Spanglish: To Ser or Not to Be? That is la cuestión!
Somos 5toC

Spanglish has been around for a while and I would contend that perhaps longer than the time when English and Spanish came into contact in the Americas—probably around the time when England, France and Spain held marriages of convenience among their kings, queens, princes and princesses—and does not seem to fade away at all (Johnson: 2006). On a related matter, another phenomenon that becomes apparent in the text below, more the reflection of a conversation than a written treatise, of course, is that of code switching. Many friends and acquaintances in Miami—Cubans, Venezuelans, Colombians, Argentineans, Nicaraguans, Peruvians, Mexicans, Nuyoricans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban Ricans, first and second generation Americans of Hispanic descent (this author's children included), even two Spaniards, were able to hold a solid conversation in either English or Spanish, in addition to which they would do code switching every so often, and very naturally. Are they less smart than their monolingual counterparts? Not at all. If anything, they are quick-minded, possess a large vocabulary and a beautiful pronunciation both in English and in Spanish and are extremelyvivos, lively and witty! And, no less important, the inclusion of terms and adapted structures from one language into another was not an exclusive trait of Hispanics. It was common to observe—and a delight to hear—Anglos and Haitians peppering their speech in English and Creole with terms in Spanish and in Spanglish. (All references in this section are to this author's almost eleven years of vida activa in Miami).

There are, of course, those who, on account of their many years in the US, have started to forget their Spanish—unless their parents and grandparents keep it alive at home and in their community. Those may favor English more in their conversation, salpicado here and there with some Spanish—at times even Haitian Creole—in Miami. There are those that still maintain a good command of Spanish but need English to "echar pa'lante" in society. They still mix both languages but their Spanish influence is more apparent, especially in their choice of English vocabulary and use of its structures. However, everyone, young and old, immigrant and US-born, uses Spanglish to some degree and that, it seems, is not only to assert their personality and individuality, but tosentir el sabor—enjoy the taste of such language variants. The same happens with related jargons or pidgins, or even new creoles (criollos) like the one developing in the Zona Libre de Corozal located between Belize and Mexico (Murrieta, 2002): it is a way people have to caminar por el camino no trillado, feel they share, that they are in the know and, most importantly, that they belong.

In respect to the way English influences Spanish speakers and makes some purists fear that our US Spanish may become impoverished, we should remember that Hispanics in the US constitute practically the only minority that keeps close ties with its original countries, with the exception of Cubans. Such ties include frequent visits, exchange of letters, invitations to relatives to come to the US and, of course, most activities in this respect are conducted in Spanish.

In the US there are several TV channels and probably hundreds of radio stations that broadcast in Spanish around the clock. This author has studied the TV channels and in them appear speakers from Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, etc., most of them with a wonderful, educated speech that becomes ever more attractive because it is neither "neutral" nor too regional. Those TV channels run the gamut of Latin American Spanish through their interviews and news reports with government leaders, educators, poor peasants and laborers, in short, representatives from all levels of education and walks of life in our Hispanic countries. Their soaps, sports, comedies, newscasts, talk shows and other activities greatly contribute to the diffusion of good, normal, typical Spanish! From a historical point of view, it is also important to point out that Spanish already existed in what is today the US long before English made its appearance on this land.In an article written by Cara Anna for the Associated Press on October 5th, 2005 and quoted by Graddol in his paper, it is explained how some immigrants to the USA become multilingual:

"As new immigrants arrive in already diverse neighborhoods, the language they embrace isn't always English. Honduran cooks learn Mandarin, Mexican clerks learn Korean. Most often, people learn Spanish. Language experts say it is a phenomenon that has gone largely unstudied. There are no tidy reports or statistics at hand, but they say the trend could finally help make America a multilingual nation." (Graddol: 118)

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Tips for Translation and Regulatory Compliance in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Industries
Somos 5toC

If you pick up a bottle of one of your prescription medicines you'll see various types of information on it - dosage and frequency of use, storage instructions, side effects, warnings, etc. – often in more than one language. The distribution of drugs and devices across borders has done away with translating packaging and labels as a luxury or value-add and, instead, made it a highly regulated, and more often than not, required process. Based on more than a decade of providing translation services to leading companies in the healthcare and life sciences industries, GLS offers the following tips for translation and regulatory compliance:

1. Do not assume that you can use English-language labels in foreign countries. In the European Union (EU) countries, for example, several directives, including the Clinical Trials Directive, Medical Device Directive (MDD) and In-vitro Diagnostics Directive (IVDD), have specific provisions that make translation of medical labels mandatory into the language or languages of the country in which the products are being tested, distributed, or sold. See the following directives which govern what labeling and instructions for use must accompany your product: Directive 98/79/EC of 27 October 1998 (IVDD) and Directive 93/42/EEC of 14 June 1993 (MDD).

2. If you do not have the expertise within your company, hire an international regulatory consultant and work with a translation firm who has expertise in the specific in-country guidelines. A consultant who is thoroughly familiar with the labeling and packaging regulations in foreign countries can review all regulatory compliance issues and provide expert guidance to your translators as they begin the translation process. For example, drug manufacturers and medical device companies who plan to test or market their products around the world must meet various in-country regulatory requirements. One of such regulatory requirements is proper translation, design, and content of all labeling and instructions for use. Specifically, the European Union has issued several directives regulating the CE mark, which is required prior to distributing medical and in-vitro diagnostic devices in the EU. Pharmaceutical companies looking to distribute in the U.S. must have certification that the foreign-language labeling is complete and accurate.

3. Do not use a canned machine translation program.Errors in translating medical labeling or instructions for use could lead to regulatory and/or product/civil liability. Therefore, it is especially important to work with professional translators who have medical and pharmaceutical translation experience, education, or both. Machine translation is not precise enough to accurately translate the highly technical terminology used in medical labels, and worse, could cause a misinterpretation of the actual meaning altogether.

4. Consider developing medical labels for each geographic region with similar regulatory requirements. More and more pharmaceutical and medical device companies develop region-specific labels or instructions instead of trying to fit all languages into one universal piece. For example, for the countries of NAFTA (United States, Canada, and Mexico), in which FDA-approved drugs can be marketed, the labels would include English, French, and Spanish languages.

5. Assign a point person within your organization for the management of all translation projects. As translation mistakes can delay product approvals and launches, managing translations becomes a critical component of the medical device and pharmaceutical global distribution process. By centralizing the translation process within your organization you will benefit from consistent quality of all translations, faster turnarounds, and reduced translation costs.

There is more to pharmaceutical and medical device packaging and label translation than replacing words with the native language. It is imperative to achieve a translation quality that moves beyond language, cultural, and regional differences, as well as meets all local and international regulatory guidelines.

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Do you really need translation memory programs?
Somos 5toC
When translation memory (TM) software programs were first introduced, they were found to be a valuable aid to translators, since they stored already translated sentences and saved translators the time they would otherwise have taken in typing those repeated sentences out again.

But now translators are suffering from the introduction of TM's, since translation agencies and even end-users require translators to use TM's, but then pay the translator in full only for sentences which are not repeated. Under this system, the translator often has more work to do as a result of using a TM, but gets paid much less for a particular translation than he or she would have been paid before the introduction of TM's. Of course, when referring to TM's, this applies to all the various translation memory programs.

When using a TM, all the advantage seems now to rest with the translation agency or end-user and not with the translator himself or herself.

The most glaring result of this problem is that all translators have been forced to increase their standard price per word over the last few years in order to survive, so for documents which are almost totally non-repetitive (and where a TM is therefore useless), the translation agency or end-user ends up paying much more for its translations than it would have paid before the introduction of TM's. However, that same customer still insists on the translator using a TM for its translation, even though it is obvious to all that the document concerned shows repetition in only a few random single or two-word phrases.

The use of TM's has become an ingrained requirement for most translation agencies and even for some end-users - no account is being taken of the rate of repetition in the translation before imposing the use of a TM.

Recently the TM manufacturers have even had the cheek to start selling courses in their software to translators, who have to pay for those courses in order to become "certificated" in the TM concerned.

Apart from the translation of manuals which use a great deal of repetition (such as workshop manuals, job code manuals, etc.) and certain standardized contracts and legal documents, a statistical analysis of any large company's or large translation agency's translation work over a period of one year would most probably show that the compulsory use of TM's, combined with the resulting increased price per word from freelance translators (who perform by far the major part of translations throughout the world), has finally resulted in the entireoperation costing more to the end-user than it would have cost before the use of TM's became generalized.

When these various translation memory programs (TM's) were first introduced claims were made by the manufacturers that their systems would result in translations being produced more quickly, due to repeated sentences being pre-translated. But now, when the TM system is so frequently imposed on the translator, the TM systems are found to slow up translation, particularly when translators are required to use some of the more complicated TM ancillary systems.

Freelancers are nowadays even being asked occasionally to translate texts that are already formatted in a TM-related system, where proof-reading and spell-checking become something of a nightmare when lengthy texts are involved, as compared to a Word format text.

Increasing evidence is now found of a curious attitude prevalent amongst certain end customers and agencies in which the method of translation (i.e. the use of the TM system) seems almost to have become more important than the translation itself.

Many experienced translators tend to dictate their translations either into a voice recognition system which types the dictation directly on the computer screen or else by emailing dictation to a typist, who types up the work and sends it back by email for proof-reading and correction. Most translators can speak much faster than they can type, so a great deal of time is saved - and time in the translation business means money. An experienced translator, working with a text which falls within his or her set of specialities, can dictate up to 10,000 words per day.

Whilst it is not completely impossible to use a voice recognition program with a TM, much of the time-saving advantage of rapid dictation is lost if one does so because the text is broken down by the translation memory program into disconnected segments or "units" and so translations therefore have to be typed by the translator him or herself, thus taking more time and making less money per hour for the translator - with the result that translators have been forced to increase their prices to cope with having to use the TM.

Translators are often instructed to make strict use of the translation TM that they are sent by the agency or client and thereby inferior or even incorrect translations may be produced. All translations depend on context and it will be found when inspecting almost any large translation memory by using the "concordance" icon that there can be as many as 10 different translations made over the years for the same translation "unit". A further complication factor comes from the use of TM system analysis systems for computing word count and identifying direct and fuzzy matches. These are always source-word based whereas some translators prefer for certain language combinations (German>English for example) to price their work in target words. These analyses are used as a basis for the translator to give discounts on account of what is in effect largely fictitious time-saving. Thus the economies hoped for when TM's were first introduced have had the opposite effect - costs have become higher to the translation agency and the end-user (since translators had to increase their prices in order to live).

So what can be done to avoid this sort of problem? There is one translation agency which is now researching with its in-house translators, with its entire team of freelance translators and with its own customers, the possibility of fixing (and requiring from its freelancers) a reduced price per word for translations where the use of a TM is not needed.

Apart from the case of the highly standardized manuals mentioned above, the language of which is particularly suitable for the use of translation memories, the extension of this policy in future might involve abandoning the use of a TM altogether, since most documents do not contain enough repetition to justify the use of a TM. This would undoubtedly save time for everyone concerned in the translation process - it would make more money per hour for the translator and also save money for translation agencies and end-users.
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Translating for recipe books and menus
Somos 5toC

Translating recipes and menus appears to be a simple task at first sight, but that is only one's first impression. A menu looks like a simple food-list, and cookery books might be considered as a list of recipes with sets of ingredients and simple instructions. How misleading! We have been translating cookery books and menus for many years and we still find this task a challenge.

A dish on a menu has to inform the customer about its content and also sound appetizing. This is not always straightforward and is full of traps. For example, how does one translate certain Greek dishes into English? Octopus is very popular in Greece and many dishes are based on this ingredient. One appetiser prepared with octopus looks like meatballs, but obviously cannot be translated as "octopus balls"! So what does one call them? The choices are limited: fritters, puffs or croquettes. None of these however convey the Greek word “Chtapodokeftedes”. Greekcuisine also has many dishes prepared with aubergine and courgettes, and whereas these two words are perfectly suited for an English cook, they might be unfamiliar to an American, who would prefer eggplant and zucchini. Sometimes, it is preferable to transliterate the Greek word, as in the case of Moussaka or taramasalata, and add an explanatory note, e.g.

Moussaka
Layers of aubergine and minced meat
topped with Béchamel sauce

Finally, certain things have to be changed altogether. Once, we had to translate a recipe for a type of Greek bread whose literal translation is “Peasant Bread”. The equivalent Greek word has no negative connotations, but the English one does. So another way of conveying the countryside character of the bread had to be found in order to avoid jokes of the type “place two peasants in a mixing bowl…”!

Translating food from French into English is no easier. How, for example, would you translate "nuage de pommes de terre"? It sounds perfectly good and appetising in French, but how tasty is a “cloud of potato”? Veal liver with “échalotes aux vieux balsamique” sounds wonderful but I'm not so sure about Veal liver and "shallots with old balsamic vinegar"…the word "old" is not particularly appetising; I would prefer “mature” for instance! And I certainly wouldn't like “thickly cut tuna tummy, pink cooked, covered with a sort of crumble…” (a translation of a mouthwatering French dish) for dinner!

Another challenge for food translators is total ignorance of the object of translation. How many people know what a “homity pie”or “bulgar” [also called bulgur, burghul, bourgouri, pourgouri] is? What do they look like, what do they taste of…? And what does one do with “ayam dan tembu satay”. This problem can sometimes be solved by consulting specialised dictionaries and the Internet but I still haven't discovered what “tembu” is. However, not having actually seen and tasted an ingredient or dish is definitely a handicap. Last but not least, translators who are indifferent to food or dislike anything foreign should avoid food translations.

Translating food is definitely a challenge but publishing English-language foreign recipe books, for instance, is not that much easier. Litterae recently published a book in English entitled “Aubergines”, with recipes from around the world. Before finalising the text for this book, serious decisions had to be made concerning measurements and language; two very important marketing issues.

The requirements for the British market differ significantly from those of the US and Canadian markets. We actually contacted a distributor in the USA to enquire about possibilities of distributing the book in America and, not surprisingly, the distributor commented on the use of the word “aubergine” instead of “eggplant”.

Utensil terminology is another thing one has to be careful about when publishing English language cookery books. The British use frying pans whereas the Americans use skillets. The British use the French expression “au bain-marie” for cooking an item in a container placed in a pan of water while the Americans prefer a “double boiler” [also called double saucepan].

Ingredients can also cause problems. Certain items in exotic recipes are not available in Western Europe and one has to find substitute ingredients either by consulting the author or using one's imagination. An exotic recipe from the Philippines in the “Aubergines” publication, for example, calls for the “heart of a banana flower” and although international
trade has brought many an ingredient to Europe, chances of finding banana flowers are extremely limited…The solution is an alternative ingredient with a similar taste and consistency. In this case, palm hearts or apples do the trick.

As for quantities, that is another story.
The older generation in the UK is used to pounds, ounces, fluid ounces and teaspoons/ tablespoons, while the new generation has gone metric and talks about kilograms and litres. In the US, they prefer cups.

Last but not least, make sure that you do not translate on an empty stomach as it can be real torture…
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Translators' Attitude to Badly Written Texts: Freedom and Limitations
Somos 5toC

It stands to reason that translators should be responsible for and faithful to source texts. Sometimes they face badly written texts containing grammatical mistakes such as wrong choice words, misspelled words and the like. Similarly, some other poor texts are crammed with swearwords, misstated facts or misleading overgeneralizations. In such situations, the translator should interfere to improve these texts by setting right what is wrong because it is his/her ethical and professional duty to convey correct information. However, as translators must be faithful and impartial, they are not permitted, under any circumstances, to alter the content of source texts.

Professional translators should be expert linguists who know quite well the correct grammar of both the source language and the target language. Consequently, when they spot any grammatical mistakes in the source written text which they are about to translate, it becomes their ethical and professional duty to correct these mistakes. If they do not do that, they not only distort the meaning of the source text, but they also jeopardize their career in the long run. For example, if a professional translator is to translate an Arabic text into English, and there happens to be a grammatical mistake in the source text, he/shemust correct it before translating the text. An invented example of this might be the following Arabic sentence dharaba arrajulu alwalada, which corresponds to the English sentence: the man hit the boy. Let us suppose that in the source Arabic sentence, there is a slight grammatical mistake in the diacritical marks or diacritics, and the Arabic sentence reads dharab arrajula alwaladu, which is equivalent in English to the boy hit the man. We notice that the meaning in both English sentences is quite the opposite. Similarly, spelling mistakes or word choice mistakes in English may completely change the meaning of a given sentence. An invented example of this type of mistake might be in the sentence: he took his usual bath, where the word bath is mistakenly used instead of path. By the same token, mistakes in the choice of words which are either synonyms or closely related words should also be spotted and corrected by the translator. Let us consider these advertisements:

Advertisement for donkey rides, Thailand:

Would you like to ride on your ass?

Doctor's office, Rome:

Specialist in women and other diseases.

(Frankie's ESOL Worksheets, Whoops!, (2005) Available: URL:http://www.geocities.com/frankie_meehan/FunnySigns.htm )

If translators overlook such errors in the source text and decide not to correct them, then they choose to part with both their ethics and professionalism.

Moreover, professional translators sometimes feel they are under moral constraints to use a refined language when they translate passages littered with swearwords or vulgar phrases. Of course, the translator realizes that the target audience or readers will be offended by hearing or seeing too many swearwords. Accordingly, he/she should reduce the number of these words into a somewhat presentable string of polished, formal equivalences that give, more or less, the same effect as the source phrases and sentences. For instance, if the translator is translating an Arabic text, and then he/she comes across some sentences full of swearwords, he/she can put these into one short sentence like the following invented sentence: the speaker here uses a lot of cusswords to show extreme anger. This manipulation on the part of the professional translator shows a greater respect for the target audience and culture. Likewise, the translator may annotate his/her translation of a source text if it includes significant dates and events not recognized as such by the target audience. An interesting example of this strategy is a piece of writing in Thinking Arabic Translation(James Dickins et al 2002, 50). The Arabic text talks about an event with dates that are recognized by most Arabs because of its significance. However, to do justice to the target text and audience, a good translator should add some explanation to his/her translation to make the text clearer. The source sentence is "walaqad harabnahu wantasara alayna, thumma harabnahu wantasarna alayhi fi 6 oktobar." (2002) The English equivalence to this sentence is: he fought and defeated us, and we fought and defeated him in 6 October. Before doing any translation, the translator can add some dates to the original text to make it more intelligible for the target audience. Eventually, he/she may say: walaqad harabnahu wantasara alayna fi (1967), thumma harabnahu wantasarna alayhi fi 6 oktobar (1973).

Another situation where the translator has to interfere to improve a badly written text is when the text presents factual errors either because of a lack of knowledge or because of an oversight. In either case, the translator must correct these errors as it is his/her duty to convey facts as they are, or else the target audience will not forget or forgive that. In this respect, Newmark (1981) observes:

When extra linguistic reality is wrong in the source text, the translator must say so. Misstatements must be either corrected or glossed. This responsibility is more important than monitoring the quality of the writing in the source-language text. (1981, 128-129)

Let us suppose that the source text contradicts a proven scientific fact, and the translator is aware of such an error. He/she should first get this error corrected before he/she embarks on his/her task. An invented example of factual errors might be as follows: no one knows for sure what the hardest natural material is, and the translator knows that this overgeneralization is scientifically untrue because diamond proves to be the hardest material. Such errors must be corrected. Another invented example might be the following: before America was discovered, there were no people living there. A good translator should not translate this sentence before questioning its historical validity and thus correcting it, unless he/she lacks both historical and professional knowledge. Whenever translators are unsure of the accuracy of the ideas expressed in a given text, they have to do a lot of research and set right what is wrong in order to convey only accurate information.

Just as there are specific situations where the translator has to amend a badly written text, there are also limits to the translator's intervention as he/she must be faithful and impartial to the original text. In this respect, translators should not aspire to improve the content of any text, omit or add anything when especially they do legal translation. Catriona Picken (1983) suggests:

At the other end of the scale, there are some types of document which require rigid translation of the original, omitting and adding nothing. Legal texts belong to this group and patents. In such cases the translator has the minimum of freedom. (1983, 93)

To conclude, it can be said that translators should correct grammatical mistakes, wrong word choices and other linguistic defects in a badly written source text. They should also polish the translation of texts which include swearwords and take note of any omission of dates or distortion of facts because it is their moral and professional duty to translate correct information. Yet, translators should not change the content of source texts no matter how they feel about it.

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