Customer Reviews

Multicultural Spanish Dictionary (Spanish Edition)

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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.

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.

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.

I used this book to help me with various clients throughout Latin America. Until I aquired this book, I never realized that to some, I was speaking to them in an entirely different language. We take for granted that English is spoken differently between English speaking countries (Elevator in America, but Lift in Britain), but never even thought that that was the case for Spanish speaking countries. Without this book, my business might have lost valuable contracts simply because we were insulting our clients.

The Multicultural Spanish Dictionary is a book my translation agency has been looking for for years. Each time we translate something from English into Spanish, we run up against the problem of the thousands of words which are different in each country of the Spanish-speaking world. No one Spanish speaker or translator knows all the variations of everyday Spanish words in countries like Mexico, Peru, Chile, etc. As soon as we started using this dictionary, which, we realized right away, was far from exhaustive, we did a huge translation job involving thousands of technical and legal pages, from Mexican Spanish into English. One of the terms that kept appearing over and over again was a car part, which has the same name throughout Latin America, but a different name is Mexico. Our translators, all of them highly experienced, come from all parts of the Spanish-speaking world, and most of them missed the Mexican term. After checking it in this new dictionary, we realized what the problem was, and equalized the translation of this particular term. This is a good example of how a specialized dictionary of this kind can save one a great deal of grief. A word of caution: It does not replace the general Spanish-English dictionaries, of which there are several good ones. It is to be used as a supplement in cases where a basic word changes meaning from one country to the next. We are looking forward to a future expanded edition, but in the meantime, this is the best there is.

I'm referring, of course, to there not being a 0 star rating. This is without a doubt the most useless, inaccurate, and misleading publication I have ever seen. Why? Well, each entry is followed by translations that are wrong or misspelled or committing some other dictionary-destroying information. To the dictionaries credit I did find that it was about 8% accurate. I calculated this by adding up all the entries (a rather limited and useless compendium of words to begin with) and determined from various sources which were accurate and which were not. About 8 in 100 fit the bill, meaning that 92% of the dictionary is just plain wrong! Since the author does not have the courtesy to point out which entries are properly handled, it leaves you looking like a sucker after buying this book. Do yourself a favor and keep clear of this book. Please keep way clear if you want any chance of learning any Spanish.

This is an extremely helpful book which, while it does have its limitations, provides essential assistance to the linguist, business person and traveller unaware of the differences of expression throughout the Spanish-speaking world. Astonishingly, there doesn't appear to be anything else like it available, so its publication is more than welcome. It also provides a fascinating account of the cultural differences between Spanish-speaking countries and cultures extending from their linguistic diversity. A worthy investment!

I used this book to help me with various clients throughout Latin America. Until I aquired this book, I never realized that to some, I was speaking to them in an entirely different language. We take for granted that English is spoken differently between English speaking countries (Elevator in America, but Lift in Britain), but never even thought that that was the case for Spanish speaking countries. Without this book, my business might have lost valuable contracts simply because we were insulting our clients.