Translating from one language to another requires extensive knowledge of both grammar and culture. Professional translators must know the rules of a language as well as the habits of the people who speak it. However, every language pair presents its own unique difficulties and can create confusion and frustration even for the most experienced linguist.
English-to-Spanish is one of the most translated language pairs in the world, mainly due to the business opportunities in Spanish-speaking countries, but also within the Spanish population living in the United States of America.
In the following article, we are going to point out the differences between the languages and the common challenges faced by English-to-Spanish translators.
Different origins
Both languages belong to the Indo-European family, but while English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects, Spanish is a Western Romance language that derives from Latin.
English has been influenced mainly by Scandinavians who conquered Britain during the 8th and 9th centuries and then by the Normans, who spoke a Romance language called Old Norman. It came to be exported to other parts of the world through British colonization, and later on, with the rise of the United States, it took the status of a global lingua franca. Today, 1 out of 6 people in the world speak English, and it is the official language of 54 countries.
Spanish developed in the north-center of the Iberian Peninsula and during the 16th century, when Spain became the world’s first global superpower, it spread across the Philippines and Latin America. Nowadays, it is the second most spoken language in the world, with almost 500 million speakers (second to Mandarin Chinese).
Grammar
Despite using the same sentence structure — subject-verb-object — Spanish grammar rules are often softer and feature more syntactic freedom than English. In English, it is often more common to use shorter and more concise sentences, while in Spanish they tend to be longer and usually subordinated. However, the syntax is just the tip of the iceberg. Differences between the languages can also be found in vocabulary, verbs, punctuation marks, and so on.
Grammatical gender in Spanish
The fact that inanimate objects (nouns) have a lexical gender in Spanish does not mean that things like chairs and tables are physically feminine or masculine. They have genders in a grammatical sense and must be used with articles and adjectives that match their gender.
English, instead, doesn’t differentiate objects by gender, so translators need to be especially careful and fluent in Spanish in order to avoid confusion in this matter.
It’s essential to pay attention to gender agreement when translating full sentences or phrases from English to Spanish, where gendered nouns interact with other elements in the sentence, such as articles, adjectives, and pronouns.
Example
- English: “The red houses.”
- Correct Spanish: “Las casas rojas.”
“Las” is the feminine plural article equivalent to “the” in English.
“Rojas” is the feminine plural form of the adjective “red”.
Ambiguity in pronouns
Ambiguity in pronouns can arise when translating from English to Spanish due to differences in gender and number agreement, as well as the use of subject pronouns. English pronouns like “it” and “they” can be ambiguous without context, but in Spanish, the gender and number of the pronoun must often match the noun they refer to.
English: “They are coming.”
Ambiguity: In English, “they” can refer to a group of people (masculine or mixed gender) or objects.
Spanish: “Vienen.”
Solution: Since Spanish verbs can indicate the subject’s gender and number, the pronoun “they” (referring to people) would be translated as “ellos” if the group is all-male or mixed-gender and “ellas” if the group is all-female.
- All-male or mixed-gender group: “Ellos vienen.”
- All-female group: “Ellas vienen.”
When translating, context plays a vital role in disambiguating pronouns to ensure accurate and clear communication in the target language.
Language nuances
English is the most spoken language worldwide, but there isn’t just one universal version of English. Each country has its own variety: there is British English, American English, Australian English, Canadian English, Irish English, New Zealand English, and so on. Each of these versions has its own cultural traits, which means they have different linguistic expressions to refer to the same things and even different meanings for the same words. For instance, Brits call the front of a car the bonnet, while Americans call it the hood. Learning to speak both the language and the culture takes practice, and translators should be fully aware of the English version they are working with.
And the same goes for Spanish. There are differences between the Spanish spoken in Spain and Latin America, but there are also differences between the types of Spanish spoken in different countries of Latin America, and in different regions of Spain as well.
Example
A pen is ‘bolígrafo’ in Spain but ‘lápiz pasta’ in Chile, ‘lapicera’ in Argentina, and so on.
False cognates
False cognates, also known as “false friends,” are words that seem to be related or similar in both languages but have different meanings. These similarities can often lead translators to mistakenly assume that a word in one language corresponds directly to a similar-looking word in the other language. However, false cognates are not always related linguistically, and their meanings can be quite different.
False cognates between English and Spanish can arise due to various factors, including historical language influences, borrowing from other languages, or coincidental resemblances. These linguistic similarities can be both in spelling and pronunciation.
Example
English: “Assist” – Incorrect Spanish: “Asistir”
Correct Spanish: “Ayudar” (“asistir” means ‘to attend’ or ‘to be present’ in Spanish)
English: “Realize” – Incorrect Spanish: “Realizar”
Correct Spanish: “Darse cuenta de, percatarse” (“realizar” means ‘to carry out’ or ‘to accomplish’ in Spanish)
Different levels of formality
While English often has a more casual tone in conversation, Spanish has distinct ways of addressing others based on the relationship between the speaker and the listener, the level of respect, and the social context.
The two main levels of formality in Spanish
The two main levels of formality in Spanish are the “tú” (informal) and “usted” (formal) forms of address.
Pro tip
Formality in Spanish can vary depending on the content type and the context in which it is used. Different content types may require different levels of formality based on the target audience, purpose, and cultural norms.
- Formal business (newsletters, privacy policies, emails)
- Academic or educational content (e-learning content, training materials)
- Marketing content (ads, website pages, social media)
Using context to resolve ambiguities
Let’s take for instance the word squash:
- It refers to a family of vegetables. In Spanish, it would be translated as calabacín.
- Squash is also a sport played with rackets and a ball. In Spanish, it would be translated as squash.
To compress or destroy it with pressure. In Spanish, we say aplastar.
So how can translators know which translation they need to use? Words in a document are not present in isolation, but interact with other words and with the whole text at large. This interaction among words determines their meaning rather than their isolated meaning. Therefore, the key to solving this issue is to provide the translator with a linguistic context, which requires making clear the entire setting in which that word is stated.
Pro tip
Translating without proper linguistic context will frustrate even the most experienced translator, and lead to potential errors in the final document.
Spanish is wordier than English
Expansion and contraction are two common concepts in translation and refer to the phenomenon in which a document gets longer or shorter after being translated into a different language. On average, a document in Spanish is 20 – 30% longer than its equivalent in English, mainly because expressing ideas in Spanish requires more words. This means a 3000-word book in English will typically be 3500 or 4000 words in Spanish.
Pro tip
Allow for word expansion: Anticipate that the text may expand, and the final Spanish version may require more words to retain the original meaning.
Adapt sentence structure: Restructure sentences when necessary to ensure that the translated text flows naturally in Spanish, even if it means adding or rearranging words.
Be concise: While Spanish might be wordier, strive for clear and concise translations without losing the essence of the original message.
