The current population is estimated to be 6 million. However, the United Nations expects this number to increase to 90 million by the year 2025. And the world’s population is expected to reach 9 billion in 2050.

According to UNESCO data, there are approximately 400 to 500 million Spanish speaking people in the world. The Spanish language is used by 7-8% of the world’s population, although that figure will increase significantly.  These figures account for the population of countries with Spanish as their official language, including 30 million people in the United States who speak Spanish on a regular basis. Hispanics are the largest ethnic minority in the United States and Spanish ranks second as the language spoken most widely at home.

These numbers clearly indicate a tremendous growth in the demand of Spanish media communication, information, entertainment, websites and so on.  Companies are starting to realize that translating their websites into Spanish is a must if they are reach a consumer market that continues to increase at a significant rate. Although most Hispanics live in big cities, states such as Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, North and South Carolina and Virginia are experiencing larger migration.

Communication media tries to meet market demand by offering quality Spanish programming, as the Spanish media and publicity market in television, newspapers and magazines published in Spanish continues to grow. However, the demand is not only for Spanish content but for quality Spanish content, i.e well translated material.

I have already mentioned that there is no single form of Spanish. Each target market should be considered when a products being launched into the Spanish language (Mexican, Columbian, US Spanish), Latin American Spanish in general (or what we call “neutral Spanish”) or Spanish from Spain. By taking into account this information, a good translation service can deliver a good quality product specific to each customer and thus provide the Hispanic market in the United States with the translations needed. Follow the links to find general information about the Spanish translation for the United States, specifically the online Hispanic market or Hispanic market research.

Source: Mercado de español en los Estados Unidos

Spanish is the second most-common language in the United States. There are 45 million Hispanics who speak Spanish in the United States, making it the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking community. German, Italian, Polish, Russian and Greek are also spoken among older generations of immigrants. Also spoken are Tagalog, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. And let’s not forget that there is also a small population of Native Americans who still speak their native languages.

However, it may surprise you to learn that the United States does not have an official language, even though the majority of the population speaks English. According to an ACLU briefing paper, the proposal was “rejected as undemocratic and a threat to individual liberty” by the Continental Congress. Needless to say, the proposal of any official language in the United States is simply out of the questions.

To wrap up my previous post, I’d like to make a brief comment on this subject.

A translation targeted towards different Spanish speaking regions or countries should be translated into “Neutral Spanish”. As I mentioned before, it’s very important that the client be aware of this. What we’re talking about is a standardized version of Spanish, especially in terms of vocabulary, so that all Spanish speakers can understand its meaning. We already established that there is only one Spanish language, but it’s spoken differently throughout the world. Grammar -the syntax itself will be basically the same regardless of any variations. But the choice of certain terms and idioms (phrases, loanwords, sayings, idiomatic phrases, etc.) will need to be adapted in order to reach a middle ground. The use of the RAE Spanish dictionary (Royal Spanish Academy) is essential. This is the bible and guide for translators in search of what Wikipedia defines as “a version that tries to avoid terms that may be identified with specific countries (“ordenador” is most used in Spain while “computadora” in turn is used in America) or linguistic regional phenomena (the Latin American voseo)…”.

A few years ago, the findings of a study were released that set off a bit of an uproar in the United States. The study contended that as of July 1st, 2050, the United States will have more Spanish speakers than any other country in the world. More than Mexico, more than Colombia, more than Spain. The results have since been refuted, with some claiming that Spanish-speaking immigrants will have become “Anglicized” and others pointing out the fact that the study was conducted by the Cervantes Institute, a chain of Spanish language schools.

However a different study released by a somewhat more credible source, the EFE news agency, may come to many as even more surprising. By the year 2030, Spanish will have surpassed Hindi and English to become the second most spoken language in the world, trailing only Mandarin Chinese. This report predicts that the number of people in the world whose native language is Spanish will surge from 5.7% to 7.5%.

Will either of these forecasts hold true? Vamos a ver.

I’ve talked before about the list of glossaries that a friend of mine put together (and which I’m sure she’ll add to in the future). While going through these glossaries, I came across a couple of little grammar problems in Spanish that can be troublesome.

The first topic is the use of the personal pronoun “se“. www.elcastellano.org has a good list of the uses of this pronoun, along with some very clear examples of use. This list can be especially useful for non-native Spanish speakers who may have difficulties understanding these constructions. “Se puede” learn on this page.
Another topic that is generally easy for native speakers but trips up speakers of Spanish as a foreign language is the use of “que“. That same site ,elcastellano.org, has another area that talks about the different uses of the pronoun que (interrogative, exclamatory, relative) and the conjunction, letting you know which ones have an accent mark and which don’t. It also has a little bonus on “dequeísmo“, which is the ever-growing error (by both native speakers and others) of using “de” incorrectly. In order to avoid misusing the preposition, we often convince ourselves that de que is incorrect when it actually should go there.

To wrap up this summary of “mini-topics,” I also found this area that discusses common errors and questions on accent marks. Who hasn’t been unsure of whether or not to put an accent mark on “ti”, “éste”, “aún”…? Well, éste is a great site to find explanations and examples all together.

How many words are there in Spanish? How about in English? Depending on who you ask, there are different answers… There is a certain tendency (among Spanish-speakers) to overestimate the number of words in Spanish as well as the overall variety of the language’s forms. Some say that it is out of a need to win some kind of competition more so than a defense of real numbers.  The problem is that there are no concrete figures… How does one go about counting the words?

I’d say that Spanish has a “ton” of words, or maybe even a “gazillion.” This makes me wonder: Does “gazillion” count as a word? What about other localisms and slang? You would also have to add the special terms used by certain groups: doctors, lawyers, artists of all types, “marginalized” individuals (locked up, drug addicts, etc.). You won’t find these words in dictionaries. And so I ask myself: Do you count all of the feminine and masculine variants, the singulars and plurals, the diminutives, the augmentatives….? And aaaaaaaaallll of the words that we make up each day, for text messages or chatting: some abbreviations, other “stretched” ones (like the second one in this sentence), other manipulated words or “vesre”* in Spanish? We also have “imported” words, the ones we copy, borrow and steal from other languages, plus those that undergo a slight phonetic modification and adaptation so that we can consider them new. And there are also bad words (which we’ve discussed here before) and although they are “bad,” there are a lot of them and they are widely used… even if they’re not in the dictionary. Does whoever counts words include those?

With everything said and done, whether it’s 100,000 or 300,000 words that “exist,” how many do we actually use? Depending on our cultural upbringing, I’ve heard that we use between 1000 and 10,000 words. How many more are there that we don’t use because while they are still in the dictionary, they are obsolete, out of style, etc.  Many are relegated to a catalogue of unused words that once belonged to our language. And many more will continue to be incorporated as language never stops growing.

However many they may be, they are our “prime materials” and we have to keep learning them in order to be able to use them in our daily lives.
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* “vesre” («revés» en vesre) is to form words backwards: this is a type of word formation that consists of the permutation or metathesis of the syllables of a Spanish word. This stems from the Castilian Spanish spoken in the River Plate area of Argentina and Uruguay and was popularized by the tango scene at the beginning of the twentieth century. A few examples: “mionca” (camión), “ñoba” (baño). ( http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesre)

When looking at the use of the Spanish language in the U.S., the numbers speak for themselves. According to the 2006 Census, the United States now has more than 35 million Spanish speakers, meaning there are more people speaking Spanish in the U.S. than in Venezuela, Chile, or Cuba. In fact, the U.S. currently has the sixth largest Spanish-speaking population in the world. The annual growth rate for the Latino community in the U.S. is approaching 4%, more than triple the overall growth rate, and experts say that by the year 2050, more than 25% of the U.S. population will speak Spanish.

These numbers have caused quite a stir, sparking debates on a “national language,” immigration policy, language in schools, and more. Even Presidential candidate Barack Obama has spoken his mind on the subject, stating “Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English. They’ll learn English. You need to make sure your child can speak Spanish.”

Now, what do you do when millions of people in the same country aren’t speaking the same language? Translate of course. Television, magazines, and other media now provide translated versions to reach a greater audience. Businesses like McDonalds and Coca-Cola spend millions on translating and localizing their marketing efforts to reach U.S. Spanish speaking customers. The intention here is not to provoke debate, but rather to point out that translations and translators, both formal and informal, have become the new liaison in the U.S.