Spanish and Italian: distant cousins

Good morning.

Three weeks ago I was in Italy, in the city of Pordenone, in a Open Design conference. There was a lot of talks about free software applications in different areas (specially in engineering and architecture), and most of the talk were given in Italian.

People might think that Spanish and Italian are similar languages, and that it's true. However isn't so simple to understand Italian just being Spanish and without having some notions of the language. During the talks I could understand some words that were exactly the same in Spanish, but I was unable to follow the talks because I couldn't understand most of the things they said just listening. Some speakers projected a presentation with text and that way I could understand easily the content of their talks. 

I have never studied Italian, but my conclusion is that, by the similarities with Spanish, reading Italian is easier to understand than listening. During the day I spoke with people in English, and, surprisingly, also in Spanish, because some people there spoke it very well. 

It wasn't difficult to orient myself in Italy, following signs and posters, because words are similiar to my language. But it is clear that, without knowing at least English, it's difficult to travel around the world. Maybe you can find someone who speaks your language (in my case Spanish), but in restaurants, shops or hotels don't usually speak my language. English gets you out of a trouble.

How to solve a translation problem: Futurama

If you have followed me during the last months, you'll know that, apart from translation, I like also sci-fi in films, series or books. Futurama is a sci-fi animation serie, which is set in the year 3000. My post of today is related precisely with the translation of this serie.

The original language is English and in the chapter about I'm going to talk, Professor Farnsworth has invented an universal translator that only translates into a dead language. In the original version in English, and as in Spanish version, the “dead language” is French

English

Spanish

However, if we watch the chapter in French, it is not possible that this language, into which the machine translates, was French too. That's why, the translators of the serie had to choose another “dead language”: German.

That is another curious translation case, because a serie that it is translated into different languages, and, as in this chapter, it plays also with them, translators face to this type of problems. In this case, it has been solved in a correct form. Maybe there are people who think that this solution is very far of the original, but in some cases, and this is a very good example, translation doesn't go together with the source text, because it won't have any sense. In addition, the context and the idea of the machine keep intact, as well as the touch of humor talking precisely about one of the most spoken languages nowadays.  

My new project: Robles Traducciones

Hello!

Today I'm happy to tell you about my new translation project "Robles Traducciones". I have created a new account on Google+ in order to offer my services as a translator.

In this blog, I have told you about different types of translation, software for translators, proofreaders and editors, problems and translation mistakes, own experiences and curious cases... I have had also the opportunity to have some experiences as a translator and now I prove professionally through "Robles Traducciones".

If you have followed me a little, you will know that my work languages ​​are English and German, and of course the Spanish as my mother tongue. If you need a professional translation into or from any of these languages, ​​do not hesitate to contact me via roblestraducciones@gmail.com. Now I show you too some advertisements, so you can share it if you are interested or if you know someone who may be interested.

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I will keep on sharing with you curiosities and interesting issues about translation.

Thank you.

Controversial false typo: Spanish literary prize (Premio Planeta)

Good evening. Social networks have today echoed a typo in one of the headlines of spanish tv news Antena 3. The headline said: Hoy se folla el premio planeta (Today it fucks the Premio Planeta. In Spanish, the verb fallar [award] is similar to follar [fuck]). Later it was known that it was a fake. But if it had been real, it would have possibly been a typo and the word emerged from this change in a single letter it would have caused many jokes. What I'm going to do in this post is to analyze this (false) mistake.

As I said, it would have been a typo. When we write in a computer it is not difficult to press a key in place of another one, and even more if we write fast. But, why would have emerged this controversial word? The headlines have a very limited format, that is, in a very short space they should explain the news as clearly as possible. Therefore, if we talk about the result of a contest (in this case the spanish famous literary contest that brings the publisher Editorial Planeta), the word fallar is short and concise. In another context, it would have been possible to use synonymous (settle/solve the contest, decide the winner), but in a headline it would have been too long. In addition, the presenter says always more information.

In any case, although this hasn't been a mistake of the tv program, we must revise everything we write, and if we even have some mistakes, remember el que tiene boca se equivoca ;)

Translation mistakes (III): how to change the cartridges in the printer

Good morning. Today I'm going to show you a fragment of a flyer that explains how to change the cartridges in the printer. Because of the information that I deduce of the complete text, I think that it is a translation from French. French is the first language, in which everything is explained and, in case of doubts, it refers to a website with domain .fr.

Here I show the text:

As you can see, there are punctuation mistakes: (*Felicidades! because in Spanish we use both exclamation points, blank space between colon and the rest of the text, capital letter after a comma), grammatical errors (*es remanufacturado) where it would be better the passive voice, accentuation (*vació when the correct word here is vacío, *pagina, *esta) and bad expression in general.

Now, If you want to see my proposed correction into Spanish, click here.

False friends (III): english-spanish

Palabra original (inglés) Original word (english)	Traducción correcta (español) Correct translation (spanish)	Falso amigo (español) False friend (spanish)
Billion (1000.000.000)*	Billón (1.000.000.000.000)
Carpet	Alfombra	Carpeta
File	Archivo	Fila
Jam	Mermelada	Jamón
Target	Meta, propósito, objetivo	Tarjeta

*In the example of billion, the translation problem isn't in the spelling of the word in Spanish, but in the concept. Whilst in English, one billion is a thousand million, in Spanish is a million of millions.

False friends (II): German-Spanish

Today I write a new post about false friends, this time between german and spanish. Some days ago I talked you about one of them in the post about the Steppenwolf. As you could see, the translation of some word into its false friend can produce a strange target text to the reader and with a different meaning than we expected.

Palabra original (alemán) Original word (german)	Traducción correcta (español) Correct translation (spanish)	Falso amigo (español) False friend (spanish)
alt	viejo	alto
Firma	empresa	firma
Gymnasium	Enseñanza de grado medio	gimnasio
Mantel	abrigo	manta, mantel
Rat	consejo	rata

False friends (I): English-Spanish

False friends are words in a language, which are very similar to other words in another language, but actually have a different meaning. Today I show you some of these words in English that have a false friends in Spanish. It is very important to consider these words before translating, because if we translate the false friend, we would change the meaning of the text.  

Palabra original (inglés) Original word (english)	Traducción correcta (español) Correct translation (spanish)	Falso amigo (español) False friend (spanish)
Actually	Realmente	Actualmente
Constipated	Estreñido	Constipado
Embarrassed	Avergonzado	Embarazada
Eventually	Finalmente	Eventualmente
Sensible	Sensato	Sensible