Discrepancies in Translations

Question

(I'm not sure if I categorized it right. I can always change it.) Changed by afowen

There is someone who will edit my Spanish translations! (Hurray!) He is originally from Mexico and we have already some differences in spelling and choice of words. Since SD is faster than any snail mail, I thought someone here could maybe offer any ideas why there would be a difference.

1. Using the Spanish word for tract, I put in "tracto", but he used "folleto". Is there a difference that I may be over looking?

2. He doesn't insert the "¿" at all, when asking questions.

3. I use "también"; he uses "tamvien". Could this be a regional difference?

Thanks in advance.

I changed the category to vocabulary and Grammar for you. - afowen, Feb 13, 2013

Is he a literate person...well educated? - lagartijaverde, Feb 13, 2013

Lagartita, reasonable question. - annierats, Feb 13, 2013

Thanks afowen. - SaigeSmith, Feb 13, 2013

I am unsure LagartijaVer. - SaigeSmith, Feb 13, 2013

Answer 1

Hi there.

I'm not sure about 1, I'm not a native speaker but maybe there is a regional use of folleto that makes the suggestion correct. Folleto translates here as pamphlet or brochure, and the RAE description is:

1. m. Obra impresa, no periódica, de reducido número de hojas.
2. m. desus. Gacetilla manuscrita que contenía regularmente las noticias del día.

Lot's of people don't use the '¿', I imagine out of laziness, it is incorrect to omit it.

Tamvien is a misspelling. It's not unsual to see people to mix their bs with their vs and ys with lls!

To me it seems incredible, but even as easy as Spanish is to spell, it is common to see errors. I have a friend in Peru who is studying law, but she still misspells stuff all the time when we chat, although I think some of it might be on purpose. - BigMike, Feb 13, 2013

I think that the errors actually come from the fact that it's so easy to spell. Spelling in English is far from intuitive, because of that we have to put a lot of effort into learning to spell. Spanish is easy and thus I suppose that there is little... - afowen, Feb 13, 2013

... focus on spelling and thus it's common to see ll/y, v/b errors etc. - afowen, Feb 13, 2013