout the world,” comments on all these children’s programs that “teach” Spanish or include characters of Latino origin. Dora the Explorer is a bilingual series that has created a new interest in non-Latino children to learn Spanish while also learning aspects of the Latino culture. For Latino children living outside of Latin America, this is a character with whom they share something in common and to whom they can relate. Another bilingual program is Maya & Miguel, two siblings living in a culturally diverse neighborhood and with friends of many nationalities and races, who focus on being good family and community members. These characters and their relatives, of Mexican origin, use Spanish phrases and individual words translated into English. Dragon Tales tells the story of a 6-year-old girl and her 4-year-old brother, who are friends with four dragons in Dragonland. The program focuses on cultural diversity, emphasizing the Latino culture through games, songs and stories of Latin America. For smaller children Jay Jay the Jet Plane, which is about a 6 years old plane and his adventures with his plane friends, highlights teamwork, responsibility and cooperation. New episodes feature a red Latino plane named Lina who helps Jay Jay discover how airplanes fly and the five senses. Handy Manny features the adventures of Manny (Manuel García), a billingual Latino handyman always willing to help his neighbors and friends, who fixes everything in his town. Manny’s friends are his talking tools, and all use individual Spanish words and phrases (in the Latin American version, greetings and numbers and other simple phrases in English are incorporated, usually followed by a translation). It teaches the importance of cooperation, problem solving, teamwork and multiculturalism. The program makes reference to Latino customs and traditions and the opening has Latin music (the title song is performed by the band Los Lobos).

Surely there will be more integration and less discrimination, more knowledge of “other cultures” with these programs, but I wonder what these children speak when they are older, a mixture of Spanish and English (the familiar Spanglish)? Will these programs teach children to speak both languages well when they’re older? The other possibility … I’ll keep it to myself.

Source: Idioma español y cultura latina en la pantalla de EE. UU.

For those businesses that want to test the potential of their products or services with the US Spanish market, those ready to employ a more proactive approach, or those fully committed to their Spanish speaking consumers, I recommend translating part, if not all, of your website into Spanish and developing a search friendly website. This process that will entail at least the following basic steps.

Page Translation

The Spanish Market in the US is a fastest growing consumer market and the largest online growth sector of new Internet users. It is estimated that the number of Hispanic Internet users will surge between now and 2012 and surpass 29 million.  Chicago, for example, expects Hispanics to account for virtually all of the city’s population growth over the next decade. It is good idea to invest in a Hispanic-focused web site and SEO to tap into a market that will surely increase your business.

Page Optimization

Keyword Analysis: the study of the most frequently used keywords entered into a search engine by the users. Keyword research consists of finding as many keywords as possible relating to your web site, the most valuable keywords and analyzing the strength of competitors for potential keywords.

Coding & Content Optimization: editing a web site’s content and code in order to improve visibility within one or more search engines. The content should be properly structured with the use of Heading tags bold containing relevant keywords. Search-engines will only index a limited amount of text in HTML tags and using too many keywords will dilute the focus.

URL Revision (file names, keywords): in dynamic website URL’s contain a lot of special character (E.g. @, #, $, % and more…) that is not recognize/supported by the search engine. In that case rewrite search engine friendly URL.

META Tags (title, description, keywords): elements that are used to include information about your web page. Search engines use the text they find on the page as a description so it is very important that the first header and sentence describe the contents.

You need to have at least 1 page in Spanish optimized with your Spanish keywords and meta tags in order to be allowed to submit your site on Spanish search engines.

When translating your webpage choose a professional translation agency with translators that are native speakers and have a good command of both languages, English and Spanish. Aslo,  your SEO service provider should be active in multilingual/multicultural SEO communities; understand the differences in markets in the USA, Latin America and Spain; knows your target market.  For more information visit Spanish Website Translation .