If there’s one truism in the language industry, it’s that not all Spanish is created equal. If there’s a second truism in the language industry, it’s that you have to explain the first truism at some length because nobody outside the language industry gets it.
The first truism is alluded to in many of this issue’s articles, and dealt with in various ways using hard data. Matt Bramowicz focuses on how Spanish language variations can play into marketing to a US audience, with a large graphical breakdown of statistical demographics and what they might mean, as well as general marketing tips. A sidebar by Linda Jackson and Evelyn Toro fleshes out this topic with some specific looks at life sciences marketing and the like. Benjamin B. Sargent’s article offers a new and different data set on worldwide Spanish language audiences and economies, along with a discussion of trends and strategies. Elizabeth Dellaha discusses how language variations can be managed across websites by using semantic search engines.
The focus also looks at changing source languages, translation in Spain and Google’s Latin American Spanish. Outside the focus, Marc Achtelig provides a brief manual on translating technical documents and Nancy A. Locke reviews The Definitive Guide to Measured Translation Quality.
We have a plethora of columns and commentary, among them Oleg Semerikov’s tips on social media marketing for translators and Suzanne E. Deliscar’s look at access to justice for the US Hispanic population. Terena Bell offers her last Macro/Micro, explaining why she sold her language service company and claiming that, barring boutique agencies and large players, the institution is dying. Diego Bartolome’s study of the industry landscape offers a counterpoint on the future of translation in Spain and beyond.
