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 .

In the US, when a transcript contains a translation of conversations spoken in a foreign language, a qualified witness must authenticate and verify the translation. See United States v. Llinas, 603 F.2d 506, 509-10 (5th Cir. 1979).

A party who wishes to challenge the accuracy of a translation is responsible for presenting another translation. The jury may then choose which version to believe. United States v. Rosenthal, 793 F.2d 1214, 1238 (11th Cir. 1986) (citing Llinas, 603 F.2d at 509).

For more information, please visit:

http://www.leagle.com/unsecure/page.htm?shortname=infco20091124124

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.

Will the web ever be internationalized? Yes, the web as we know it will change forever by mid 2010. The net regulator ICANN will be introducing web addresses using non-Latin characters, which will allow the use of domain names written in Asian, Arabic or other scripts. ICANN has said that this will be the “biggest change since (the web) was invented 40 years ago”.

For more information, please read

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8326241.stm

DTP is an acronym used to refer to Desktop Publishing. But what is Desktop Publishing? Its meaning has been redefined since it was first invented over 20 years ago (In 1985, PageMaker was developed for Macintosh computers, the first “desktop publishing” application). Desktop publishing in the 21^st century refers to the way people use specific desktop publishing software as well as the software itself. In a nut shell, desktop publishing can be defined as:

“…the use of the computer and software to create visual displays of ideas and information. Desktop publishing documents may be for desktop or commercial printing or electronic distribution including PDF, slide shows, email newsletters, and the Web.” (about.com)

Desktop publishing is not only about appearance and making documents look prettier; it is also important because it enhances visual communication and helps ensure that your documents clearly streamline the information you are communicating. Some desktop publishing software is best suited to print publishing. Some software is more suited to on-screen or electronic distribution. What are your desktop publishing needs?

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.

Poetry translations are notoriously difficult and force a translator to walk the fine line between accuracy and beauty. In a similar vein, song translations frequently receive a mixed reception.

Case in point: the US National Anthem in Spanish. There have been a number of  “Star Spangled Banner” translations, the most controversial being the hip-hop version “Nuestro Himno,” featuring Wyclef Jean, Pitbull, Carlos Ponce and Olga Tanon. The criticism ranges from the liberties taken with the translation (it is far from literal) to the topic of illegal immigration. Below are the “Nuestro Himno” lyrics and the “Star Spangled Banner”  lyrics for comparison, plus the  “Nuestro Himno” Youtube video.

“Nuestro Himno”

Amanece:­ ¿lo veis a la luz de la aurora

Lo que tanto aclamamos la noche al caer?

Sus estrellas, sus franjas flotaban ayer,

En el fiero combate en señal de victoria.

Fulgor de lucha, al paso de la libertad,

Por la noche decían: «¡Se va defendiendo!»

¡Oh, decid! ¿Despliega aún su hermosura estrellada

Sobre tierra de libres la bandera sagrada?

“The Star Spangled Banner”

O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Here’s the “Nuestro Himno” music video:

Trusted Translations, Inc. has become actively involved in the fight against childhood cancer by supporting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.  Spanish Translation US, a division of Trusted Translations, Inc., is particpating in the efforts to help St. Jude.

St. Jude “Chocolat au Vin” Gala

Trusted Translations, Inc. is proud to support St. Jude with its inaugural “Chocolat au Vin” event featuring Tony Bennett and Honorary Chair, Kristin Davis, to be held in NYC on May 28, 2009.    Trusted Translations’ CEO is the founder and Executive chair of this red carpet event to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.   “The St. Jude Chocolat au Vin Gala, A Deliciously Decadent Evening of Dancing, Desserts and Dreams” is the first of a series of events expected to raise millions over the next several years. 

For more information on the event, please visit:

http://translation-blog.trustedtranslations.com/translations-support-st-jude-2009-05-22.html

Translation for St. Jude Initiative

In conjunction with this event, Trusted Translations will launch the “Translation for St. Jude” initiative.  This nationwide initiative will entail Trusted Translations, Inc. donating 5% of all proceeds from new translations projects from participating organizations. 

To learn more about this initiative, please visit:

http://www.trustedtranslations.com/translation-for-st-jude.asp  

Twitter, tweet and tweak your heart out globally now with a number of new products and services. If you have not yet heard, Twitter is a micro-blogging service that allows people to stay connected, and according to the New York Times, Twitter is “one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet.” Friends keep in touch with friends, companies keep their clients up to date on their business, and there is even a President Barack Obama Twitter, which, along with a Youtube channel and MySpace page, is part of the “WhiteHouse 2.0″ initiative (this will also coincidentally be translated soon). So evidently it’s huge in the U.S. But what if you want to twitter in Spanish? Or twitter in French?

As with any translated material, you can translate Twitter into any language with a human translation or a machine translation. Businesses that plan their twitter announcements in advance can send out to have a set of tweets translated for their multilingual markets. There are also of course programs that function as an automatic Twitter translator, but with an already condensed text space and a language of its own, this inevitably leads to garbled translations. Machine translations of tweets have proven to be nearly incomprehensible and much of the “wit” disappears into thin air.

So regardless of whether you want to twittear in Spanish or send out a gazouillisin French, human translation is your best bet for a Twitter translator. And to keep up to speed on the happenings at Spanish Translation, you can now follow us at http://twitter.com/TRANSLATION_

This little box here is the prototype for what Fuji Xerox claims will revolutionize the translation industry. How does it work? You put a document written in one language into it and the translated version pops out in the EXACT SAME FORMAT.

Currently, the machine only “reads” Japanese, but can translate into English, Chinese and Korean. Fuji Xerox has promised that more languages will be available shortly.

As for the quality of the translations, this remains unseen. The company is being very secretive about the translation technology employed, and more details have emerged on how the formatting is done than on how the content is translated. Too good to be true? Yep.

Fiction and folklore throughout the world generally has at least one story of a child living among and being raised by animals. The parents may be monkeys, dogs, and entire jungle family, etc., but the tale usually goes one of two ways. The child is brought up with a certain kind of “savage smarts” and uses these tricks when integrating into society, or the child becomes a dangerous and hideous monster. Real life examples of feral children, children isolated from human contact for extended periods of time, have shown that neither of these two scenarios are accurate.

Real life examples of children either abandoned, locked away by their parents, or even stolen by animals are most certainly tragic and heartbreaking, but linguists have found a silver lining to these cases while studying the childrens’ language capabilities at the time of their return to society and monitoring their process as they learn spoken language.

Attempts to teach feral children either spoken or sign language have met with very limited success. A number of children have returned from the wild mimicking animal sounds and behaviors and show no interest in human language. Others have learned an extremely limited vocabulary (< 30 words) and what could be generously referred to as the building blocks of grammar.

There are an infinite number of variables to take into account (age at which they were separated from human contact, time spent without speaking, mental stimulation while separated, etc.), but over the years some general hypotheses have been formed in regards to language acquisition and specifically, what is known as the critical period.

The critical period hypothesis basically states that humans have a “window of opportunity” to learn their first language. If that period passes without exposure to language, practice, etc., then the opportunity is lost forever. The term refers to the period of the brain’s physical formation more so than the amount of social interaction at that age. There is no definitive conclusion on this debate, as real life examples from feral children have provided evidence for both camps.

Pictured above is Genie, a young girl who was denied social exposure for the first thirteen years of her life. Her father kept her strapped to a chair nearly twenty-four hours a day.

Several colleagues who spend day after day, week after week toiling as editors- that is, correcting translations day after day, week after week– and I have gotten together and after much discussion, we have set down this list of guidelines and suggestions that we feel will be very useful for translators, especially the newer ones… or maybe not.

1. Dictionaries don’t bite. Especially ones online. Do us and do yourself a favor and use them. If you’re not sure of a word’s meaning, look it up! If you are sure, double-check it!

2. Follow the instructions. If the client (or whoever gave you the job) tells you to use certain words or a style that you don’t particularly like, do it anyway! The client is always right. And the boss… (That goes without saying)

3. We are sorry to report that the translator cannot choose the project’s topic, type of file, inclusion or deletion of tables, images, etc., so translate what’s in front of you, don’t turn in the project that you wish you had been given. If there are tables, translate them. If there are images, include them. And if they have text… (Figure it out?) Translate it!

4. There are expressions that you love. Understandable, we all do. It’s like your worn out jeans that fit just right and we keep using despite the holes and the fact that they’re falling apart… Well, when you are writing your autobiography, use these expressions as much as you like. But while you’re translating, please use the correct expression, and try not to use your favorites ad nauseam. (There are times when something is just “about,” not “regarding,” not “concerning,” etc.)

5. There are some writers who are “ugly” editors, we know. Sometimes the source text even comes with errors. The translator’s task is not to improve on the original, but rather to provide a good translation. Seems obvious, but not everyone gets it. Just to make sure we’re clear: what you should do is TRANSLATE, not make the source text prettier in its new language…

6. To err is human and to edit some errors is not divine. Please, reread what you write: make sure it doesn’t say the opposite of what the author said. Make sure commas are where they should be, if one is missing, if an s got skimmed over, if a preposition got left out, if the verb is in the wrong tense… Ah! For those who haven’t yet heard, Word has a little tool called “spell check.” Use it! Although it doesn’t work miracles, it always helps.

7. To wrap things up, a small piece of advice. We know that it’s hard to do this while simultaneously doing all the other things that have to be done while working: checking email, chatting, texting, talking on the phone, keeping an eye on the TV (don’t deny it…). But please, pay attention to what you’re reading (and translating).

8. And last but not least: THINK. Use that wonderful thing known as a brain. And when all else fails (dictionaries, forums, glossaries, more clear-headed colleagues..) and you feel that there’s nothing you can do, that you’re on the edge of a breakdown, that you can’t go on another minute, please, for your sake and ours: QUIT! Quit using the computer, quit translating, QUIT!

Well, quit working for a while: go outside, have some tea, clear your mind and come back later.  And although this advice is valid, please don’t take the comments too seriously…

No matter how beautiful your translation, there are certain errors, most often made by someone just starting out in the trade, that will peg your work as “rookie level.” Most of us are guilty of one or more of these seemingly innocent, yet disastrous mistakes. This article will hopefully point out a few of these

Literal translations– This is something that people just learning the source language are more prone to, but even the most seasoned translators can be guilty of this. One sample translation of a comic strip that I saw translated the English greeting “What’s up” as “¿Qué está arriba?” Don’t do this.

Changing the format– Don’t change the font color, don’t combine paragraphs and try to make your tables and images as similar to the originals as possible.

Accepting a job you are not prepared for– It can be tempting to take any project that crosses your path when you are just starting out in the translation field and hungry for work, but when the client complains that all the legal, medical or engineering terms are wrong, you’ll see why this is not a good idea.

In 2004, a translation company surveyed linguists from all over the world to find out what the hardest words to translate. They took every language into account. The winner was ilunga (from a language spoken in the southeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo: tshiluba o luba-kasai), and means ” a person capable of forgiving an offense or wrongdoing once, tolerating it a second time, but never a third.”  Another word from this top ten list was radioukacz (Polish), which is used to refer to a “person who works as a telegraph operator for the resistance on the Soviet side of the iron curtain.” According to the Guinness Book of Records, the hardest word to translate would be: mamihlapinatapai, from the Yaghan language from Tierra del Fuego, which means something like: “a look shared by two people who are each waiting for the other to start doing something that they both want, but that neither takes the initiative to begin.”
Some languages, such as Aztec, have just a single word for “ice,” “cold” and snow, while it is widely known that the Eskimos have many different words for “snow,” depending on whether it’s “falling snow,” “snow on the ground,” “hardened snow,” “melted snow,” “wind-swept snow,” etc. Words are used to give a name to things that we are familiar with. This is why there are multiple ways to name something in one language and zero ways in another. The picturesque season when the leaves change in Finland (as opposed to so much white the rest of the year) is called ruska, which has a translation in very few languages.
Apart from these linguistic curiosities, another post here mentioned a few things that are hard to translate (poetry and jokes, for example). I’d like to talk a little about some particular words found in our daily work that should not be translated.
What do we come across in our everyday translations that should not be translated?
•    People’s names: although we know that “María” is “Mary,” “Pedro” is “Peter,” etc., we should leave the name as it appears in the original (or we may refer to a certain ex-president as Jorge Arbusto…);
•    names of organizations that are recognized across the world by their original name (“USA Today,” “al-Qaeda,” “New York Giants,” etc.);
•    trademarks and brand names, even if the words could be translated (“Dunkin Donuts,” “Goodyear”): some do have a different version in other languages (“Coke” = “Coca-Cola,” “Disneyland” = “Disneylandia”)’
•    Anglicisms or other standardized foreign words: (”jeans,” “blog,” “bluetooth,” “amateur,” “mousse”);
•    names of private companies, even if they are translatable (“United Airlines”): sometimes this is not an easy decision and you will need to consult the client about his or her preference (”International Sales Company” could be “la empresa de ventas International,” or “empresa International Sales,” or something else entirely);
•    a show with an internationally recognized commercial name: “Bodies, the exhibition,” “Cirque du Soleil”;
•    bibliography.

These “untranslatables” could be included in the exclusion list, like in the TagEditor QA Checker (a tool for checking a text but excluding certain words or phrases that “should stay as they are”).

The objective of any company making a product or providing a service is of course selling that product or service. To do so, companies hire creative marketing specialists, sociologists and publicists; they perform tests, studies, statistical analyses, advertising campaigns and so on.

An astronomical sum of money invested in all of this…  but why don’t they spend a few bucks on making sure that they are getting a quality translation when they are planning to sell abroad?  Although it may seem like a small detail, why not consult an expert when planning to advertise your product in different languages?

In a similar vein, what about the government officials who decide on the designs for bilingual signs for tourists? Why don’t they consult a translator? It is a small investment that can pay off huge dividends in the long term. Lucky for us, “smart” companies get it.

There are a number of web sites that have compiled some funny examples of these bad translations.  But surely some of these mistranslations, while still funny, are counter productive for the companies (hotels, restaurants or countries), as they negatively affect their image, thereby leading to fewer sales. Here are just a few examples.
How many instruction manuals have we seen that are translation nightmares? This bubble blowing pistol had a note, translated from Japanese to English, that said, “WHILE SOLUTION IS NOT TOXIC IT WILL NOT MAKE CHILD EDIBLE.”
It seems to me that couples visiting Tokyo will pick other hotels over this one, whose rules state: “GUESTS ARE REQUESTED NOT TO SMOKE OR DO OTHER DISGUSTING BEHAVIORS IN BED.”
A doctor in Rome must have noticed his dwindling number of female clients after hanging this sign: “SPECIALIST IN WOMEN AND OTHER DISEASES”
When General Motors introduced its Chevy Nova into South American markets, they didn’t realize what “no va”meant (doesn’t go). When they finally realized why they weren’t selling any Novas, they renamed it the Caribe for the Hispanic market.
When advertising a new ball point pen in Mexico, Parker’s ads should have said, “No goteará en su bolsillo y no lo avergonzará” (Won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you). But as the company thought that the Spanish word for embarrass was “embarazar,” they said, “No goteará en su bolsillo y no lo embarazará” (Won’t leak in your pocket and impregnate you).
This last example was seen by a colleague, in the city of Buenos Aires. A large wine dealer on an important corner in town had a sign in Spanish on one of the streets and one in English on the other. In Spanish it read, “VINOS AÑEJOS – VINOS NUEVOS” and in English: “OLD WINES – ACTUAL WINES” They probably didn’t understand why customers were suspicious of their “vinos añejos”…

Trusted Translations, the leading producer of Spanish translation services in the U.S., has set the goal of reducing paper consumption by 90% in the next two years. Using the Environmental Working Group’s Ten Elements for Improving Environmental Performance and Compliance, Trusted Translations will implement policies to optimize and maximize the use of electronic means of internal and external communications by employing highly developed content management tools and secure high speed electronic delivery systems.

It is hoped that such policies will improve the corporate culture of Trusted Translations, as well as that of other companies in the industry. Also, by collaborating with NGOs, Trusted Translations aims to help raise environmental awareness amongst the Hispanic population.

Myth 1: Anyone bilingual person can be a good translator.

This is probably the most common misconception. It is indeed necessary to know more than one language to be a translator, but to be a good translator, the most important requirement is being a good writer. A professional translator needs a mastery of words, plus control over different writing styles and registers that he or she can employ for different types of projects, such as legal, medical, fiction, financial, etc.

Myth 2: You need a degree in translating or a foreign language  to be a professional translator.
This is not necessary to be able to work for the vast majority of translation agencies, and even less so for freelance work. In fact, translators often come from different fields, such as engineering, medicine or law, and then use their background knowledge to specialize in that type of translation.

Myth 3: Computer programs are better translators than humans.
Computers are great tools for translators, with their online glossaries, CAT tools, etc., but machine translations have a long way to go before they can produce something comparable in quality to a translation done by a professional translator. Check out the video below for a few examples of these funny translation mistakes.

Cheap and fast are the first two words that go through most people’s minds when they start looking for a translation agency. But when they read over the first translation that they had done based solely on those two criteria, they’ll probably rethink the whole idea and realize that “quality” was actually what they were looking for. This is a little guide on how to avoid these situations when selecting who is going to do your English or Spanish translation.

Quality translations can be cheap and they can have good turnaround times, no doubt about it. The trick is finding these translation companies. There are essentially two key factors that will give you a top-notch translation: the skills of the translators and the translation process used at the company.

Try and find out how the company chooses its translation team and see if they have native English and Spanish speakers on staff. See if they have specialists in the medical, legal, engineering or whatever field you need. A lot of translation projects are doomed before they get started because an uncle’s friend is “fluent” and is asked to take the job instead of a professional translation agency.

A good translation is not a one-step process. Ideally, you will have native speakers translating, editing and proofreading your document or project. Read over the company’s process and see how they do things. If the company hasn’t listed this information on it’s company website, move on to the next.

There’s no getting around the price. It is extremely important. And the best translation companies do offer low price translations because they know what they’re doing and have the best translators following a quality translation process. So do a little homework on the English and Spanish translation company and you will see the results pay off ten-fold.

Personally, one of the things about translating that gets under my skin is having to check over it once I’m done. I hate it. But after a few jobs where I wanted to bang my head against the wall because I hadn’t gone back over it and spotted my stupid mistake (but of course someone else did, and was kind enough to point it out to me)…..Well, let’s just say that I accepted that reviewing translations is a must and cannot be avoided. And it may seem unnecessary if our translation is going to be revised by an editor, but isn’t it better for us to correct our errors before they do?

My solution? I always try to leave at least a couple of minutes before delivery time for going back over it. 10 or 15 minutes is plenty. The first three or four minutes are to relax: I finished the job. I’m no longer looking for words, I’m not after that exact phrase. I’m done translating. I go to the kitchen for some juice, maybe eat an apple, or step out on the balcony for some fresh air. And then I come back to face the final step.

I run spell check (for Word documents, which are the most common for me), which is necessary and helpful. But you have to remember that it’s not perfect: spell check doesn’t know when “sí” needs an accent and when it doesn’t, when you want to say “tale” or “tall” or when you’ve mistakenly written “his high-heels.” You have to reread the text, there’s no way around it. Sit down and read it closely and carefully. The little break between translating and reviewing helps you distance yourself from it a bit, making it seem “newer.” Being so into the text causes our eyes to play tricks on us, leading us to believe that we had written evrey word perfectly…

Maybe one of the higher ups forgot that the handbook has to be in Spanish as well as English. Maybe part of the PowerPoint presentation is missing and needs to be translated into English for tomorrow’s meeting. Whatever the case, if you’re the client, you need it now. And if you’re the translator, you need to do it now. Here are a few tips on what both sides (client & translator) can do to make a situation known for causing nervous breakdowns go as smoothly as possible.

For the Client: Make sure that the translator or translation company has all the information they need, plus anything else you can provide (glossary, translation memory, translation style guide, etc.) so that there are no hold ups once the ball gets rolling. Answer any questions coming from the other side as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. And above all, remember that a quality translation takes time and hard work. Miracles can happen, but impossible demands will not get them.

For the Translator: Take a deep breath. Get all of your materials together, make sure you’re clear on the exact specifications of the project, and then get to work. Here’s the trick though: take a lot of short breaks. I know it seems impossible, but force yourself to do it. Rush projects typically result in low quality not because of the time crunch per se, but because a translator spends 8 consecutive hours translating and errors get made, the translator zones out, and the translation itself becomes more and more literal. So take 5 minutes and take a walk or eat an apple. Whatever you need to stay fresh. And follow the golden rule of course, save early and save often!