Nowadays, English is one of the most translated languages worldwide, besides being the most spoken one. According to Statista, 1,500 million people speak English, from which 375 millions are native.
Globalization of the English language
The fact that English is a universal language is due to two historical facts. On the one hand, the expansion of the British Empire during the 16th and 19th centuries. On the other hand, the economic and military dominance of the United States during the 20th century. This is the reason why the United Kingdom and the United States aren’t the only countries where English is spoken. Examples of English-speaking countries are Canada and Australia.
Reasons why English is a widely used language
There are many reasons why English is considered an international language. One of them, already mentioned, is that English is the official language in 57 countries around the world. Since it’s a widespread language, it’s widely used when communicating between people of different nationalities. At the same time, it’s one of the official languages used in large institutions such as the UN and the EU. As a result, many documents are translated from and to English. On the other hand, the industries with the highest exports of products often belong to English-speaking countries, such as the United States. These industries include film, television and literature. The translation of its contents is essential for the growth of the language, since most of the imported and exported products have an English translation. This way, the consumption of English-speaking countries’ culture increases.
Difficulties in translating from English to Spanish
Taking into account that English is one of the most spoken languages, we could say it’s simple and easy to learn. However, as Elsa C. Frost stated, English is a deceptive language. This statement could be related to the translation environment. It is true that, in terms of structure, pronunciation and meaning, English is relatively similar to Spanish. However, we shouldn’t translate literally from one language to the other, as the essence of the language is lost through such translation. Therefore, there are expressions for which we must take into account the cultural context of each language.This process is called “localization” in the translation environment. Specifically, the localizations consist in adapting a product to the market where it’s meant to be sold, including cultural values. The translation and localization are two different things, even though the localizations provides translation with a cultural perspective. Nowadays, we have very normalized that English is very used in the whole world. Thanks to some factors like globalization, the number of speakers of such language keeps increasing. This growth can be seen in different areas such as labor, economics, tourism and entertainment, among others. Therefore, the English translation plays a key role, without it the culture of English-speaking countries wouldn’t have extended worldwide.Visit our profiles in Facebook, Instagram y Linkedin
