It depends on your specific needs, your budget, how fast you need it, etc. This comparison pretends to be a guide for our customers, since at Specialized Language & Translation we are a hybrid (a group of freelancers that turned into a small company), we share a lot of the high points from both approaches.

   Nowadays everyone has access to computer-generated translations, online dictionaries with bilingual sections, forums like the ones you can find at wordreference.com, computer-assisted translation software, etc. It is definitely a fantastic thing, still the quality of many translations not only has not improved, but in many cases it has decreased.

   Spanish-speakers in the USA are thankful every single day they have access to information through a document in their own language: educational notices, medical forms, immigration documents, etc. The problem comes when that extra “help” plays against them because the translation is hard to read, inaccurate, or a word-by-word linguistic nightmare. Many institutions rely on someone that can “do” the job because he or she speaks Spanish, and if he or she has access to a computer and the Internet the problem seems to be solved…

   The key in the failure of these amateur translations is neglecting the anthropological part of the language, the performance level of the language (the competence too sometimes), the context, and even the speaker. A good text is that one that can be understood without knowing that it was a translation, a text that looks and sound as good as the original, and a good translation is basically rewriting almost “from scratch”. This is the main part where software fails. When it comes to translation memories, translators have to be especially careful with using previous terminology from past projects. One of the principles of a good translation is the creation of a term database (that is current and personalized).

   Another element that is usually neglected is the competence of the translator in his or her native language: someone that is not (completely) native can hardly do the job. I am the perfect example by the way. I do a terrific job from English into Spanish. I have been reading novels, poetry, and academic books in Spanish my whole life , but when it comes to writing in English, I need to check everything twice, and my expression is not as good and fresh as it is in my native language.

   Being thankful for all the benefits of technology, which saves us a lot of time doing our work, it is clear that being creative is something that a computer can’t do (at least not yet!).

     The benefits from providing a quality communication channel in Spanish, as well as in English, creates a bridge that connects and includes that part of the population otherwise ignored. Companies, organizations, and institutions that invest in reaching Spanish-speaking population providing quality Spanish language content to their customers or members, with the same quality it offers to its English audience, always has a beneficial and inclusive impact, never exclusive. I am not going to enumerate specific benefits, I leave that to the reader’s own judgement.

     I often see hard-to-read and hard-to-understand forms and messages in Spanish everywhere I go, most of them translated literally from English into Spanish, probably by a translation software or by a non-professional translator. You can clearly tell that these communications are often word-by-word translations from English that can only be understood if you translate back to its original language, probably getting lost and with wrong facts. An effective communication in Spanish needs to rewrite its content from scratch to be successful, as if it were written by a native speaker.

     I remember when I moved to the US five years ago. I went to the local DMV office to get my driving license. To my surprise the test was also available in Spanish (it is my native language) in the computers they have, so I decided that I would probably have a better chance to pass doing it in Spanish. Big mistake.

     The language in the driving test was a mysterious language unknown to me, a language I had to decipher and unravel. The result: I failed miserably a test that days later I passed in English with no mistakes.

     This is just one of the many cases of Spanish communications that not only failed in their purpose, but was a problem more than a help.