Spanish is spoken as a first language by approximately 330 million people and by about 50 million as a second language. It is the official language of 20 nations as well as one of the official languages of the United Nations and the European Union.

Spanish is a romance language with roots in Latin, with influences from Arabic, French and Italian, a result of centuries of language contact. There are a number of dialects and the Spanish spoken in Latin America is very different from that which is spoken in Spain. And like most widely spoken languages, Spanish also has regional variations in pronunciation, vocabulary and tense preference. In Spain, there are three other officially recognized languages: Euskara (or Basque), Catalan and Galican. About one-third of the population in Spain speaks a tongue other than Spanish as their first language.

In Latin America, the Spanish dialects differ in mainly in pronunciation and vocabulary. Due to patterns of colonization and influences from Indian tribes, Spanish in Cuba is not exactly the same as that in Costa Rica, for example. Even within Mexico, the Spanish spoken in the interior differs from that spoken near the border with the United States.

In the United States, the largest Spanish-speaking groups are those of Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican and Dominican descent. It is the most widely taught second language at all levels of public and private education. The type of Spanish taught in U.S. schools is predominantly Latin American Spanish.

Translating Spanish is a unique challenge due to the many different origins of Spanish-speaking people. The Real Academia de la Lengua Espanola sets standards for the language for all Spanish-speaking countries. Though helpful, the Academia cannot quite keep up with the constantly changing language and therefore, is behind in making decisions about terminology. In the meantime, since opinions about how to say something correctly vary with so many native speakers, translators use words that will be understood by the greatest number of readers. Using translators familiar with the country or area of your target audience is the best way to achieve the most complete, understandable and successful language translation.

The very best translation jobs will look unprofessional unless formatted correctly. Text expands by about 25 percent when translated from English to Spanish. When translating a web page, the expansion needs to be addressed to make sure buttons, for example, are sized and formatted appropriately. The decimal and comma separators are another example. Mexico and some Latin American countries prefer to use these separators the same way as the United States (1,200.00). Chile, Columbia and Argentina prefer the European way (1.200,00).

The viaLanguage Solution

viaLanguage provides accurate, quality Spanish to English and English to Spanish translations quickly for reasonable rates. The following are just a few of the reasons that we are the preferred Spanish translation source for so many companies.

• We employ experienced, native-speaking translators to ensure precise translations for your target audience.
• Translation involves more skill than just knowing how to speak source and target languages. Therefore, we carefully select our translation and localization teams for their subject matter experience, knowledge of dialects and culture of the audience.
• To account for the different regional variances and dialects, viaLanguage has a process to create custom Spanish Style Guides and Translation Glossaries. These resources are valuable tools to determine appropriate expressions of words and ideas for the specific audience.
• viaLanguage has the expertise needed to make sure your translated documents, websites or brochures are formatted properly.