Campaign 2020’s Newest Issue: Translation

A while ago I posted about errors in the Spanish-language translations by @LaCasaBlanca of President @RealDonaldTrump. Yesterday, Jesús Rodríguez at Politico posted an excellent assessment of the translations by Democratic presidential candidates’ websites, “Latino outreach or Google Translate? 2020 Dems bungle Spanish websites.” It’s so spot-on that I wish I had written it myself! A sampling:

“Using Google to translate Spanish text into English is a trick used by high school students to avoid doing their Spanish homework — not something you’d expect to see from candidates for the highest office in the land.”

An English-language reader would think less of a website/letter/poster/correspondence with grammatical or spelling errors, so why not hire a professional translator to do the same for Spanish-language readers? Kudos to Rodríguez for his thorough analysis highlighting the importance of using a pro!