Knowledge to go
From Europe to South America – Here's Where It Sounds Spanish to You
It might surprise some, but Spanish is the number 2 most spoken native language – ahead of English and behind Mandarin (Chinese). Over 580 million people worldwide speak Spanish, with about 480 million native speakers. Spanish is the official language in more than 20 countries, including Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, and Chile. Interestingly, in the United States, Spanish is the second most spoken language, with 41 million speakers.
With Spanish, you can communicate with people across the globe – whether in private or business contexts. The key is: you speak Spanish yourself, or ideally, you have a professional translation at hand. With the right approach, you not only communicate, but also reach your audience (or, in a business sense, your potential customers). Besides vocabulary and grammar, high-quality Spanish translations also depend on culturally adapting the translation to the recipients. And in this area, translation agencies still outperform (free) online translators.
Spanish Sounds Different – And Should Be Translated Differently
If you’ve ever been to Spain and then spent a vacation in South or Central America, you might notice that people speak Spanish, but it sounds a bit different. And you're right! There are indeed linguistic differences. For example, in Mexico and Colombia, the "ll" is pronounced like a "j", while in Argentina and Uruguay, it sounds like "sh". Unsurprisingly, this also means there are regional differences to consider when translating Spanish texts.
To ensure a Spanish translation is understandable for the readers, you should hire experienced and competent translators. Ideally, these are native speakers who live in the country of the target language and know exactly how people there speak. As a certified translation agency, we work closely with these translation professionals. This ensures that the translated texts are grammatically correct and stylistically appropriate. And if you want extra assurance, we’ll have a second native speaker proofread or review your translation.
Why Spanish Will Twist Your Head – And Why Translation Isn't (Always) Easy
If you think you can just transfer the grammar of your native language into Spanish (or vice versa), you’ll quickly stumble. Compared to other languages, Spanish contains many grammatical peculiarities. For example, the use of question and exclamation marks. They don’t just appear at the end of a sentence but also at the beginning of a question (¿) or an exclamation (¡). The sentence structure also differs from other languages, and many relationships between words are indicated by prepositions.
When translating correctly, all of this must be considered. Especially when it comes to medical translations or technical document translations, no careless errors should appear in the text. To ensure this, it’s advisable to consult a translation professional.
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