¡Hola, Amig@s! - A Unique Solution to Gendered Nouns in Spanish

Back in September, I wrote a post about how sometimes the "easiest" terms seem to be the hardest ones to translate, at least when it comes to Spanish to English translations. One of my main examples focused on the ambiguity of certain nouns used in relation to family members, such as hijos, padres, and hermanos. Without additional information, a translator has no way of knowing whether these three words are being used to refer only to males (sons, fathers, brothers) or if they are referring to people of various genders (children, parents, siblings).

While it would be lovely if languages like Spanish simply stopped using grammatical gender designations for their nouns, it seems pretty unlikely that such a huge linguistic change will ever take place. That leaves us with two options: either come up with a solution for these ambiguous examples, or just live with it.

One solution that has become increasingly popular in informal Spanish communication, especially online, is to use the at sign (@) when referring to a group of people that includes both females and males. For example, if you want to use a gender-neutral term to refer to a group of friends, you can call them your amig@s. Not only does this avoid the ambiguity of using the masculine plural ending -os for mixed groups from the equation, but the symbol also somewhat resembles an o and an a, which are the masculine and feminine noun endings in Spanish.

That said, while the arroba, as the symbol is called in Spanish, is frequently seen online, it certainly hasn't become standard practice. First of all, there's just the fact that using @ as a letter seems very informal, and indeed even "wrong" to some people, likely because it is so unusual and new. It also doesn't necessarily solve this issue when it comes to spoken language, since there is no widely accepted pronunciation for the at symbol. However, there have been some proposals for phonemes that @ could represent.

In any case, if you want to stick with recommendations of the Real Academia Española, the regulatory body in charge of the Spanish language, then you won't want to start writing words like amig@s, herman@s, or even bienvenid@s. Its Diccionario panhispánico de dudas, which addresses questions related to the use of the Spanish language, points out in its entry on gender that the arroba is not a linguistic sign, and that its use in such situations could lead to further grammatical inconsistencies, as in the example "Día del nin@", in which the "el" in the contraction "del" would only apply to the masculine half of "nin@".

Clearly this linguistic issue hasn't been solved, but at least people are thinking about it! Languages are living things that are meant to evolve over time, so hopefully one day someone will come up with a lasting solution that everyone, including the Real Academia Española, can agree on.

Why You Should Never Ask a Translator to Work for Free

I sincerely hope that you read the title of this post and said to yourself, "Why would anyone ever ask a translator to work for free? Surely they deserve to be paid a fair wage for their work just like any other professional!". However, the sad fact is that many people don't treat translators, as well as many other types of creative professionals, as if their skills are valuable.

My inspiration for today's post was the following video by an advertising agency called Zulu Alpha Kilo, which perfectly demonstrates how ridiculous and unfair it is to ask a creative professional for free work.

If you don't work in translation, design, copywriting, or any of the many other creative fields, then you might not be aware of how frequently this happens. As someone who is relatively new to the translation industry, I encounter this issue frequently. In the past, prospective clients have asked me for everything from free sample translations to providing them with discounted rates in exchange for the promise of them sending me "lots of work".

It's usually pretty easy to tell from the prospective client's language whether they're trying to take advantage of you. If you're contacted by a client whose job posting simply says "Translate 1500 words Spanish to English" without any other details, then it's definitely a good idea to be wary. If they don't even care enough to tell you what type of text you're translating, then they probably aren't willing to pay much.

However, when you're first starting out as a translator and don't have much in terms of a portfolio to demonstrate your skills, it can sometimes be beneficial to do a short free sample. In my first few months as a freelance translator, a few of my biggest jobs came from clients who originally asked me to translate a small excerpt of their documents for free. That said, you should set up your own strict set of rules for what types of samples you are willing to do. I generally don't mind translating a short paragraph for prospective clients with technical texts, but if they ask for anything that will take more than a few minutes of my time, I carefully consider it before saying yes.

For example, one of my first clients needed to have a technical document translated, and wanted to be sure that I could provide them with an accurate translation. Since I hadn't done any related work in the past that I could submit to demonstrate my skills, I translated the 200-word excerpt for them for free, and ended up being hired for the project (as well as later projects). Obviously there was no guarantee that they would hire me, but I felt it was worth my time to do the sample since the full document contained 4,800 words. Since they did hire me, I was also eventually paid for the sample since it was included in the word count of the project.

That said, there is a big difference between translating a short excerpt for a project that requires special skills or technical knowledge and doing an entire translation for free. Luckily, this has been asked of me less often as of late, but occasionally I do still get requests to do a first translation for free with the promise of more work in the future. I obviously always say no.

Translators are also often asked to provide discounted rates for the promise of long-term work relationships, which is almost as bad as asking someone to work for free. You wouldn't ask your doctor for a discount because you've been going to them for years, so why would you ask a translator for a discount when they'll be putting in the same amount of effort and providing you with the same services as always?

Sometimes it's hard to say no to prospective clients, especially for freelancers that are just starting out in creative industries, but we have to remember that our skills do have value. I usually take the time to explain to clients in search of free work that I need to make a living just like everyone else, and that my professional skills do have a value. It may not always get me the job, but I do hope that it at least makes them stop and think about what they're really asking of me.

Why Restaurants Should Never Trust Machine Translation

A few days ago, my family was planning to go out for dinner in celebration of a special occasion. By the end of the day, we were all so exhausted that it sounded like a much nicer idea to just order some Chinese food and relax at home instead. We pulled out our stack of carryout menus and found the one for what is widely considered to be the best Chinese restaurant in town. The restaurant is actually owned and operated by a Chinese family, and the food is great - none of those tasteless, oily noodles you might find elsewhere. However, there was just one problem: the menu.

If you're at least somewhat adventurous when it comes to cuisine, then you've probably encountered a poorly translated menu before, be it at home or in a foreign country while you're on vacation. Sometimes there's just an item or two on the menu that sounds a bit off, like the time I discovered "sawdust" listed as a dessert on a menu in Portugal. Other times, however, the whole menu has clearly been thrown into Google Translate, with a horrible end result.

I'm pretty sure this was one of those times.

I can honestly say that I've never seen such a horribly translated menu before in my life. The issues were seemingly endless, which resulted in lots of confusion as to what we should order, as well as plenty of laughs. Here are some highlights:

A section of the menu in question.

"Ricer & Noodle" and "Beef Lamb": These section headings could easily have been corrected if the menu had been proofread before printing.

"Three Ingredient Potstickers" vs. "Potstickers": I love potstickers. They're one of my favorite items, and I was intrigued by the promise of "three ingredients". However, this translation didn't do the restaurant any favors. It was so ambiguous that I decided not to take the risk, since I didn't want to order potstickers that might be filled with something I don't like, which lost them an additional $4.

"Pine Nuts w. Wheat Gluten & Peppers": I imagine this item doesn't sell very well, given the current popularity of gluten-free diets. Based on its name, I envision chopped pine nuts and bell peppers in some sort of mushy paste, perhaps. Even stranger is the fact that this item is listed in the "Seafood" section...

"Fine Shred Potato w. Spicy Capsicum": If you know a bit of Latin, you can figure out that this vegetarian dish has some kind of hot peppers in it, since Capsicum is the plant genus that contains pepper species, but it still doesn't sound very appetizing.

"Crab Yolk & Bean Curd": Since when do crabs have yolks? Or does this contain crab, egg yolk, and bean curd?

"Lamb in Thin Wrap": This item was my personal favorite. It's probably some sort of thin rice wrap with lamb in it, but I imagined an adorable lamb with a thin shawl draped over its back to keep it warm.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. The menu was a bit of a disaster. After spending ages looking it over, laughing, and trying to decide if we were feeling adventurous enough to order various poorly worded items, we finally made our relatively safe selections.

The food was indeed delicious as usual (including the potstickers), but I still felt let down by the menu. I love trying new things, but I also like to know what I'm eating, which is why I ended up ordering beef lo mein as my main dish instead of something new and exciting.

I can't help but think that this restaurant and the thousands of others like it who use Google Translate to translate their menus are missing out on great opportunities, both to earn more money and to expand their customers' culinary horizons. The worst translations on these machine-translated menus generally correspond to the most expensive items, since more complex dishes are harder to translate. It's not hard to find translators nowadays (especially with the help of the internet), and the cost of hiring a professional to translate a menu would be relatively small compared to the profits it could lead to in the future!

So if there are any restaurant owners out there, I beg you, please hire a professional to translate your menu instead of using a machine translation. The next time an adventurous diner visits your restaurant, they'll be much more likely to try your finest items if you're marketing them with well-worded translations.