By Laura Penfold
Having both a degree in Spanish and Masters in Spanish translation from Leeds University, I was looking forward to showing off my linguistic skills on a recent trip to Mexico.
Now, my Spanish may have became somewhat (ahem) ‘rusty’ since I left university, but I thought I would at least get by asking simple questions such as ‘where are the toilets?’ and so on. However, to my dismay everyone looked at me blankly.
It eventually dawned on me that I was making simple mistakes, like using the word ‘servicios’ (commonly used throughout mainland Spain), when I should have been using ‘baños’, the Latin American equivalent.
The local ‘Slanglish’ conundrum
Alas! My errors should have become apparent to me sooner, but it all reminded me of what happens regularly at work. In an effort to reduce cost and turnaround many customers ask us to produce an International/Neutral Spanish translation, but there is a long-standing debate as to whether such a thing exists.
A translator can of course avoid any obvious slang words by keeping the language as standard as possible, but then it really isn’t targeted to a specific audience. This may be a real issue for marketing campaigns reaching out to a specific demographic.
Not the Spanish Inquisition: Rather a poignant question about whether Spanish language variants and the use of local terms & slang justifies local dictionaries.
This got me thinking. How far should we go to address this as even in a country as small as England completely different words are used in different locations for many everyday items?
As a southerner now living in Leeds I am only too aware of this and working in Manchester I have even noticed the language barrier of the Pennines (among others)!
Admittedly most of these term are ‘slang’, but I wonder – as slang terms become more recognised as standard language (see John Dixon’s recent blog on Slanglish) will we one day end up with regional dictionaries?!
Well at least the nomenclature of Cocktails seems to remain international, as I didn’t have any trouble ordering those!
