Multicultural Spanish Dictionary (Spanish Edition) [Paperback]

Agustin Martinez (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1887563458 | ISBN-13: 978-1887563451 | Publication Date: June 8, 1999 | Edition: 1

Eyeglasses in Spain are gafas ; in Chile they are anteojos ; in Cuba, espejuelos ; and in Mexico lentes. Yet, all of these countries are purported to speak Spanish. This dictionary makes sure that the careful user of Spanish does not confuse the usage of this and other basic Spanish words as they vary from one Spanish-speaking country to the next.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Multicultural Spanish Dictionary is an excellent dictionary for helping the business traveler or vacationer to deal successfully with the many Spanish cultures with their linguistic diversities. It is also a highly recommended core addition to any academic or personal Spanish language reference collection. -- The Bookwatch, September 1999

About the Author

Augustin Martinez

Product Details

• Paperback: 234 pages
• Publisher: Schreiber,Shengold Publishing; 1 edition (June 8, 1999)
• Language: Spanish
• ISBN-10: 1887563458
• ISBN-13: 978-1887563451
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,595,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A disaster!, January 31, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Multicultural Spanish Dictionary (Spanish Edition) (Paperback)

The Multicultural Spanish Dictionary is a wonderful idea gone badly awry. It purports to be a guide to how Spanish differs from country to country. For example, the cover shows the word "grocery" and allegedly tells how this is said in Spanish in Mexico, Cuba, Spain, Venezuela, etc. The author apparently compiled the book by submitting a list of English terms to one speaker of Spanish from each Spanish-speaking country except Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and Paraguay. Although it is questionable whether a lexicographer should rely on a single native speaker from each country and omit four countries that have unique terminology of their own, if these problems in methodology were the only problems with the book, it would still be enormously useful. Unfortunately, however, the manner in which is was compiled is simply where this book's problems begin. In the first place, the author appears to have overlooked the fact that if you ask two native speakers, each from a different country, how to say something in Spanish, their answers may vary simply because the answers are synonyms, not regionalisms. This is precisely what happened on many occasions in this book. For example, when asked how to say "wrong," most of the informants said "equivocado," but the person from Colombia said "erróneo," and the informants from Puerto Rico and Spain said "incorrecto." The book implies that "incorrecto" is a Puerto Ricanism for the standard "equivocado," but in fact, all three of these words are used throughout the Spanish-speaking world. They are simply synonyms. "Delicious" is another example. The dictionary suggests that Argentines and Puerto Ricans say "rico," Peruvians say "exquisito," and everyone else says "delicioso." Again, this is nonsense. All three terms-rico, exquisito, and delicioso-are synonymous and are used in all Spanish-speaking countries. "Tasty" is given as "rico" in Argentina, Colombia, and Spain and as "sabroso" everywhere else-but in reality everyone uses both terms. The list could go on and on. This failure to distinguish regionalisms from synonyms makes the book practically useless to a nonnative speaker of Spanish, who will not always know whether terms are synonymous or regionalisms in Spanish (which is precisely why he needs a reliable "multicultural Spanish dictionary").

However, the errors do not stop there. The next problem is that the author failed to ensure that all informants understood the English term in the same way. Take the word "vest," for example. All of the informants but one understood "vest" to mean "an article of clothing that men wear in a three-piece suit," which is what it means in American English, and translated it as "chaleco." The Argentine informant, on the other hand, understood it to mean "undershirt," which is what it means in British English, where our "vest" is called a "waistcoat." Accordingly, she translated it as "camiseta, musculosa." The Multicultural Spanish Dictionary implies that "vest" in the American sense is "chaleco" everywhere but in Argentina. Another example is the word "iris," which the book suggests is "lirio" everywhere but Venezuela, where it is "iris." In fact, however, the flower "iris" is called "lirio" throughout the Spanish-speaking world, whereas the part of the eye that is called the "iris" is "iris" throughout the Spanish-speaking world. This is not a case of regionalisms, but of the informants understanding the English word in two different ways. Yet another example is "jacket," which some informants took to mean "a garment you wear when it's cold" (chaqueta), while others took it to mean what we also call a "sports jacket" (saco). The dictionary implies that chaqueta and saco mean the same thing, but they do not. As far as I know, there are no speakers of Spanish who refer to a jacket in the sense of the garment for cold weather as "saco," which always means the jacket that is part of a suit.

The next problem with the book is very poor editing. Here are some examples of the spelling errors found: "hechado a perder" (should be "echado a perder"); "clauadista" (should be "clavadista"-apparently someone's handwriting was hard to read); "enagüa" (should be "enagua"); "crecimeinto" (should be "crecimiento"); "beterraga" (should be "betarraga"). What is worse, sometimes the book implies that a Spanish word is spelled one way in one country and another way in another, when in fact, one of the informants simply made a spelling error. For example, "spine" is given as "espinazo" in Colombia and "espinaso" in Spain (the correct spelling is "espinazo"). "Armpit" is given as "zobaco" in the Dominican Republic and "sobaco" in Panama (the correct spelling is "sobaco"). "Yellow jacket" is given as "avispa" everywhere but Cuba and Panama, where it is supposedly "abispa" (in fact, however, the correct spelling is "avispa").

Then there are some flat-out translation errors. "Carjack" (spelled "car jack" in the dictionary, which makes it look like the tool used to lift a car when a tire goes flat, rather than the crime where a car stolen while the owner is in it-which is what the author means) is translated as "asaltar con violencia" (Mexico) and "raptar" (Bolivia), neither of which conveys the real meaning of "to carjack." "Stuntman" is awkwardly translated as "aquel que realiza los trucos." Among the translations of "to encrypt" in the computer sense is "ocultar," which is certainly a suspicious translation of that word (normally "cifrar" or "codificar").

Finally, the book omits many terms that do vary widely from country to country (such as the words for "drinking straw" or "cheat sheet"), while including others that do not (such as the adjectives discussed above). It also fails to alert a native speaker to the sexual overtones that a perfectly innocent word in his country can have elsewhere. In short, this book is far too shoddily compiled to be of much use to anyone.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A useful work, but full of gaps and inconsistencies., January 6, 2000

By 

Carl Stoll (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Multicultural Spanish Dictionary (Spanish Edition) (Paperback)

This book goes a fair way toward fulfilling the crying need for a dictionary of Spanish dialects. It contains much useful information. I have not been able to detect any outrageously inaccurate information, which is quite an accomplishment in a field noted hitherto for the abysmal quality of its production.

Nonetheless, this dictionary leaves much to be desired, since it contains many gaps and inconsistencies. In the first place, in the English-to-Spanish section, the Spanish equivalents are given only for some countries, not for all. To make up for this, the authors introduce the concept of "principal term", which they leave undefined, but which presumably is the term used in the countries whose Spanish equivalents are not listed individually. However, the "principal term" they list is often incorrect for some countries.

18 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ambiguities of Spanish and the Solution, April 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Multicultural Spanish Dictionary (Spanish Edition) (Paperback)

Spanish is one of the languages I work with. On the face of it Spanish is a rather simple language, but when it comes to common everyday words there are many ambiguities and varieties. On a recent visit to Puerto Rico I saw three foodstores on the same intersection, and each referred to itself by a different name. Later, while visiting the rain forest, I came upon a waterfall with signs on both sides of the road. One sign referred to it as "caida de agua," and the other called it "cascada." It was the same waterfall.

When I translate or edit documents from English into Spanish, I keep running into the problem of words such as grapefruit or strawberry which have different names in countries like Mexico or Chile. For years, I was hoping someone would come up with a dictionary of this nature. Now finally someone did. I realize this dictionary does not take the place of the regular English-Spanish dictionaries, but it is a great auxiliary tool. I further realize that its definitions are not always cast in stone, since the usage of everyday Spanish words often defy defintion. Nevertheless, this is so far the only dictionary of its kind, and as such it is enormously useful. One can only hope it will be revised and expanded soon, as the need for it is beyond dispute.