Sometimes your Spanish counterpart has to be manipulated.

[Cholo234]

<<Sometimes your Spanish counterpart has to be manipulated.>>'

I'm trying to find a good way to express that the letters in Spanish counterparts (words in Spanish that express the same meaning as a word in English) sometimes have to be changed in order to spell the word correctly. If anyone can suggest a better way to say this, I would appreciate it.

(I won't give any examples now because I assume that the forum discourages the use of foreign words that aren't in an English dictionary.)

 

[The Newt]

It's not clear what you mean by "counterparts." Do you mean "cognates"?

 

[Cholo234]

I used counterparts to signify words having the same linguistic derivation as another; from the same original words or roots (the definition for cognates).

Marcus Santamaría uses four classes of words that be "converted" from English into Spanish with only a few "adjustments": (1) English words that end in -ity (identity), (2) English words that end in -ate (liberate), (3) English words that end in -tion (communication), and (4) English words that end in -ic (plastic).

 

[Tegs]

<<Sometimes your Spanish counterpart has to be manipulated.>>'

I thought this was about manipulating colleagues in a Spanish branch of a company when I first read it, so it's not the clearest sentence, in my opinion.

I'd say "you often need to tweak/ change the spelling of an English word to get its Spanish equivalent."

I've studied Spanish (and other languages) for years and have never heard the word "counterpart" used as you use it. If your students are used to your terminology, fine, but if they aren't then I'd recommend not using it this way.

 

[kentix]

Manipulated is also the wrong sense. That often suggests either trickery or using your hands specifically. (man- Latin hand). You want the word "modified".

 

[The Newt]

[...]

I'd say "you often need to tweak/ change the spelling of an English word to get its Spanish equivalent."
[...]

"The corresponding Spanish word has to be tweaked" would be good.

 

[Chasint]

One possibility is transliterate.

Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters in predictable ways
Wikipedia

 

[Ikwik64]

You could say:
"Many Spanish words resemble the corresponding English words, but with slight differences in spelling".

 

[Tegs]

"The corresponding Spanish word has to be tweaked" would be good.

You're not tweaking the Spanish though. If you're trying to make Spanish words out of English ones, it's the English ones - your starting point - that you're tweaking

 

[Tegs]

One possibility is transliterate.

It's not transliteration. That's adapting a word from a non-Latin script (e.g. Kanji) to Latin script.

 

[Cholo234]

If your students are used to your terminology, fine, but if they aren't then I'd recommend not using it this way.

Yes.

"Many Spanish words resemble the corresponding English words, but with slight differences in spelling".

In my attempt "to avoid the obvious," I avoided using the word translate in the passive voice. The following sentence uses "can be translated": "Many English words can be translated to Spanish words by tweaking them."

 

[Chasint]

It's not transliteration. That's adapting a word from a non-Latin script (e.g. Kanji) to Latin script.

I understand your point but I'm not sure why you specifically mention Latin script - surely it applies to any two different scripts.

The Spanish alphabet is not the same as the English one.

For many years this was the official Spanish alphabet:

a, b, c, ch, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, ll, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z

So in older Spanish dictionaries words beginning with "ch" are listed in a separate section after the rest of the "c" words, and words beginning with "ll" are listed after the rest of the "l" words. However, in 2010 the Real Academia Española, which is basically in charge of the official Spanish language, decided that "ch" and "ll" should no longer be considered distinct letters. This leaves us with a 27-letter alphabet:

a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z

Note that Spanish words with "k" are almost entirely of foreign origin and there is also the modified letter ü and the acute accent.

In my judgement , even a single symbol difference is enough to qualify as transliteration. In the case of Spanish and English, some of the letters do not even have the same sound, so you must transliterate from one symbol to another.

_____________________________________________
Note to moderators - Although I show the Spanish alphabet here, this post is not about the Spanish language - it is entirely about the definition of the English word transliteration as it applies to Spanish.

 

[Tegs]

surely it applies to any two different scripts.

The Spanish alphabet is not the same as the English one.

Spanish and English are both based on the Latin script. As are many other modern European languages. Transliteration doesn't cover Spanish to English. It covers Greek into English or Arabic into English or Japanese into English.

 

[kentix]

Or Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs into Latin letters. The language being conveyed is still Ancient Egyptian, but it's spelled using Latin letters to make it easier to write and discuss in academic contexts. It's not a translation into a different (modern) language.

People learning Spanish in school learn Spanish with the Spanish alphabet. It's not transliterated into an English alphabet but still read as Spanish. It may be translated into English words (and spellings), but that's different.

 

[Cholo234]

Manipulated is also the wrong sense. That often suggests either trickery or using your hands specifically. (man- Latin hand). You want the word "modified".

Okay. If I understand your post correctly, you're talking about the literal use of language -- of English in specific, and any figurative use of language in my sentence would not be "correct" in this context, so using "manipulated" is, in essence, not "correct." (So in other contexts, the figurative (metaphorical) use of language would be okay?) I'm posting this because I'm thinking "manipulated" would reflect or could reflect the figurative use of language.

 

[kentix]

Basically, manipulate has two common meanings. One is that you literally take some physical object in your hands (or under the control of your hands) and push it or pull it or turn it or stretch it or press on it or whatever. You obviously can't do that with words.

The other meaning has a negative connotation. Here's the dictionary definition.

1. to manage or influence skillfully and often unfairly: He could manipulate people's feelings to get his way.

This also doesn't make any sense in the context.