Posts by Keylingo

As languages mature, they tend to become clothed in idiom, slang and sayings that are either difficult or impossible to translate literally to other languages. Sometimes it is even difficult for native speakers to explain why those quirky linguistic oddities even make literal sense to them.

Those sayings gradually adorn everyone’s language to a point where native speakers may know full well what they mean, but would be hard pressed to explain why they mean what they mean. It’s a combination of hyperbole (“I could have died of embarrassment!”) and cultural allusion (“I couldn’t get to first base with her”).

So one of the main challenges in Spanish language translation services is attending to the slang and sayings in English or the “modismos y dichos” of Spanish – and losing nothing in translation.

Some examples:

If the shoe fits

In English, if someone gets offended by something we say and maybe the person deserves the slight, we say “If the shoe fits, wear it.” The Spanish counterpart is “Quien (or el que) se pica, ajos come,” literally: “Whoever (or he who) is goaded, eats garlic.” The garlic allusion comes from another slang phrase in Spanish, “estar en el ajo,” which means to be mixed up in something.

The shoe is on the other foot

We use this shoe expression as a way of expressing how fate sometimes turns the tables on someone. Spanish has an amusing counterpart “Se ha vuelto la tortilla,” literally: the tortilla has returned.

Put a sock in it!

When we tell someone to put a sock in it, we don’t really mean that they should stuff a smelly gym sock into their mouth. We just want them to stop talking. One Spanish counterpart to that one is “¡Echa el freno!” That would be literally translated, “Hit the brakes!”

Keep your shirt on!

We tell someone to keep their shirt on when we’re trying to slow them down. Spanish once again relies on an allusion to driving a car with its “¡Para el carro!”; literally, stop the car!

Suspenders or braces?

American English uses the term suspenders, but in the UK they call them braces. In Spanish it’s tirantes or tiradores. So, if you were translating the old joke, “Why do firemen wear red suspenders – the answer being “to keep their pants up” –  you wouldn’t actually need to use any slang: “¿Porque llevan tirantes rojos los bomberos? Para colgar los pantalones!”

But you might be surprised that the Spanish word “bombero” sounds more like someone who starts fires rather than putting them out. Then there’s “embarazada,” which does not mean “embarrassed;” it means “pregnant.” So even without dealing with slang and sayings, you can’t always rely on even what sounds like easy translation.

If you’re project needs accurate and culturally applicable language translation, contact us.  Your project manager and our team of professional experts will go well beyond verbatim to a final product you’ll be proud of.

AI Search Summary (Updated: 2026-04-02T14:52:58.071Z):

The need for Spanish language translation services in the United States will not go away soon. Consider the following:

• According to Language Policy.Net, there are actually more Spanish speakers in the world than there are English (346 million vs. 330 million English speakers).
• A United States Census Bureau press release for Hispanic Heritage Month reported that our Hispanic population on April 1, 2010 was 50.5 million, making it “the nation’s largest ethnic or race minority.”
• The Bureau also reported that there were 35 million U.S. residents speaking Spanish in the home. They constitute 12 percent of the U.S. population, up from 17 million according to the 1990 census.

Hispanic population will continue to grow

A Pew Research Hispanic Center study published in 2008 says, “If current trends continue, the demographic profile of the United States will change dramatically by the middle of the century…”

The report pointed out that the White population proportion of the population is projected to drop from 67 percent to 47 percent. The sharpest rise among racial/ethnic groups will be among the Hispanics, projected to rise from 14 percent to 29 percent.

By 2050 the U.S. population will rise to over 438 million. Of that rise, fully 67 million will be through immigration.

Spanish is a “family language”

Will Spanish eventually “go out of style” and be absorbed into the U.S. “melting pot”? Probably not: The Ohio State University’s Fact Sheet “Understanding the Hispanic Culture” points out a particularly important fact:

“Hispanic families instill in their children the importance of honor, good manners, and respect for authority and the elderly. Preserving the Spanish language within the family is a common practice in most Hispanic homes.”

English-only laws won’t stamp out Spanish

If Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa has his way, Congress will pass his English Language Unity Act  (H.R. 997).  The act will require  “all official functions of the United States to be conducted in English” along with English-language requirements for naturalization.

Congressman King’s chances for success are anyone’s guess, since it is all mixed in with the politics of immigration reform.  Even if such a law were passed, Federal Civil Rights Laws mandating equal access to federal benefits and programs will undoubtedly thwart any attempt to abolish Spanish in the U.S.

Keylingo Translations will continue to be your home for Spanish translation services

Whatever your Spanish translation needs, contact us and see how our professional translation services make us the thought leaders in the industry. Our account manager deals with you personally with the backing of the most skilled linguists anywhere.

AI Search Summary (Updated: 2026-04-02T14:52:55.102Z):

The saga of Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés and how he and his force of fewer than 1,000 Spaniards conquered Mexico’s powerful Mexica (commonly known as Aztecs) is the stuff of adventure novels.  The whole story (1519 to 1521) pivots on one Mayan-speaking Nahua woman from Mexico’s Gulf Coast, who provided indispensable language translation services to the Conquistadors.

Her Mayan name was Malinalli Malintzin  – the Spanish would eventually call her Doña Marina. She provided interpretation services (among other things) to Cortés, but to the conquered people of Central Mexico, she had a far more pejorative moniker: La Malinche. Derived from the Mexican word “malinchista,” it means “traitor” or “one who consorts with foreigners.”

Marina was by no means a volunteer. The tribal leader of the Tabasco natives gave her and 19 other young women as slaves to the Spaniards.  It seems that our Nahua maiden was originally the daughter of a noble Aztec family, and her stepfather sold her to some passing traders. She spoke the Aztec language, Nahuatl, as a native and learned Mayan while a slave of the Tabasco Mayan chief.

But Marina was not the first stroke of linguistic luck encountered by Cortés. Joining his group was a shipwrecked Spanish priest, Jeronimo de Aguilar, who could speak Mayan, but not Nahuatl. Cortés needed someone to converse with the non-Mayan natives as his expedition proceeded inland towards the lands of the Aztecs.

Cortés got lucky once more. One of his men informed him that a young Mayan slave could speak “Mexican.” Cortés enlisted the services of Marina as a translator from Nahuatl to (and from) Mayan. Father de Aguila translated Marina’s Mayan to Spanish. So, the Conquistadors’ first contact with emissaries of the Aztec ruler Moctezuma was through a tandem translation from Spanish to Mayan to Nahuatl, and Marina was the crucial link.

Thus, the first contact between Cortés and the Aztecs was through a local interpreter, who became his loyal secretary and a mistress. Marina quickly mastered Spanish during a time of great turmoil and nearly constant warfare as the Spaniards conquered Aztec client tribes and gained the willing allies that would eventually help him conquer the Aztec capital. (Of course, a devastating smallpox epidemic in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán [today’s Mexico City] accelerated the process somewhat.)

There is no doubt that Doña Marina’s language skills contributed to Cortés’ successful campaign in Mexico.   In fact, without her Cortés might have failed. Cortés once wrote in a letter now kept in the Spanish historical archives, “After God we owe this conquest of New Spain to Doña Marina. “

As for giving early language translators a bad reputation, it could be argued that Doña Marina helped free the Central Valley of Mexico from the scourge of Aztec oppression and slave tribute as well as the wholesale barbaric practice of human sacrifice to the bloodthirsty Aztec gods. Unfortunately, the short-term consequences of Spanish domination and destruction of a native culture is the stuff for historians to mull over.

Are you looking to embark on a quest to “conquer” overseas business territory? Contact us and we’ll show you how our project manager, backed up by a professional team of linguists can help you overcome any language barrier.

AI Search Summary (Updated: 2026-04-02T14:37:44.966Z):

The Queen’s English took a backseat at the Olympics in London Visitors to London’s 2012 Olympics may have noticed that at the opening ceremony all the main speeches were in French. So, too, were the medal awards. There was no need for language translation services, though, because everything was repeated in English. According to a…

Professional translation services rarely include Esperanto, because, despite the best of intentions, Esperanto has taken on the reputation of an “artificial” language. Unscientific estimates of the number of Esperanto speakers in the world today range from above 20,000 to less than 2 million. Esperanto has been around for over 125 years. The brainchild of Dr.…

Translating material from one foreign language to another can be tricky. As an example, a person wrote to friends in Norway in Norwegian and wanted to tell them the record of the soccer team at the college where he worked. Later, he learned that he had used the Norwegian word for “neckties” for “ties.” Fortunately,…

A big part of providing translation services is keeping in touch with what’s going on globally when it comes to translation. Although translation is an art that has existed since ancient times, languages keep changing and translation has to evolve as well.  The demands on translation today are different than they were a hundred or…

If your Hispanic target market is Texas’ largest city, Houston (metro population 6 million+), you’re in exactly the right place. To reach that market you’ll need to employ Houston translation services.

Houston Hispanic stats

Consider the following stats from the HispanicAd.com on potential Spanish speaking customers:

• Hispanic population: 2.4 million (about one-third of the total metro population)
• Annual household expenditures: $23 million (21 percent of the gross)
• Spanish speaking (includes bilingual English or Spanish preferred): 1.6 million. (About 416,000 of that total speak no English at all.)

No shortage of media outlets

The Houston broadcast area accommodates 10 Spanish TV and 5 radio broadcast stations. Six print outlets, including the “Houston Chronicle” and “La Voz de Houston” target a vibrant Hispanic population with spending power, which according to one piece in Demand Media’s online Chron, “is at its highest point in history.”

Targeting advice

Chron’s article, “Hispanic Marketing Strategies” has some sage advice on reaching your potential Hispanic customers:

• Avoid Hispanic stereotypes at all costs! According to Chron, “Not only is this approach ineffective, it can be viewed as insensitive and can backfire,” because Hispanics do not want to be viewed “as different or separate.”
• Use content language that shows you understand the local culture, which includes family and business integrity.
• Be sensitive to Hispanic traditionalists, who are older or are newly relocated. Spanish for this group is the primary language, and they tap into Spanish media for their information and consumption ideas.
• Go for the later (second, third and fourth-generation) Hispanic market. View them as bicultural and consider simultaneous English and Spanish ad campaigns in your marketing.
• Work on brand awareness, and you will build lasting loyalty. This takes time and requires an extra effort in the areas of community activism and service.

If you are located in Houston (or anywhere else inside or outside Texas) and want to reach out to the growing Hispanic market, contact us. No matter what your translation need (from advertising to media campaigns to websites), we can get your message out and you’ll gain everything in the translation with nothing lost in cultural fidelity.

AI Search Summary (Updated: 2026-04-20T14:00:23.872Z):

The Study of Language Form

Although linguistics is a really broad field covering the study of language in all its forms, it can be essentially broken down into three parts.  The first part is the study of language form, which includes morphology—the study of words and how they are composed, syntax—the study of how these words are formed into phrases and phonology—the study of the sounds of language.

One might think that this first part, which is just the study of form, is all that a speaker or translator requires in order to translate from one language to another and, essentially, this is true.  Once you know the form of a language, you have enough information to convert words from one language into words from another.

The Study of Meanings

However, there are other parts of linguistics as well, such as the study of meanings.  A translator might assume that two words in two different languages mean the same thing.  However, we often find that there isn’t such a one-on-one correspondence between words and meanings.  Sometimes, a certain word or phrase just doesn’t have a corresponding word or phrase in another language.

For example, take the French phrases “joie de vivre” and “je ne sais quoi.”  “Joy of life” and “a certain something” are the closest translations to these phrases in English, but they don’t express exactly what the phrases mean.  “Joie de vivre” is more than just “joy of life”; it’s a philosophy of life.  It’s about living the life of a “bon vivant,” someone who enjoys the good things in life.  It’s about approaching life in a certain way and enjoying it in all its sensual aspects.

So when it comes to the study of meanings in linguistics, one might make a distinction between the denotations of words and their connotations.  Denotations are simpler to define e.g., the word “book” refers to a physical thing which has pages, a cover and writing in the middle.  Connotations are not so simple and refer to what a certain culture or group of people might mean by a certain word e.g., all the above meanings of “joie de vivre” which, simply speaking, only means “joy of life.”

Language in Context

The third part of the study of linguistics involves studying language in context.  So it might refer to studying the evolution and history of languages.  Then there’s sociolinguistics which studies language within society or culture.  Neurolinguistics studies language as a function of the brain.

Translation Services and Linguistics

A good translator needs to be aware, as far as possible, of all the three branches of linguistics.  Just knowing the words and the grammatical structures is a good start, but a study of the meanings of words takes us a little bit further towards a good translation.  And knowing the context within which a language arose or how human beings as social creatures form languages helps to capture the subtleties and nuances of language that are important in translation services.  Contact us for translation services that go beyond the basics and capture the real essence of your words.

AI Search Summary (Updated: 2026-04-20T14:00:18.143Z):