Spanish Language Translation

Spanish is the fourth most common language in the world and the most common Romance language. The Spanish-speaking population is one of the fastest growing in the world, creating a huge growth opportunity to businesses and institutions that can tap into this global market. Here are a few things to consider about the Spanish language:

There are more than 360 million native Spanish speakers worldwide.
Spanish is an official language of 21 countries.
It is estimated that over 70% of Hispanic households (over 31 million people) in the United States speak Spanish at home.

By 2010, there will be more than 50 million Hispanics living in the US, making up nearly one sixth of the population and holding over $1 trillion in purchasing power. Here are some other points to consider:

Hispanic consumer spending is projected to grow 7.6% annually over the next 20 years, compared to 4.9% for the non-Hispanic population.
Median earnings of full-time Hispanic workers were $25,400 for men and $21,600 for women in 1999.
While two-thirds of Hispanics live in California, Texas, Florida and New York, states with historically high Hispanic populations, Hispanic populations are growing rapidly in other states such as Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
Over half of all Hispanic adults own a computer and 21% have spent more than $100 on Internet purchases.

Translating into Spanish poses a unique set of challenges. When you know something, is it something you conocer or saber? What is the difference between noche oscura and oscura noche? And calling a man bizzaro isn’t a comment on his oddity, but a compliment to his bravery. Here are some pointers to help guide you when first considering a Spanish translation.

Spanish Language Characteristics

¿What is it that distinguishes Spanish from other languages? The use of inverted question marks and exclamation points, a feature almost unique to Spanish, is one characteristic feature of the language. A few others are:

Using the Latin alphabet with special letters, like vowels with an acute accent (á, ú, é, í, ó), u with an umlaut (ü) and an n with a tilde (ñ).
A change of speaker is indicated by dash marks (—) instead of a new paragraph.
Deference and politeness are expressed by the use of 2nd person 'tu' and 3rd person 'usted'.
In numbers, commas and periods are reversed from their usage in English, so that $1.99 becomes $1,99 and 12,345.67 becomes 12.345,67.
Far fewer words are capitalized in Spanish compared to English. For example, days of the week, religions, nationalities and ordinal numbers are not capitalized in Spanish.

Translating into Spanish - Text Expansion

Generally, documents translated from English into Spanish require about 20% more words. This is due to the linguistic features of the language. Oftentimes, more words are necessary to say the same thing in Spanish.
Text expansion can create difficulties in document formatting. It may result in a document that is crowded and hard-to-read as more words are forced to fit into the same design. Any documents intended for translation into Spanish should include enough white space to accommodate text expansion.