Wow, the Spanish sustainability writeup no longer makes any sense. What standards are used to review kids' essays, if they can't copy edit their website? Or do kids no longer write essays anymore in any language?

I think literal word-for-word translation is a HUGE problem. That is now how languages are translated. They need more native spanish speakers working at their school. It should not be that hard to find them!

One more quick thing to add, the English text of the Sustainability writeup I mentioned above is also not fabulous, so perhaps there is a larger issue...

I was the poster who first raised the issue of the postcard we received. I noted I didn't think it was necessarily incorrect (although it does have errors), but just strange. I think the issue - even looking at their webpage now - is that they are attempting to directly translate, word for word, instead of translating MEANING. There are more natural and idiomatic ways of translating things into Spanish.

A concrete example, from their Sustainability page:

ENGLISH: " These national sustainability standards were developed with input from kindergarten through twelfth grade sustainability experts in public, private and teacher education fields."

THEIR SPANISH: "Estas normas nacionales de sostenibilidad fueron desarrolladas con aportaciones de Kindergarten hasta el doceavo grado expertos en sostenibilidad en los campos de educación pública, privada y maestros del mismo campo."

Here, for example, "expertos" should lead, because that's the grammatical order in Spanish. Instead they were trying to directly follow the English text, rather than ensuring the quality of the Spanish translation.

For my part, I don't think this is some massive problem that absolutely is a barrier for us. Yes, errors happen; we are all human! That said, its a concern and I want to check this out as we make our final decision.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are orthographic and grammatical errors, plus it really sounds as a Google Translation.

To begging with, the names of months and days should not start with a capital letter unless is required by punctuation (see the Panhispánico de las Dudashttp://lema.rae.es/dpd/?key=mayusculas from the Real Academia Española de la Lengua –concrete paragraph herewith below), some tildes are missing (an important orthographic error) – as already a PP pointed out-, and the “Evento de Inscripciones Abiertas” is clearly a wrong translation from the English version. Again, as pointed out previously the way it reads now in Spanish is like if anyone could go and enroll its child on that day.

Moreover, the style is…. bizarre, to say the least, and there is an overuse of the imperative verb tense and exclamations.

6. Casos en que no debe usarse la mayúscula inicial. Se escriben con minúscula inicial, salvo que la mayúscula venga exigida por la puntuación (? 3), las palabras siguientes:

6.1. Los nombres de los días de la semana, de los meses y de las estaciones del año: lunes, abril, verano. Solo se escriben con mayúscula cuando forman parte de fechas históricas, festividades o nombres propios: Primero de Mayo, Primavera de Praga, Viernes Santo, Hospital Doce de Octubre.

Salvo que solo quienes fueron admitidos recibieron las carta. Entonces, las inscripciones no están abiertas al público.

Doesn't mean it's not a bad translation.

Anonymous wrote:There are orthographic and grammatical errors, plus it really sounds as a Google Translation.

To begging with, the names of months and days should not start with a capital letter unless is required by punctuation (see the Panhispánico de las Dudashttp://lema.rae.es/dpd/?key=mayusculas from the Real Academia Española de la Lengua –concrete paragraph herewith below), some tildes are missing (an important orthographic error) – as already a PP pointed out-, and the “Evento de Inscripciones Abiertas” is clearly a wrong translation from the English version. Again, as pointed out previously the way it reads now in Spanish is like if anyone could go and enroll its child on that day.

Moreover, the style is…. bizarre, to say the least, and there is an overuse of the imperative verb tense and exclamations.

6. Casos en que no debe usarse la mayúscula inicial. Se escriben con minúscula inicial, salvo que la mayúscula venga exigida por la puntuación (? 3), las palabras siguientes:

6.1. Los nombres de los días de la semana, de los meses y de las estaciones del año: lunes, abril, verano. Solo se escriben con mayúscula cuando forman parte de fechas históricas, festividades o nombres propios: Primero de Mayo, Primavera de Praga, Viernes Santo, Hospital Doce de Octubre.

Salvo que solo quienes fueron admitidos recibieron las carta. Entonces, las inscripciones no están abiertas al público.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

In their defense, "Enrollment Open House" is not the easiest thing to translate 100% faithfully.

If that is what they are trying to say, shouldn't it say "Evento Abierto de Inscripciones"? I mean, if it's an "Evento de Inscripciones Abiertas" we should all go!!!

Hahaha, true!

El evento es para los y las estudiantes que fueron aceptados.

Ah! and fortunately I am not an English teacher in an English immersion school....

Well, 10:43, as you can see from my post (10:33am) I am, in fact, a Spanish native speaker... To begin with..

Anonymous wrote:There are orthographic and grammatical errors, plus it really sounds as a Google Translation.

To begging with, the names of months and days should not start with a capital letter unless is required by punctuation (see the Panhispánico de las Dudashttp://lema.rae.es/dpd/?key=mayusculas from the Real Academia Española de la Lengua –concrete paragraph herewith below), some tildes are missing (an important orthographic error) – as already a PP pointed out-, and the “Evento de Inscripciones Abiertas” is clearly a wrong translation from the English version. Again, as pointed out previously the way it reads now in Spanish is like if anyone could go and enroll its child on that day.

Moreover, the style is…. bizarre, to say the least, and there is an overuse of the imperative verb tense and exclamations.

6. Casos en que no debe usarse la mayúscula inicial. Se escriben con minúscula inicial, salvo que la mayúscula venga exigida por la puntuación (? 3), las palabras siguientes:

6.1. Los nombres de los días de la semana, de los meses y de las estaciones del año: lunes, abril, verano. Solo se escriben con mayúscula cuando forman parte de fechas históricas, festividades o nombres propios: Primero de Mayo, Primavera de Praga, Viernes Santo, Hospital Doce de Octubre.

Anonymous wrote:If I lived in Germany and had my preschooler in an English immersion school because I hoped she'd be fluent in English so we can move back to the States some day, or just because English is very useful, I wouldn't be happy if DC was taught to say "I didn't see no kitty cat." And if making the immersion instructor teach and use "I didn't see any kitty cat" was "pointless and impossible", I'd think maybe that instructor is not qualified to teach an academic English immersion program.

Oh my!

There are orthographic and grammatical errors, plus it really sounds as a Google Translation.

To begging with, the names of months and days should not start with a capital letter unless is required by punctuation (see the Panhispánico de las Dudashttp://lema.rae.es/dpd/?key=mayusculas from the Real Academia Española de la Lengua –concrete paragraph herewith below), some tildes are missing (an important orthographic error) – as already a PP pointed out-, and the “Evento de Inscripciones Abiertas” is clearly a wrong translation from the English version. Again, as pointed out previously the way it reads now in Spanish is like if anyone could go and enroll its child on that day.

Moreover, the style is…. bizarre, to say the least, and there is an overuse of the imperative verb tense and exclamations.

6. Casos en que no debe usarse la mayúscula inicial. Se escriben con minúscula inicial, salvo que la mayúscula venga exigida por la puntuación (? 3), las palabras siguientes:

6.1. Los nombres de los días de la semana, de los meses y de las estaciones del año: lunes, abril, verano. Solo se escriben con mayúscula cuando forman parte de fechas históricas, festividades o nombres propios: Primero de Mayo, Primavera de Praga, Viernes Santo, Hospital Doce de Octubre.

Anonymous wrote:If I lived in Germany and had my preschooler in an English immersion school because I hoped she'd be fluent in English so we can move back to the States some day, or just because English is very useful, I wouldn't be happy if DC was taught to say "I didn't see no kitty cat." And if making the immersion instructor teach and use "I didn't see any kitty cat" was "pointless and impossible", I'd think maybe that instructor is not qualified to teach an academic English immersion program.

A better comparison would be:

Call the neighbor when you pick up the jewelry. There is too long of a line for parking, so she will pull her truck around to pick you up.

I'm not a native Spanish speaker but agree that this is an awkward transmission. I'm also sitting on the metro with a big class field trip hearing the adults say things like 'where he at?' And 'her shoe untie.' Pervasive problem!

Anonymous wrote:Yes it's a lame translation. Looks very Google Translated.

This is the point.