Automotive Translations – Latin American Spanish equals LAS?

The problem of finding the perfect Latin American Spanish variant is not easy to solve. We may write an entire encyclopedia about the different uses of automotive vocabulary in each Latin American country.

The wide range of linguistic flavors in Latin American Spanish may be a difficult thing for a linguist who is trying to translate literature or materials meant for specific region. In Business and IT engineering the situation may be a little bit different, in this case it is recommended to introduce a more neutral, so-called “international” style to keep the costs as low as possible.

The problem is that each Latin American country is a potential market, where users would like to see their daily vocabulary present in books and manuals. They want those publications to keep a local style and reflect their own cultural values which are also related to the way these communities use the language, in this case their Latin American Spanish variant. In the past, not a very long time ago, most localization work for Latin America was mainly based in Mexico.

If for example we are talking about a car manufacturing company that usually has its subsidiaries present in different Latin American countries, it would be a good idea to develop for each of these countries different glossaries that would focus on the specific terminology used by mechanics, technicians and drivers. Then, this valuable information can be organized and grouped using Translation Memories. In this way, the production of documentation would be friendlier to the user and many of the users would be able to understand their car manuals or instructions without the need for a dictionary, because the terms used are common and easily understood in their region.

In order to solve this issue it would be recommendable for the automotive industry to target a specific audience and create specific material for each Latin American country. Another optionthat we do not recommend for automotive would be to create a general glossary usually called Spanish LAS to englobe the most common terminology.

At Jensen Localization we take into account these things very seriously, and we will always let you know which translation you should use for each Spanish variety, and we will provide you with the right translator to obtain the best results and the tools to store these results. Do not hesitate to contact us for further information.