English to Spanish Translation and the Expansion
Factor
Did you know that when you you translate a document from English
to Spanish, the document's content expands? This is called the "expansion
factor" of language. The reason for this "expansion factor" is
due to the linguistic rules and grammar of the Spanish language.
For example, a Spanish translator will often need to use two, three
or even more words to convert a single English compound word. On
average a Spanish document after translation will increase by 25%
or more than the original English document.
Here is one example of how the volume
of words expand:
clockwise = 1
word in English
a la derecha = 3 words
in Spanish
Systran Translation Software and
your Formatting
The good news is that if you are
working with Systran professional translation programs you
can retain much of your document's formatting. Text in tables,
bold, bullets, italics, colors, paragraphs, titles and indents
are all maintained during the translation process. Even though
the
software
can maintain
these elements you may still want to make some adjustments if you
need to control the overall size of the document after translation.
Tips
on Controlling the overall size of the Document after Translation
If you are working with documents that have been formatted there
are a few things you can do to maintain the formatting and style
of your document, as well as the size after translation.
- Resize Fonts - you can use a slightly smaller font to make
the document appear the same size.
- Change Font Style - remember that some fonts are naturally
thinner with less space between the letters, play with font styles.
- Margins - adjust the margins a little to give the illusion
that the document has not changed in volume.
- White Space - with your original document you can increase
the white space in anticipation that the Spanish translated text
will fit into the same space.
- Use Tables - with the more professional translation programs
on the market they can effectively translate text that is in
tables and cells without changing the formatting.
- Images - with graphics and images you should place them in-line
with the text. This will keep the image aligned with the content
of the page.
Times when English to Spanish Expansion
is even more important to Consider
If you are translating internal documents or letters, the overall
length is not that important, but there are times when it should
be considered due to costs.
- Professional Printing - if you are translating a book from
English to Spanish and having it professional printed, the cost
of printing 25% more pages should be considered.
- Web Design - many web pages use graphics for buttons, changing
the text on the buttons can cause design problems and require
graphical changes.
- Marketing Brochures - the layout for many marketing materials
can be limited, expanding the text can cause layout changes.
When working with translator software you will find that your orginal (source
document) will always be different in size than your translated file (target
document).
Each language will be different, some will expand while others may be more
compact. You can test translate a language with translation software to get
an idea of how your final document will look after translation.
Learn more about translating English
to Spanish:
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