In terms of the number of native speakers in the world, Spanish is second only to Mandarin. Wikipedia alone has over four hundred thousand articles in Spanish. Obviously there is a lot of information in Spanish and a lot of people wanting to understand what is being said. If you speak Spanish in addition to your own language and enjoy writing, you might want to consider translating into Spanish.
where to start
A good starting point is magazines. Search for bilingual magazines published in a Spanish speaking country, subscribe to them and see the translations. What terms do they use? Could you do a better job? Are you interested in the topic? This may not matter later, but you übersetzer spanisch need to be highly motivated in the beginning. Try translating one of the articles and then compare your work to the translation. Is it similar? What did they do differently with you? As an exercise, here is a sentence from a translation I did a few years ago:
much authoritarianism Choose Han initiated and process de aperture desde la periferia subnacional , al comenzar pore experimental elecciones con cierto grado de limpieza e imparcialidad en esos ambitos , dejando todayvia Cerrada la Compencia Section read elecciones de autoridades en el ambito national .
Much of electoral authoritarianism has begun a process of liberalization from the sub-national periphery, as it begins to see elections that are, to some extent, clean and fair at that level, while competition for the election of public authorities at the national level is ever increasing is still closed.
I’m not really satisfied with this translation. I find the sentence too long and too confusing. What would you do to make it better?
Human versus machine translation (MT)
You may be wondering if people still need translators. After all, you can get free translations online these days. While services like Google Translate and Babelfish have improved a lot since the early days, there will always be a need for translators. They’re fine for getting the gist of an email, but I wouldn’t use them for serious translation. Here’s a random example from Babelfish :
En read Houses todos los services se ubican a nivel delete sotano ; the plant baja contain read areas social Volcadas al exterior a través de un gran Crystal , protegido for a pergola metalic que remata en un muro recuierto de cantera white .
In the houses there are all the services related to the cellar; The ground floor contains the overturned social areas to the outside by a large crystal, protected by a pergolado metallist ending in a covered wall of white quarry.
Here is my translation:
All services are located in the basement, while the first floors contain social areas. These face the outside through large windows protected by metallic pergolas set in walls clad in white stone.
As you can see, translating is not just a word-for-word process – it involves thinking and cultural awareness. You have to consider the context of the text to be translated as well as the vocabulary. This is something a machine will never get quite right. Until, of course, someone with artificial intelligence shows up, and then we’re all out of a job!
tools of trade
Jokes aside, computers are obviously very useful for translators. Your first tool is the word processor, and it pays to learn all sorts of shortcuts to get the job done faster. The less time you spend with the mouse, the more time you have to type. A helpful tip is to use side-by-side view in your word processor so you can see the source and target text at the same time. In this way you avoid that parts of the source text are left out.
Specialist dictionaries are also a godsend as you get into more specific areas. For example, since I have quite a bit of legal agreements, I use a Spanish -English dictionary for Mexican legal terms. I also have a dictionary of Mexican terms to translate cultural terms. Obviously, terminology is crucial for a natural-sounding translation in your field.
internet tips
The internet is just as useful. I subscribe to an online dictionary service to quickly and efficiently check definitions using both Spanish-to-English and Spanish-to-English language features. If that’s not the right term, search engines like Google, Yahoo or Live Search can be very helpful for the concordance . By simply typing a sentence, you will learn how it is used in context. Here’s what I got when trying to understand the expression retorno sobre el capital.
Retorno –( Economía ): Definition
return sobre el capital Calculation in percentage of utility net que well company puede recipient Section sus accionistas , es la relación financier more …
The same trick works in reverse if you want to check if your translated phrase works. You’ll notice that your search terms are highlighted in bold in the results. The closer these search terms come together , the more likely it is that your term will be used frequently. Here’s an entry that turned up well in Google when I checked if effective radiated power is a true expression:
Effective radiant power – Wikipedia
In radio telecommunications, Effective Radiated Power or Equivalent Radiated Power (ERP) is a standardized theoretical measurement of radio frequency (RF)…
By the way, if Wikipedia finds the term at the top of your results, you’ve found it! Of course, it’s not 100% reliable as a source of information, but I see its appearance in the results as a very good indicator of a term’s popularity. The more popular a term is, the more likely it is to be correct. If you click through to the article you find, you might find it useful for building a glossary of terms in the area you are translating.
Computer Assisted Translation (CAT)
If you are an advanced translator, you can also try using a translation memory system. These are also known as computer assisted translation systems, and they learn from your previous translations and give you suggestions as you go through the text. I wouldn’t recommend this for beginners as you need to understand the translation process first and it’s important not to get carried away. This is a tool that does not do the translation for you.
Additionally, CAT may not be suitable for all types of translations as it can limit the way you think about the text. When translating Spanish, you usually have very long sentences that need to be broken up or shifted, and the system may not be flexible enough to allow you to do this easily. It’s good for large translations where you need to use a standardized glossary, such as B. manuals or übersetzer spanisch deutsch company websites, but not so useful for creative pieces, such as e.g. B. Marketing campaigns or literature.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully these tips for getting started with Spanish have been useful to you and you can apply them to your own work. Translating can be an immensely rewarding activity when you get the hang of it, and very frustrating when you feel overwhelmed. So one final piece of advice would be to take it slow. Much luck!