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
Although it seems like Twitter has been with us a lifetime, the Spanish version is only one year old. Thanks to a community of volunteer translators the service began operating in Spanish on November 2, 2009. Gradually, it spread throughout Spanish-speaking users. Twitter managed to grow globally even more after adding thi
There are a number of organizations who are advocates of the importance of language, localization, and global content. As frequent industry contributors, they organize events to promote quality standarization and help strengthen a community that spreads across the globe. Translation Manager, Localization Managers, Transla
The U.S. book publishing industry is a $27 billion a year business and consists of approximately 2600 companies. There are 6 large publishers (all in New York), 3,400 medium-sized publishers and 86,000 small/self-publishers in the U.S. Four of the U.S. conglomerate publishers are foreign owned. Although the publishing indu
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
In a previous post, Justin had mentioned that there are language differences in countries where English is the official language (e.g. in England, the Unites States, Australia and Canada). There are also differences in countries where Spanish is natively spoken, for instance Spain, Latin America, and even Spanish speakers i
People with little to no experience with a foreign language often assume that the process of translating is just replacing word A (source language) with word B (target language). This is how the most primitive machine translations functioned, subsequently butchering even the simplest of sentences: Original I am studying Spa
As translators, we need our memories to operate at a certain level in order to remember vocabulary, rules, collocations, maxims, exceptions to rules, etc. A few things that can help us with our memories comes from a great website known as The Brain Power Pages (where you can also find tips on taking full advantage […
According to recent research from the University of Virginia (reported at BBC online and mentioned by Steve Gillman on The Brain Power Pages), a great deal of our mental abilities can reach their top potential by the age of 22, and begin to deteriorate at the age of 27… Bad news. But all’s not lost. […]
“Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it is not faithful. If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful.” —- Yevgeny Yevtushenko The quote above is from Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, author of Babi Yar and known critic of the Soviet government. While this quotation is undeniably mis
As we’ve talked about in previous posts, while it is possible to drag out the old typewriter and our trusty Simon & Schuster’s and put a translation down on legal paper, we live in the twenty-first century and these days we have: a) a computer, b) a fairly high-speed internet connection, and c) one or [&hell
She is known by many names: Malinalli, Malintzin(Spanish transliterations of her original name– the tzin suffix was added to indicate hierarchy and nobility), “Doña Marina,” or most commonly, La Malinche. Malineli Tenepatl (c.1502 – c.1529), a Mexican girl born into the upper class, was presented to
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 […]
If there is one thing that almost all translators can agree upon, it’s that two of the most things to translate, no matter what the language, are jokes and poetry. Jokes, because they usually have a play on words or phrases with a “double meaning” that are practically impossible to transfer from one langua
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
About a century ago George Bernard Shaw remarked that England and the United States were two countries divided by a common language. The differences in the Spanish spoken in Spain (not to mention in the different regions of Spain itself) and that spoken in Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, etc. can make it seem like everyone is [&
Harry Shaw is credited with saying, “There is no such thing as good writing. There is only good rewriting.” Believe it or not, translation is no different. In a best case scenario, a project will be translated, edited and then proofread by three different qualified translators. Most reputable Spanish translation
I don’t know if it happens in every country, but I feel like in most places people’s speaking and writing is getting worse and worse. And we, the translators, are people too; meaning that, living in this century, in this society, we are no different. We are well aware of the rules, but we don’t […]
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 […
Welcome to the official Spanish Translation US blog. In this blog, you will find tips, advice, and all kinds of information regarding the art, the science, and the wide world of translation, as written by translators, project managers, DTP specialists, localization and globalization experts, and all those involved in this e