My son and I read Spanish on packages to see how skillful the translation is. We are always shocked by gross grammar errors, spectular spelling mistakes, and wrong word use. Sometimes the meaning is completely different.
I wonder how there can be so many errors in just one product description. A few sample errors from one product: “Soporta caidas y abolla duras”, “Cpuede trabajar” and “de alta o bajas temperraturas” Google’s Translator and AltaVista Babel Fish are two of the many translation programs on the Net. Itried some phrases using BabelFish and they came out much better than the product description.
How can we claim to be preparing students for a global world when our USA students have such a low degree of fluency in even one language?
How can other nations expect to compete in the global market if these nations cannot translate English into Spanish for bilingual packaging?
Let’s teach Spanish the way that people speak it so our students can use their new language. Let’s use technology such as videoconferencing to have our students have real conversations with Spanish speaking people so that they can be fluent in Spanish! Or we can Skype people in Spanish speaking countries so students interact and speak globally!
Can your students communicate in another language to be more global?
© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007
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Education with Technology Harry G. Tuttle 
I, too, have been amazed at gross Spanish errors on package labels. I have been assuming that those responsible for such labels are not sufficiently interested in linguistic matters, or do not give correctness in a foreign language sufficient importance, to take the relatively simple steps necessary to generate a correct simple Spanish statement. The responsible parties are getting by with the junk Spanish they use, so they (1) don’t have to expend more energy getting the job done correctly; and (2) don’t have to spend any money on getting the Spanish straightened out. At times I have even considered offering to correct the junk Spanish at no charge, just because it grates on my ears and eyes!! (lol)
Nice post. I learn something totally new and challenging on sites I stumbleupon every day.
It’s always interesting to read articles from other authors and use a little something from their web sites.