Open Schools: Registration

Escuelas Abiertas: Inscripción Sign

Finally something good for the communities in the rural areas of Guatemala. Escuelas Abiertas or Open Schools is a government program which will pay for teachers and tutors to work in public schools on the weekends from 9 to 5 so the kids take art and computer workshops, music, English, as well as physical education programs.

The idea is to open the schools on the weekends so the children of the communities can have a place to hang out and take courses which are not available during the regular school study assignments and without any obligation. If you open the schools on the weekends and providing engaging activities and workshops, perhaps, the kids will stay of gangs and out of the streets.

Spanish word of the day: Inscripción is the correct Spanish term for registration. However, online, for lack of knowledge or for plain laziness, registration forms are known as formularios de registro in Spanish. Registro is the word for record or inspection. Easy does it is the mentality for many web sites in Spanish, thus, they simply change the spelling of English words into Spanish looking words.

For instance, here is a real question asked a while back on a very popular Spanish web site: ¿Es tu registro usable para el usuario? which translates as, Is your registration form useful (usable) for the user? the word useful in terms usability. Now since Spanish is a phonetic language you can write, read and pronounce just about anything; even if it does not make any sense. The two basic problems with the question are registro and usable. even though registro is a Spanish word, is not the right word which should be inscripción. Usable, on the other hand, is not even a Spanish word; the right words in my humble opinion, for usable are útil or amigable. So the question should be: ¿Es tu formulario de inscripción útil (or amigable) para el usuario?

Sadly, however, the Spanish language is losing the battles with registro (inscripción/registration), tráfico (transito/traffic), masacre (matanza/massacre), usable (útil), usabilidad (utilidad/usability), mail (correo), chat (conversar), et-cetera. Can you share with us what other English words are being misused or poorly translated into Spanish?

Escuelas Abiertas: Workshops Registrations

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