I recently read an article about the new national certification given to medical interpreters of Spanish in the United States. I think this is actually quite important, especially for the people who are receiving medical services. Unfortunately, these people have a very low level of education.
In addition, they are looking to include languages besides Spanish [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Spanish’
Specialized Translation Agencies
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009Language Map of Europe
Friday, October 23rd, 2009The map of Europe posted above is an excellent example of why localization is so important. Translators and companies who are looking for translations should not use this as a hard-and-fast, exact representation of where the dividing lines are drawn for the languages of Europe. Instead, take a moment to consider what it is really [...]
Machismo in Spanish Writing?
Friday, September 25th, 2009I frequently notice in translations from English into Spanish that the translator attempts to make explicit an author’s reference to both sexes with the following type of construction:
Todos los/as niños/as deberán entregar esta documentación.
The idea is that in this way, “las niñas” (the girls) aren’t left out of the picture. However, according to the rules [...]
Triphthongs in Spanish
Monday, September 21st, 2009A triphthong is a sequence of three vowels making up one syllable. Some examples in Spanish would be: a – pre – ciáis, co – piéis, buey. For a triphthong to exist, two closed atonic vowels (“i” or “u”) and, between them, an open vowel (“a”, “e”, or “o”): anunciáis, guau, miau, confiéis.
Sequences of closed [...]
Pronouncing “c” and “z” in Spanish
Friday, September 11th, 2009“Seseo” consists of pronouncing the letters “c” (before “e” and “i”) and “z” with the sound normally associated with the letter “s”. If someone speaks with seseo, they would say “serésa” for “cereza” (cherry), “sierto” for “cierto” (true), and “sapáto” for “zapato” (shoe).
Seseo is used generally throughout Latin America and in the Caray Islands and [...]
Writing Years in Spanish
Friday, September 4th, 2009Continuing on the topic of writing dates in Spanish correctly, regarding the use of the article “el” (which includes the contraction “del“) before the expression of years, these are the proper protocols:
a) For years between 1 and 1100, it is common to use the article, at least in spoken Spanish: Los árabes invadieron la Península [...]
Use of Prepositions to Write Dates in Spanish
Friday, August 28th, 2009When writing dates in Spanish, you will use the prepositions “a“, “en” and “de“.
The preposition “a” is put before the day, both when talking about the day of the week and of the month, when it introduces a complement to the verb “estar“: Estamos A lunes (in answer to the question ¿A qué (día) estamos?–What [...]
Language, History, and Politics
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009When is a language really a language, and not just a set of dialects? That is a difficult question to answer, and the Spanish language is a perfect case in point. Though most people in non-Spanish speaking cultures are unaware of it, this Romance language has historically been plagued by infighting and antagonisms which arose [...]
Expressing Dates in Spanish
Friday, August 14th, 2009As established in the Real Academia Española, Spanish-speaking countries use, generally, the ascending order when they write out dates, i.e. day, month, year, with no commas separating any information: 31 de diciembre de 1992. Between the day and the month, as well as between the month and the year, the preposition “de” is used. For [...]
Uses of the Word Senior in Spanish
Friday, August 7th, 2009I was thumbing through the dictionary of the Spanish Academy (RAE) the other day and I thought it would be useful to share the official accepted uses of the word “sénior” in Spanish.
The word itself comes from the Latin word “senior”, which is a comparative adjective meaning older and its use in Spanish has recently [...]
Demonstratives in English and Spanish
Friday, July 17th, 2009Demonstratives are used to point to another element that they depend on to achieve their full meaning. If they point backwards, it is known as an anaphoric reference; those that point forward are making a cataphoric reference.
In English, we work with two degrees of proximity (“this”, “that”), while Spanish offers three (“este”, “ese”, “aquel”).
Demonstrative adjectives, [...]
The Use of the Period in English and Spanish
Friday, July 3rd, 2009The period (full stop) is the punctuation mark that marks the grammatical and logical end of a sentence.
The main difference comes from its greatest use in English. In Spanish, the period generally signals a pause or separation; the relationship is generally expressed with the comma and the semicolon.
English uses the period before conjunctions, adverbs, or [...]
Two Different Internal Logics
Friday, June 19th, 2009In English, we use concision (many short words or phrases) as well as an economy of language (fewer words), the preference we demonstrate for the impersonal vision of reality (objectivity), our calls to evoke feelings (appeal to the senses, images), the abstract analysis and the lack of naming of the agent of an action (passive [...]
The Use of the Dash in English and Spanish
Friday, June 12th, 2009This punctuation mark is, in Spanish, the equivalent to parentheses, though it does have one function that differs: marking off asides that are suggestive, ironic, or emotional, and the effect is stylistic. It must always be placed at the end of the aside, even when it is the end of the sentence.
In English, a single [...]
Parataxis, Ellipsis, and Litotes in English and Spanish
Friday, May 15th, 2009In English, I feel that I encounter parataxis more often than in the Romance languages (though I have no good evidence to back this up). Parataxis is putting together sentences without any coordinating conjunctions to spice up a text, make it move quicker, and not repeat the same conjunctions over and over. I find that [...]
The Use of Quotation Marks
Friday, May 8th, 2009The principal function of quotation marks is to mark quotes and dialogues. In Spanish, there are two formulas for dialogues: dashes and quotation marks. The latter are used when dialogues are incorporated in the paragraph or within a dialogue that is marked off by quotation marks. Quotation marks are also used with memories and thoughts.
When [...]
The Extension of the Period and Links Between Sentences
Thursday, April 30th, 2009The custom in English today of having expository clarity give precedence to short sentences that are separated by periods, whereas in Spanish the are considered as subordinate elements within a main sentence.
The greatest extension of the period in English in relation to Spanish is seen in the capacity of English to construct a series of [...]
The Use of the Article in English and Spanish
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009In English, unlike Spanish, uses the indefinite article before the generic predicate. The article plays its essential role, which is to singularize an object among the class designated by the noun, which is a possibility that does not exist in English, since it uses the article in both cases. The individualization becomes apparent, and in [...]
Commas in English and Spanish
Monday, April 20th, 2009In English, we generally use a comma in front of the conjunctions “and” and “or”. The structures in English allow for us to skip the comma when working with other conjunctions. In certain sentences, the pause indicated by the comma will not be enough and a semi-colon must be used instead.
Subordinate adverbial clauses between two [...]
