[livius]

It was probably translated by a native speaker of Spanish whose English is good, but not the near-native level you need to translate into a language that is not your own. I'm a Spanish-to-English translator, and I never do translations into Spanish, even though my Spanish is quite good, because the possibility for disaster is too great!

That said, I think most people could understand what the author was trying to say. Translation is expensive, and scientific projects frequently have trouble finding a professional translator. A little editing by a native speaker of English would certainly clear it up. I do a certain amount of volunteer or very low-priced work for things like this.

Still and all, the article was very interesting.

[FastCoyote]

"I'm a Spanish-to-English translator, and I never do translations into Spanish, even though my Spanish is quite good, because the possibility for disaster is too great! "

I translated a manual for an industrial electric motor into Spanish during college. I can only imagine how many people died because of that translation :)