One common myth about translators are that they are “walking dictionaries”. Even though they have a lot of knowledge about various languages, their real expertise lays in utilizing the tools available, and coupled with their experience, make correct use of the language.
In this post we will reveal a few good webpages and organizations translators frequently use to update themselves on language related topics, specifically the Spanish language. These pages can help you improve your Spanish, being a Spanish student, a fluent speaker, native or working in the field of translation.
The Spanish Royal Academy
The Spanish Royal Academy, or RAE (Real Academia Española), is based in Madrid and is Spain’s official royal institution with a mission to «ensure the stability of the Spanish language». It was founded in 1713, and King Philip V approved its constitution on 3 October 1714, placing it under the Crown’s protection. In 1741 they released the first edition of «Ortografía», setting a norm for the Spanish language. Now the RAE has several affiliates offices, based in every Spanish speaking country.
On their webpage www.RAE.es you can find free online dictionaries and get access to a “quick doubts” category, and they will happily help you with any doubts you have about the Spanish language.
Quick links:
https://dle.rae.es/ - Dictionary
https://www.rae.es/portal-linguistico/dudas-rapidas - “Quick Doubts”
FundéuRAE
The Foundation of Emerging Spanish (Fundación del Español Urgente) is a
non-profit organization founded in 2005
in Madrid, Spain.
The main purpose of FundéuRAE is to maintain the unity and “purity” of the Spanish language, amongst others.
In 2008 they released the Wikilengua (https://www.wikilengua.org/), a Wikipedia style webpage where you can resolve doubts and share info about the practical use of Spanish.
On their official webpage https://www.fundeu.es/ you can also get various recommendations, consult doubt you have and ask specific questions related to the use of Spanish.
Instituto Cervantes
The Cervantes institute was created in 1991 to promote universally the teaching, studying and use of Spanish. This is also the organization that issues the official language diplomas for foreign speakers, called the DELE (Diplomas de Español como Lengua Extranjera).
In 1997, the Cervantes institute created a Virtual Centre (Centro Virtual Cervantes - CVC). Here they offer material and services for Spanish teachers, students, translators, journalists, and other professionals that works with the Spanish language.
On https://cvc.cervantes.es/ you can find all types of info about literature, language, art and science. The key objective of CVC is to help avoiding all kind of grammatical and orthographical errors possible.
Quick links:
https://www.cervantes.es/ - Main page of Cervantes Institute
https://examenes.cervantes.es/ - Language diploma for foreign speakers.
Apart from these three institutions there are several webpages offering less official information. Always be careful and critical when using information from non-official sites. Below you will find two webpages that are frequently used by translators and that are considered fairly trustworthy.
One difficult part of the language, for students and natives alike, is the use of accents (tilde in Spanish). On their webpage https://www.llevatilde.es you can quickly look up any word to see if it uses an accent or not, and where it should be placed.
WordReference
An extremely helpful and trustworthy dictionary is https://www.Wordreference.com. Here you can easily look up terms, synonyms and antonyms, verb conjugations, grammatical advises and scroll through language forums.
Hope you have enjoyed the list we have provided for you, and that it might be of help learning, or improving your Spanish language skills!
Comments