.:Hablamos Juntos :.

Developing Quality Spanish Language Materials

Imagine a limited English speaking patient who may have chicken pox looking up the words “chicken” and “pox” in a Spanish/English dictionary – or someone with liver spots trying to understand what spots on his liver have to do with the brown patches on his arm. Countless common English phrases – including many medical terms – take on a whole new meaning when they are translated word by word into another language.

Doctors often rely on written materials to supplement their diagnosis or relay other important information to their patients. Complex health information written in English can be difficult even for English-speaking patients to understand fully. For limited English speaking patients, a lack of (or poor quality) written materials in the patients’ native languages can lead to misunderstandings and inadequate follow-up or treatment.

Hablamos Juntos is working to address this challenge by equipping the people within healthcare organizations who are responsible for the availability of quality Spanish language materials with tools to do the following:

Establish policies and procedures related to translation and the production of Spanish language materials;
Distinguish situations requiring the development of new Spanish materials from scratch from situations in which translations from English will suffice;
Judge the quality of Spanish materials;
Work effectively with translators; and
Utilize specialized tools developed by Hablamos Juntos to support the development and use of Spanish materials.

These topics will be covered extensively in our Resource Guide , which will be available on this website in September 2005. In the meantime, we hope you’ll explore this section of the site to learn more about the activities grantees have undertaken to provide local LEP populations with quality Spanish language materials, some of the basic building blocks of translation, common errors made in translation from English to Spanish, and other resources that may be of use to you.