What is SpanishUS?

Hi,

I would like to know the rules of the Spanish US target language flavor?

I know that for example the capital letters need to be respected, and the punctuation rules are the same as in english.

What bout the dates? Should they be in Spanish format, or english?

Hi Nabylm.

Some time ago, I found something about "La Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española", check this link, look that they had something related to what you are looking.

ANLE

The truth is that I did not find much difference, but with respect to the dates I think they take the same format of English


Maybe someone us help.

Exactly, dates remain in English format. Also, I think capital letters mirror the english source, as opposed to the RAE rule. Is that right?

Exactly, capital letters remain as they are in English. Just like punctuations in numbers.

Are there other rules for such flavour Maximiliano? Or is it mainly preferential, depending on each client or target audience? Also, what about "anglicisms" , are they accepted?

I'd say that some anglicisms may be well received by the audience, but I wouldn't encourage them.

Spanish US does not actually exist in any book, so, as you say, we should always take into account the target audience.

And what about measurement units? Should we use inches, pounds and other imperial units in SpanishUS or should we use metrics?

The audience knows the imperial system and the metric system will cause confusions.
I had a doubt about that asked in this thread: http://www.english-spanish-translato...cal-forms.html

Indeed santiagop, check out that converstion we had here Measures in medical forms
To sum it up, the metric system you'll use will depend on the target audience, the type of document (technical, medical, etc...), and clients' preferences. I think I didnt forget anything...;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by santiagop

And what about measurement units? Should we use inches, pounds and other imperial units in Spanish US or should we use metrics?

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As Nabyl says, rules must be replaced by "usability." For instance, in construction, and for piping, metrics will most probably remain in Imperial (at least for calibers/diameters, maybe for pipe thickness as well) even for LatAm flavors. The same may apply when you talk about bolts/screws sizes and for any construction craft.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Maximiliano

...so, as you say, we should always take into account the target audience.

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That's correct when you think for example about capitalization. Marketing-oriented content may require capitalization when used as a way to highlight the importance of a section, a product/service name, etc. One thing we need to take into account is that certain platforms will not allow special formats (like italics), a way advocated by RAE to refer to publications, for which a workaround is to preserve capitalization as in the English source.

Some clients may even want to avoid straying that much fro RAE's rules, and will prefer to lower casing titles, while keeping product/service names in uppercase for branding purposes.

In summary, total flexibility for which you need to sit down and discuss with your client and, as part of your best practices, make sure you draft a Style Guide for your translators to follow.