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Using Google to translate Spanish text into English is a trick used by high school students to avoid doing their Spanish homework – which you would not want from candidates to the highest office in the country.
Yet, several Democrat White House candidates seem to be doing just that. They post passages in Spanish on their websites that have striking similarities to the results of Google's translation service. They seem to only perform a minor cleanup before publishing the copy on their sites. While Google Translate can serve as a starting point, it usually takes a human hand to produce a Spanish speaker able to speak with a native speaker.
Each campaign site reviewed by POLITICO contained errors, ranging from minor typos to truly incomprehensible passages. the website Amy Klobuchar, Senator of Minnesota, was appointed shortly after her
20 announcement, address his mother using a masculine adjective. Senator Kamala Harris at one point wrote that she had "wasted" her life defending American democracy. And the website of Julian Castro evokes the possibility of building a "America" that works for everyone, apparently not realizing that he is making promises about the entire American continent.
The Spanish-language sites represent an effort by Democratic candidates to woo the nascent electorate of Latin Americans, estimated at 27 million by Voto Latino, a group that employs to register Latino voters. Apart from good intentions, mistakes may have the opposite effect, causing Spanish speakers to question the seriousness with which candidates take them if they can not even get a basic translation of the language. 39, English to Spanish.
Kamala Harris
"That's the gateway to the campaign. And that's indicative, "said Lisa Navarrete, a counselor at UnidosUS, the oldest Latino rights organization in the United States. "If you do not invest in that … it will tell us that maybe you are not taking the other aspects of communicating with the community as seriously."
POLITICO's review looked at everything from basic grammar to using idioms to aligning the text with the often mediocre translation generated by Google. The candidates were divided into three categories: the best in their class, the average performers and the truly troubled.
Three candidates, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang and John Delaney, had failures for not having any websites in Spanish, while the sites of Beto O'Rourke and Senator Bernie Sanders were incomplete.
| first name | Quality | Remarks | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Cory Booker | A- | Largely error-free, only minor typos |
 |
Tulsi Gabbard | A- | Largely error-free, only minor typos |
 |
Kamala Harris | A- | Improvement observed during the semester |
 |
Jay Inslee | A- | Good use of technical language on climate change |
Although all candidates made at least some errors, some were far superior to others.
Harris had a difficult start with his website in Spanish. At the end of January, a former congressional employee had noticed that she had misused the word "gastar" – the Spanish verb "to waste" – to spend her life "defending the values of our country". Former employee Frederick Velez III wondered why campaigns have not put more effort into hiring a diverse workforce.
The publication Latino Rebels also highlighted other errors of his site.
Harris has recovered since that fall. Her Spanish site is virtually error-free, and she took the extra step of providing real-time translation at a March 1st country town hall in Nevada. Harris has also hired Latinos in several key positions, including campaign manager and digital organizer. Its campaign chairman is Dolores Huerta, an icon of labor rights.
Booker did the same. He gave one of the first interviews at Univisión, after his announcement of February 1, in Spanish.
Where the text of Google Translate matches the text of the campaign
Cory Booker, A-
The Booker website has some apparent changes to the Google Translate release, which shows that a great cleanup has been done to make the language more familiar and easier to read.
English site
When Cory's parents tried to settle in a neighborhood with a good school district, no one sold them a house because of the color of their skin. A group of volunteer lawyers, who had attended what had happened on Bloody Sunday in 1965 and who had been inspired by the idea of helping black families from their own community, intervened to help the family find their home.
Google Exact Translation
United States of Cory intentaron mudarse a a vecindario cunt a buen distrito escolar, Nadie The vendería a casa debido al su piel color. A group of volunteers abogados, who visto that sucedó el domingo sangriento in 1965 y is inspired Tell us about what you said in the families, click here to see the description of the family.
Campaign Translation
United States of Cory intentaron mudarse a una comunidad cunt buenas escuelas, Nadie The quería seller a casa sólo por el su piel color. Read more on the blood in the 1960s, a group of volunteer abogados are inspiraron ayudar a familias afroamericanas su su comunidad y se ofrecieron a prover ayuda to the familia from Cory to get a hogar.
Remarks
Excellent Spanish compared to your peers.
Frequent errors
A reference to football on your website should be translated to "American football", otherwise it makes no sense to show you a picture of you on epaulets if you played football.
"My Spanish is not perfect, but I want to speak directly to people", Booker told Univisión. The former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, learned the essentials of his Spanish through a language immersion program in Ecuador, where he lived in a host family. He had also studied the language in Mexico.
Two less known candidates also demonstrate competence. Representative Tulsi Gabbard's (D-Hawaii) Spanish website is relatively clear, and she shows a cultural sensitivity by using the term "voluntario / a" to include the female and male gender. The governor of Washington State, Jay Inslee, whose platform is based on the fight against climate change, uses mainly terms appropriate for a highly technical subject.
Jay Inslee and Tulsi Gabbard
| first name | Quality | Remarks | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Julián Castro | B + | Overall well, requires special attention to detail, see entry forms, etc. |
 |
Kirsten Gillibrand | B + | Needs to clean titles, translate videos |
Castro, former secretary of housing and urban development, has a complicated relationship with the Spanish language. Only Latino on the field, he announced his candidacy in English and Spanish at an event in San Antonio, Texas, on a mariachi trumpet melody.
But Castro acknowledged that he did not speak the language fluently. This is how he represents a broad band of Hispanic Americans with an immigrant background who grew up entirely in the United States.
Julián Castro
- The format of the date in Spanish would be: "11 de enero del 2019."
- "Duda" is a feminine name, so "no doubt" should be "Ninguna duda".
- Conjugations of verbs in the subjunctive are difficult. It would be "a vision that our una, none that our divida."
- "Hungry for" means "hungry for" in Spanish, so it should be "hambre". Visión is feminine, so look at the article that precedes it – should be "una". Also, America is generally used to refer to the Hemisphere, not "United States"
"I speak a little Spanish, I do not speak fluently," said Castro. told NPR's LatinoUSA podcast in February, in which he also discussed the abuses faced by his mother, a Chicana activist in Texas, included corporal punishment for speaking the language. "We beat the Spaniards out of families. Because of this, families made the decision to devote themselves very often to teaching English to their children because they thought that it allowed them to progress.
But his website still contains rookie mistakes, like calling the United States "America" rather than "Estados Unidos" and being inconsistent between the informal and the formal.
The passages on Castro's Spanish website are also very similar to the text translated by Google, which leads to clumsy sentences.
Where the text of Google Translate matches the text of the campaign
Julián Castro, B +
Castro's translation largely corresponds to the translation generated by Google, but in his case, the sentences are consistent. Other errors are however visible on the site.
English site
America is not only my home and my country, it is always the promise of a better life. A promise that every American deserves.
My path to public service did not start with me. It started when my grandmother, Victoria, arrived in the United States at the age of seven. She never passed the fourth grade, but worked hard to teach her family the value of hard work while she was cleaning houses and working as a housekeeper.
Google Exact Translation
United States of America no solo mi hogar there My days, if they are promised for a wedding day. A promise that todo estadounidense merece.
My company in the public service does not contain. About companies, Victoria, Victoria, United States and United States. Nunca pasó del cuarto grado, pero traito arduously to get to know the price of the road during the months and days of the week and the night.
Campaign Translation
United States of America no solo mi hogar o mi país – if there is a day for the trip. A promise that todo estadounidense merece.
My company in the public service does not contain. About companies, Victoria, Victoria, United States and United States. Nunca superó el cuarto grado, pero traito duro to get to know the price of the road during the months and days of the week and the night.
Remarks
Castro strives to write well, but could ask someone to check his work.
Frequent errors
Other parts of the website include badly translated email and phone number fields, grammatical errors on his blog and the repetition of formal and informal pronouns in his registration form to the list server.
Castro also runs a blog on his website, but the Spanish version is fraught with typing mistakes. And many entries in English are not translated at all in Spanish.
The campaign did not return repeated requests for comments.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has had a tense relationship with the immigrant community, having already backed a step in her political career that would have made English the official language of New York, where 19% of the population is Hispanic, according to Pew .
Until his recent official launch of the campaign, the Spanish presidential candidate's website presented a video presenting Gillibrand's antecedents to readers, but did not offer any translation or subtitles, which made it inaccessible to Spanish-speakers. Other campaigns with videos also have this flaw.
Prior to its relaunch, the website had also submitted a political proposal with a title combining English and Spanish.
"Members of the military service and veterans, national security and firearms safety, military, veterans, national regulators of the right to defense," says the title.
| first name | Quality | Remarks | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Elizabeth Warren | C + | Has shown a dramatic improvement, but errors remain |
 |
Amy Klobuchar | C | A large majority of the text is directly related to the output of Google Translate, resulting in errors. |
Elizabeth Warren
- United States is a plural noun, which should be "United States we enjoy".
- "The edge of the middle class" does not really mean "on the edge of the media class".
- Estados Unidos is a plural noun, again, but this sentence also does not read well because of the repetition.
- This should use the preposition "of".
- The verb "conocer" is generally used to refer to people or places of encounter – it would be much better to say "Aprenda más".
Kirsten Orthman, a spokeswoman for the campaign, said of the mistakes: "A handful of typos have been brought to our attention and we are in the process of correcting them. We also continue to update our website – the English and Spanish versions. And yes, we have Latinx employees working on that and we are still working to expand our content and make it as strong as possible. "
The Warren campaign also uncovered some errors after POLITICO flagged them by asking for a comment.
The Klobuchar Spanish site may contain the most glaring errors, leaving readers wondering whether the text has been copied and pasted directly from Google Translate.
Line by line, the text is almost identical.
Where the text of Google Translate matches the text of the campaign
Amy Klobuchar, C
The overwhelming majority of the main text on Klobuchar's website perfectly matches Google Translate, which causes unfortunate translations like this one, in which she says she talks from inside the Mississippi River.
English site
On a cold February day in Minneapolis, on the mighty Mississippi River, with thousands of friends and supporters at my side, I announced that I was running for the presidency of the United States. As I said that day in the heart of our country, we must heal the heart of our democracy and renew our commitment to the common good.
Google Exact Translation
In a February month in Minneapolis, Mississippi, with thousands of friends and similar players, it is usually placed under the presidency of United States. You are here to learn more about the behavior of the nation, the content of the declaration of democracy and the renewal of our compromise.
Campaign Translation
In a February month in Minneapolis, Mississippi, with thousands of friends and similar players, it is usually placed under the presidency of United States. You are here to learn more about the behavior of the nation, the content of the declaration of democracy and the renewal of our compromise.
Remarks
Klobuchar could follow in the footsteps of other candidates by making more changes to the text to make it familiar and fluid.
Frequent errors
Spanish readers can tell when the wrong kind is used to refer to your mother!
The English text of Klobuchar, written in a familiar way for the apparent purpose of emphasizing the senator's roots in the American Midwest, speaks to the past of his parents and grandparents in the working class and their struggles to help their children reach post-secondary education. But "sending" someone to college does not translate to "enviar," a verb that Klobuchar most commonly uses for mailings or e-mails.
The text also contains disagreements about sex and number, including the use of a masculine adjective and plural verb conjugation for Klobuchar's mother.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the campaign wrote that "she hired a native Spanish speaking professional translator to translate [the] Trill Multicultural, a company based in D.C., disputed the errors reported by POLITICO, saying it was a simple choice of words and that only a knowledgeable professional would be able to note the details.
"We will always correct mistakes and make the necessary improvements," said Klobuchar's campaign.
Amy Klobuchar
- This preposition means that a person is in the river, not near or near it.
- "Abuelo" should be followed by "quien" – who – not "que", which means "that". In addition, the numbers in Spanish are separated by dots instead of commas (1500).
- "Enviar a la universidad" is not really an idiom in Spanish – the verb is used to designate the sending of parcels or letters.
- Here, used "an orgulloso", a masculine article and an adjective, to refer to your mother. Try "una orgullosa miembro."
- Here, a verb conjugation on "brindaron" is used to refer to the word "mother", which is a singular noun.
Navarrete, the UnidosUS advisor, acknowledges that it is reasonable to expect that some campaign websites are not perfect.
But Buttigieg, Yang and Delaney's campaign websites have no equivalent in Spanish. Only this week, Buttigieg claims he could interview his Spanish local radio station in Spanish while talking about his eight language skills.
Neither the Buttigieg campaign nor the Yang campaign have sent repeated requests for comment.
Michael Starr Hopkins, national press attaché for Delaney's campaign, said the website had just been revived and that the former Maryland congressman was working on publishing a site. Web in Spanish. "We plan to campaign for the votes of all members of this primary, including Latinx voters, which is why we are going to campaign in the 50 states during the primary."
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Beto O'Rourke, However, they have only launched landing pages for their sites, so they have less text to translate. Other campaigns they have promoted in the past, such as Sanders' 2016 presidential race or O'Rourke's 2018 Texas Senate race, have been appropriately copied. Despite this, both campaigns made mistakes.
Bernie Sanders and Beto O 'Rourke
President Donald Trump belongs to an entirely different category and is not suitable for Spanish speakers interested in his policy. He did not have a Spanish website during his 2016 campaign, and his official White House website does not have one either. The same goes for his reelection campaign.
Helen Aguirre Ferré, one of the greatest Latins of the administration, has explained The decision not to launch an official Spanish website last summer stating, "As important as it is to have something in Spanish, I think most of us actually speak very good english. And I would like to see something in Spanish, but is it the most necessary thing we need? I do not think that's the case. "
About a month later, she left her position as Director of Media Relations.
Conception and realization by Lily Mihalik.
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