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January 29, 2007
Will Google, Yahoo, and other major search engines penalize websites automatically translated to Spanish? We do not know if they do or will, but they certainly should. We realize that our opinion is biased since we do provide translation from English to Spanish performed by professional translators. However, one must recognize that although translating software is a terrific tool, translations always need to be crosschecked by humans.
In our opinion, the work by translation programs should be reviewed by native speakers of the language into which the text is translated. This is particularly important because the various mistakes generated by such programs may be missed by non-native speakers. If you plan to build-up an authoritative website, we strongly recommend not to use automatic programs for language translation. Translate part of the website or part of the body text instead.
January 2, 2007
It seems appropriate to start this blog discussing the term “blog” itself and its most appropriate translation into Spanish. First, we should establish the differences between blogs and forums. Blogs are typically owned by just one person or a small group of people and the owner chooses the topics of entries on the blog, and controls who can read and comment on the entries. It is accepted that forums, on the other hand, are not controlled by one person. Any member of the f o r u m can start a topic for discussion. Forums rely on responses from the community to initial posts in order to form a discussion, reflecting the interests of the group rather than those of an individual.
It is tempting to translate the word “blog” into Spanish as “foro” and several authoritative websites make this mistake although “blogs” and “forums” are different things as discussed above. In our opinion, perhaps the best translation of “blog” is “bitácora.” “Bitácora” is a word in Spanish, defined as the book where a captain make notes of course, speed, and other issues relevant to navigation. This translation seems quite appropriate considering that the word “navegación” (navigation) is used in Spanish as a substitute of “to surf the Web.”
Should one translate the word “blog” into Spanish anyway? Well, should one translate “jet lag” into Spanish (we will discuss it later)? Various English words have made their way into the Spanish dictionary due to lack of better alternatives. In addition, a large part of the Spanish Internet savvy community is already familiar with the meaning of “blog” and several well respected Spanish websites chose to use the English word in their sites. In summary, one can translate “blog” into Spanish as “bitácora” or simply use the English word.
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