Lots of great advice!  In addition to translating our room labels into Spanish, we’ve also just completed translating our audio tour into French, Portuguese and Creole in addition to the English and Spanish that we originally offered.  We ran into many of the issues cited by other posters, particularly with the different “versions” of Spanish.  We called what we were aiming for “neutral” Spanish J  In addition to the professional translators associated with the production, we found it to be incredibly useful/necessary to have additional native speakers, and also ones who are familiar with our institution specifically (it’s quirky) as well as art and historical terms as additional editors and proofers.  In addition, we too utilized our volunteers who were native Spanish speakers for these projects. 

We always strove for accuracy of translation as opposed to literal.  In addition, these “extra” proofers and editors provided invaluable guidance regarding cultural issues that non-natives, and non-professionals (translators, art historians, historians, etc.) simply couldn’t or didn’t catch.  We also found their guidance necessary in choosing the appropriate voices and tones for these tours, many of which had cultural implications that to “English ears” just went un-noticed so we’ve been very grateful for this additional, subtle, yet very important input into a final quality product.

For our written materials, we currently utilize English and Spanish as those are the major languages mostly used by our community.  English appears on top with Spanish immediately underneath.  In our Family Guides, the languages are differentiated by color of text but are in the same font and size as English. For our room labels, there is a line separating the two texts, all font and sizes are the same, and we use more subtle color variations between the two languages to help distinguish.

We provide completely separate visitor maps for English and Spanish and soon will provide the same for Portuguese, French and Creole.

Thanks,

Ann

Ann M. Loshaw

Deputy Director for Learning

Vizcaya Museum and Gardens

3251 South Miami Avenue

Miami, FL 33129

tel: 305-860-8436

fax: 305-285-2004

"Delivering Excellence Every Day"

From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John E Simmons
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2011 11:35 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Bilingual Exhibit Labels

Several years ago, I was involved with a project to translate a number of labels from English to Spanish for a natural history museum.  A widespread language such as Spanish has many variations in vocabulary, so one of our concerns was to use a "universal" Spanish.  The labels were translated into Spanish by a native speaker, not in a literal translation, but rather a translation of meaning. 

I then recruited a group of volunteer native speakers from several countries to review the translations. After feeding the group Thanksgiving dinner, while we were all gathered around the table, the text of each label was read aloud and the group then worked to eliminate any words or phrases that were country-specific (this was a real problem with names for several of animals).  Once that was done, I  coached the group on how to get the label text to a suitable readability level.  By reading each draft of the text aloud to the group, we were able to come up with not just good labels, but labels that read smoothly.

If you have members of the language group you wish to translate to living in your community, this can be a great way to recruit volunteers and raise the level of interest in your museum. 

--John

John E. Simmons
Museologica
128 E. Burnside Street
Bellefonte, Pennsylvania 16823-2010
[log in to unmask]
303-681-5708
www.museologica.com
and
Adjunct Curator of Collections
Earth and Mineral Science Museum & Art Gallery
Penn State University
University Park, Pennsylvania
and
Lecturer in Art
Juniata College
Huntingdon, Pennsylvania

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