Customer Reviews

Spanish for Human Resource Managers: Book/Cassette Package

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This otherwise useful book is marred by a number of grammatical errors and mistranslations. For example, on p. 281, "Wait for the tone" is translated as "Espere por el tono." It should be "espere el tono"--the translation in the book means "wait on behalf of the tone." Tax return is translated as "reembolso impositivo," which actually means "tax refund." "Workers' compensation" is translated as "compensación de obreros," but it is actually called "indemnización por accidentes de trabajo" in Spanish. "Sexual harassment" in Spanish is either "acoso sexual" or "hostigamiento sexual," but not "acosamiento sexual" as indicated in the book. "Final decision" should be "decisión definitiva," not "decisión final," which means "last decision." "Listen for the alarm" is translated as "escuche por la alarma," which means "listen on behalf of the alarm." The bottom line: be VERY careful with this book.

The intent of this book is commendable as its goal is to provide a quick hands on Spanish vocabulary reference that's specific to Human Resources terminology and related vocabulary however there are some serious translation errors not be taken lightly. At first glance this book seems great but as you go through it page by page the errors become evident.

Terminology in a language must be correct and I am surprised at this production by Barron's because they usually do have good educational material even in a foreign language but this one has some really bad translations which a learner of Spanish and even natives have to be aware of since English has great influence in the spoken and written Spanish on the US and Canada.

Some of the many errors include:

1) Contact persona= "la persona de contacto". This is such a literal translation and as a result is incorrect. Sometimes the long phrases are the only equivalents. It s/b "la persona con quien puede hablar"
2) Think about it= Piense en eso. More correctly in Spanish it s/b "Piensalo"
3) How long ago= Hace cuanto. It s/b "Hace cuanto tiempo"
4) Take a seat= Tome un asiento. It s/b "Tome asiento"
5) Mutual Funds= los fondos mutualisitas. Please do not repeat this one. It s/b "fondos mutuales" or "fondos de inversion"
6) Sunglasses= gafas del sol. This is a big grammatical error. It s/b "gafas de sol".

These are just a few examples but the list goes on. The editors of this book should have caught these errors because they could really jeopardize the quality of your Spanish. Even the basic command structure is incorrect. In the book "vamos a... is translated as "let's". That is incorrect. Vamos a = we are going to...." Let's" is a command and requires a special verb form. For example let's work= trabajemos. It cannot be translated as "vamos a trabajar".

All I can say in a nutshell is proceed with caution. The same way this book may help you it may very well embarrass you.

As manager of a small business, I recently needed to communicate at length with a new Spanish speaking employee. This book made it possible! I strongly recommend that EVERY English speaking professional in management invest in this outstanding book-audiocassette package. It has been a life-saver!

For instance, on page 8 it gives "al principio" = "at first" (which is OK depending on context), but then in the very next page it uses the phrase in this sentence: "Al principio, venga al trabajo" ("venga al trabajo" = "come to work").

This makes as little sense in English as it does in Spanish. If you tell an employee, "At first, come to work," the obvious implication is that later he doesn't have to, and it's just as silly in Spanish. At least it gave me much needed comic relief.

That is not the only error in the brief excerpt given. Makes me wonder if anyone actually looked at this thing before sending it to the printer, and it surprises me coming from Barron's -- they've always had a reputation for putting out top-notch materials.

I'll have to take a closer look at their other books before I continue recommending them as wholeheartedly as I did in the past.

It gets 3 stars because all I've seen is the excerpt given here, so I've no idea just how bad the rest of it is. Judging from what I saw, and what I read in a couple of other reviews that brought out some errors, I do agree that you have to be VERY careful about relying too much on this book.