reporte.
reportero.
billón, trillón.
demandamos.
.
The main pattern of what I have called, for want of a better name, 'translated-to-Spanish' expressions stands out immediately for its simplicity – it merely mirrors as closely as possible the original source in English. That is why these expressions are so easily identifiable for anyone who has even a limited knowledge of English. Of course, in many cases the 'Translated-to-Spanish' version is exactly that: a translated version of a piece of news originally drawn from an English-speaking source. One example is the report of the statements made by the former chief of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannat, to the Daily Mail. Maria Laura Avignolo, correspondent of Clarín in Paris, rendered Dannat's words as 'Filtraciones y manipulación, al final del día, no ayudan (). No estoy diciendo que las dificultades que experimentamos alrededor del mundo' (Clarín, online edition October, 2006).
This may be said to be just a case of a hasty translation, in which the original meaning has been perhaps poorly conveyed, but not actually distorted. However, in many other cases resorting to 'Translated-to-Spanish' expressions is objectionable not just from an aesthetic point of view, but also –which is much more serious –from the journalistic point of view, since the 'Translated-to-Spanish' expressions may hopelessly mislead the reader. One clear example taken from a column by Silvia Naishtat (Clarín, October 15th), which informs us that if the individual fortunes of 9 million people are put together, " [ellos] concentran US$ 33,3 trillones. Se trata de un volumen gigantesco que equivale al 75% del PBI mundial ()" [highlighted by the writer]. The unjust distribution of the wealth is a most regrettable fact, but how much money is exactly involved? What is plain for the English-speaking reader becomes an absolute mess for most Spanish-speaking reader, unless they are more than reasonably acquainted with global economy, the English language, or actually both.