# The difficulties of translating product descriptions (English -\> Spanish) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 14, 2016, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550 "2016-10-14T20:38:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/21 "2016-10-16T05:04:00Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > But I have a question: It’s been I while since I’ve worked in a restaurant. Are you saying the products from distributors like Sysco all have equal Spanish to English labeling uniformly? At this point, every “Sysco” branded item is labeled in English and Spanish. It’s Sysco recognizing that a good portion of foodservice workers in the USA are now Mexican. (The occasional French labeling I mentioned in the OP is restricted to products that are also being exported to Canada, or imported _from_ Canada.) On a side note, it’s been kinda fun looking at Spanish labeling and recognizing the Latin roots. Like, labels on spices. English: Ground Cumin Spanish: _Comino en polvo_ “_en polvo_” = “pulverized” Which is another instance where English does not equal Spanish. The English word, “pulverized” tends to be used in the sense of “completely destroyed” when, in reality, it just means, “pounded into powder”. In English, “ground”, or “grinded” (probably coming from German) implies a tedious task, while “pulverised” implies an instantaneous pounding into powder. In Spanish, “en polvo” simply means grinding something into powder. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/22 "2016-10-16T05:24:53Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > That makes me wonder how Spanish would describe a plastic tarp, of the type you would lay out when painting a room. That would be a “plastic sheet”, possibly made of the same material, except thicker, and used in an entirely different manner from plastic food wrap. _Plásticos_. When we’re painting a room and we lie down plastic on the floor, we protect the floor _poniendo plásticos_. Or _lonetas_ (woven), or _hules_ (oilcloth). > [@](#): > > Funny you should mention “cataracts”. I’m familiar, in English, of the use of “cataract” as a synonym for “waterfall”. I’ve always been puzzled as to why the word is also used to describe an eye problem. According to my uncle, he understood it when he realized that the eye on which he had the cataract first was “like looking through a waterfall”. > [@](#): > > That reminds me of the Spanish “congelado”. As in, “mantegnar congelado” (not sure if that should be “mantegnar” or “mantegñar”) as the Spanish translation of “keep frozen”. It could be given in the infinitive, _mantener congelado_, but the word you were looking for is _mantenga_. There is a tendency to give instructions in the infinitive to avoid the _tú/usted/vos_ conflict. _Congelar_ comes from the root -gel-, ice. Same root as _hielo_ or _gelato_. In Spanish, those same fats _se han solidificado_ or, more exactly, _se han gelatinizado_ (but you would only see that in a technical document); it would be more common to say _hay gelatina_ or _se ha hecho gelatina_. And _hacer(se) gelatina_ can refer both to fats congealing and to something melting down figuratively: _después de la carrera de ayer, tengo los huesos hechos gelatina_ - after yesterday’s race, my bones feel like jelly. _Cuando vio a su bebé se hizo gelatina_ - when he saw his baby he just melted into a puddle. _Cuando se enfría el caldo, se hace una capa de gelatina encima y la puedes quitar_ - when the stock cools down, a layer of jelly forms on top and you can separate it. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/23 "2016-10-16T05:56:09Z")
Italian “gelato”, which, to we Americans, is “fancy, overpriced ice cream”. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/24 "2016-10-16T06:04:54Z")
Yeah, but that’s not what it means in Italian. It’s just ice cream. The fact that languages will sometimes copy a word from another language as a partial substitution for one that already existed doesn’t change its meaning in the original language. Spanish using _sponsor_ for _mecenas deportivo_ doesn’t change the meaning of sponsor in English; American English using gelato for a specific type or grade of ice cream doesn’t change the meaning in Italian. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/25 "2016-10-16T06:13:30Z")
Exactly. Except there is a shop in my town selling “gelato” for 5 dollars a scoop, because “gelato” is some fancy foreign thing. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/26 "2016-10-16T06:22:36Z")
And that changes the meaning of the root -gel-? ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/27 "2016-10-16T06:41:35Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > And that changes the meaning of the root -gel-? No, it just proves that “yuppies” are still a thing, and they’ll throw money at anything that sounds trendy. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/28 "2016-10-16T09:04:57Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > My question is whether these companies are US-based, so that the Spanish descriptions might have been generated by Google Translate, or whether you are getting products imported from Mexico (say) where the Spanish might be authentic. Why would you assume that translations for products made by US-based companies are generated by Google Translate? There are plenty of professional native Spanish-speaking translators in the U.S., and there’s no reason one would have to use a U.S.-based translator, for that matter. (There is plenty of awful translation in the U.S., though.) ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/29 "2016-10-16T10:11:12Z")
“False friends” are a common problem in translation. Hence all those holiday snaps people take of products like “Cock Soup” and attempts at English notices: “Drop your trousers here for best results” (advertising a dry-cleaner’s), not to mention the impossibility of literally translating swearwords, where the scales of force and offensiveness can be very different in different languages and cultures. FWIW “pellicule” exists in French as film (i.e, roll film for a camera, rather than movies) - and dandruff. And in the UK we commonly call the stuff in question “Cling wrap”. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/30 "2016-10-16T12:18:51Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > “False friends” are a common problem in translation. Hence all those holiday snaps people take of products like “Cock Soup” and attempts at English notices: “Drop your trousers here for best results” (advertising a dry-cleaner’s) . . . Are these really examples of false cognates? ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/31 "2016-10-16T12:42:38Z")
No, I stand corrected. They’re examples of OP’s original point about understanding context for the effective translation of meanings. A false friend would be more like the French “assister à” (=to be present at, _not_ to assist at or with), or countless swearwords, which have completely different levels of force and offensiveness in different languages: but I suppose that’s a different subject. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/32 "2016-10-16T12:45:23Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > Exactly. > > Except there is a shop in my town selling “gelato” for 5 dollars a scoop, because “gelato” is some fancy foreign thing. It’s also different than American ice cream. Italian Gelato has less milk fat typically and lower overrun (how much air is beaten into it.) it has a different, thicker texture than American style ice cream. If packaged, gelato would not meet FDA labeling standards to be labeled “ice cream” based on the milk fat content. That said, $5 a scoop? That’s expensive. My favorite gelato place here is under $3 ($2.25 IIRC) for a small portion which is still more than enough gelato for me. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/33 "2016-10-16T13:25:25Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > Why would you assume that translations for products made by US-based companies are generated by Google Translate? There are plenty of professional native Spanish-speaking translators in the U.S., and there’s no reason one would have to use a U.S.-based translator, for that matter. > > (There is plenty of awful translation in the U.S., though.) Sadly, the translation market’s bottom is currently being held by Chinese agencies which use, yep, Google translate. There is no way in God’s green Earth, or any other worlds, that a human being doing something other than a double copy-paste would have produced some of the “professional translations done by an actual agency” that I have seen; on several occasions I’ve proven to someone who’d hired a “professional agency” that the worst errors were exactly what Google gave. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/34 "2016-10-16T15:39:40Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Sadly, the translation market’s bottom is currently being held by Chinese agencies which use, yep, Google translate. There is no way in God’s green Earth, or any other worlds, that a human being doing something other than a double copy-paste would have produced some of the “professional translations done by an actual agency” that I have seen; on several occasions I’ve proven to someone who’d hired a “professional agency” that the worst errors were exactly what Google gave. Oh, I’m sure there are translations out there done by Google Translate (or other machine translation). But some people do actually care about quality, even in the U.S., and hire professionals. (And I’ve seen actual humans, even actual bilingual humans, do truly awful translations. We’ve had multiple people in my office, actual bilingual people, who did translations that were completely nonsensical. How? They simply didn’t pay attention to context or whether the finished product made sense as freestanding text. Those people don’t work there anymore. Once we advertised for a bilingual paralegal and the interview included a very simple language test; write a letter in Spanish notifying someone of an appointment. Basically everyone failed the test. If you take an hour to write a three-sentence letter and the end result has 15 grammar and spelling errors, sorry, but you’re not bilingual, I don’t care what language you speak with your mom.) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/35 "2016-10-16T19:00:30Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > Why would you assume that translations for products made by US-based companies are generated by Google Translate? There are plenty of professional native Spanish-speaking translators in the U.S., and there’s no reason one would have to use a U.S.-based translator, for that matter. > > (There is plenty of awful translation in the U.S., though.) Why would you assume that’s what I was assuming? 😉 I said _might have._ Of course some companies use professional translators, but it’s obvious from the number of awful translations that a lot of people _are_ using Google Translate or half-remembered high school Spanish. Same goes for the other way here. Despite the fact that there are a lot of native English speakers in Panama, you still see a lot of awful translations even in professional contexts. You would think they could just grab a native English speaker and have them check it over, but apparently that’s too much trouble. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/36 "2016-10-16T22:59:18Z")
Google translate is more complicated than just picking the first answer in the dictionary. It works by comparing to other translations. It determines the meaning by the words around the word, if possible. If a particular translation is usually used around these words, then it is used. It only falls back on the most popular translation if this fails. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2016, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/37 "2016-10-16T23:09:24Z")
I wonder how much Google Translate is starting to eat its own children? IOW, it “learns” by reading translations on the 'net. But if lots of them are docs that folks translated earlier by Google Translate (or any other machine algorithm) then the algorithm is consuming its earlier, less skillful works as training materials. That sounds like the automated equivalent of the inmates taking over the asylum. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/38 "2016-10-17T08:28:59Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > No, I stand corrected. They’re examples of OP’s original point about understanding context for the effective translation of meanings. Yes–as such they’re examples of something much more interesting than false cognates, IMO: [pragmatic ambiguity](https://prezi.com/h--9sfhvkp0f/pragmatic-ambiguity/). ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/39 "2016-10-17T14:49:19Z")
About film(y) stuff and papery(y) stuff as roots and red herrings, I might translate papel de plástico as a trade newspaper on the plastics industry. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550/40 "2016-10-17T14:52:11Z")
- Homer drools: “Roots and red herrings…” \* [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-difficulties-of-translating-product-descriptions-english-spanish/768550.md?page=1)