It is fair to say that Spanish translation is the U.S. is divided equally between the domestic and international market. These markets each have their own idiosyncrasies that represent only one aspect of the language problem in the United States.

U.S. based translations face a very different situation from that experienced by markets in other Spanish speaking countries. On the one hand is the domestic market, where the target audience is highly heterogeneous, submerged in bilingual media and at times with low educational level. This is a population that innocently uses Spanglish. On the other hand is the international one, in which translations can be aimed at any of the 22 countries of the Hispanic world, or to all countries equally.

The U.S. market makes the translation process more difficult for the translator and the translation company. Typically, translations into Spanish need to have very specific guidelines or the translation can be plagued with differences. Translators from different backgrounds tend to use different terms and forms of expression. Reason why it is so important to keep in mind that Spanish speakers often react strongly to the use of words that are not common in their countries. Of course all this has a solution: if translators work with a glossary and a style manual, customers will ultimately receive a satisfactory translation.

However, the Spanish language is basically the same for all countries. The most noticeable differences between the various forms of expression in Spanish are at the level of speech. The lower the educational level of the speaker, the more pronounced is the difference of expression. But no matter what dialect is used, if it is written in good basic Spanish, any Spanish speaker will understand it.

Having said that, it is important to recognize the idiosyncrasies of the market. For example, when translating for a U.S. audience, numerals should be the same as in English. That is, one dollar and fifty cents is written one point fifty and not one comma fifty. The reason for this is obvious: U.S. Spanish speakers live in a world that expresses decimal points with a period and not a comma as in their countries of origin. Changing it would be extremely confusing and may even cause lawsuits. Moreover, some Latin American countries are increasingly adopting the decimal separator. For example: Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Puerto Rico.

Spanglish

The most troubling aspect of the U.S. market is Spanglish. In short, it is the use of English words and, in many cases, combined with an English syntax. Requests to translate in Spanglish already exist in the market. This is obviously for marketing purposes to reach to a potential buyer and sell a product. However, Spanglish is not a dialect and its use should not be encouraged. Promoting Spanglish can have unpredictable consequences for the evolution, or rather the involution of Spanish or Hispanic heritage in the United States.

English is invading Spanish! This is of course something of a two-way street, but it is hard to find a Spanish-speaking country whose dialect is not now infused with Anglicisms, loan words and outright bastardizations.

This happens with all languages, but the number of English words sprinkled into daily Spanish can truly be astounding when one listens for it.  This varies from country to country, between educational levels, income brackets, etc., but the intrusion can be witnessed almost everywhere.

Restaurants in Spanish-speaking countries, whether catering to foreign customers, trying to show some kind of foreign flair or just following what’s now commonplace, will advertise their bar, sandwiches, cheese cake and happy hours, despite the fact that all of these have their RAE certified Spanish equivalents. Hotels will also let you know check-in and check-out times, where the gym & spa are in the fitness center and how to connect to their wi-fi.
It’s not uncommon to hear “te mandé un mail: tuve que ir al cyber, porque mi pc no funciona” or “please, ¿me das un clip?”