A copy of Cook This Book lays on the kitchen table | Translated into Spanish by Pili Rodríguez Deus and published in 2023

Localisation

using a particular regional language variant so that your copy resonates with a specific audience and is useful to them. Examples: a cookbook, a website.

While all translations involve some localisation (in plain terms, adaptation), some require considerable adaptation and/or contextualisation.

The measures, oven temperatures and food terms used by Spanish speakers from the USA will be totally different to those used by Spanish speakers from Spain. At the same time, food terminology varies immensely between Spain and Latin America. Convention ovens are a lot more popular in the UK than in the US or in Spain. A non-specialist or untrained translator would not know when or how to adapt these indispensable aspects.

With a website, to give just an example, your sense of humour might not necessarily work with the Spanish reader and your references might not be relevant. As well as that, keywords and on- and off- page metadata need to be localised for your target Spanish readers or clients to find you on the wide web. Translating keywords and metadata literally will, often, result on unnatural texts or keywords that your target reader is not looking for.

Read more about that on the Spanish SEO translation services page.

Localisation rates

Spanish localisation services are charged per hour or project. Localisation rates reflect the specialised knowledge and the extra time and care these texts require. For example, a cookbook involves painful attention to detail and careful revision (there are lots of figures and symbols to transfer and adapt and you don’t want to omit any ingredient, for example). This slows down the work compared to a general text. As we saw, it also requires specialist knowledge.

Read more about it in these cookbook localisation case studies.

Web page localisation testimonial

I hired Pili to translate some pages of my website into Spanish because I was looking for a creative translator that would work with me to achieve a great result. Pili proved to be an extraordinarily detail-oriented translator. She cares about getting every aspect of your translation right and she’ll leave no stone unturned until you’re happy with the terminology choices, style and tone. I cannot recommend her highly enough and she will be my go-to translator for future projects of this kind.

Nikki Graham @ nikkigrahamtranix.com

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