Venezuela

To which language should you translate to localize in Venezuela?

“The language spoken in Venezuela is Spanish. Our dialect is derived from Andalusia and the Canary Islands, with influences from Indigenous languages of South America and the Caribbean, African languages, and more recently, Italian and English. So, we are understood in both Spain and all Latin America but some may hear from us words like ‘arepa’, ‘casabe’, ‘chinchorro’ (Native), ‘bemba’, ‘ñame’, ‘cambur’ (African), ‘birra’, ‘chao’, ‘pasticho’ (Italian), and ‘chamo’, ‘cachifa’, ‘cotufa’ (from English).

There are several regional variations, including but not limited to Los Andes, Zulia, Lara, Los Llanos, Margarita and the Central zone, which is the standard form of Venezuelan Spanish. Venezuelans are known for pronouncing all sounds /θ/ like /s/ and for our particular way of aspiring the letter ‘s’. We also often shorten words like ‘pa’ for ‘para’ when speaking, we drop some vowels like ‘pescao’ for ‘pescado’ and we use the diminutive ‘-ico’ instead of the more popular ‘-ito’, just like other Caribbean countries.

So, when localizing to Venezuelan Spanish, as with any other translation, in addition to mastering the local vocabulary, it is important to know certain aspects such as the target audience, text type, geographical region, etc. That way, we can know, among other things, whether to use ‘tú’ or ‘usted’, since ‘vos’ is almost exclusively used in Zulia. What we all don’t use at all is ‘vosotros’ for the plural form of the second person, but ‘ustedes'”.

Official language

Spanish

What the top 150 best localized websites in the world do in Venezuela

(Top 150 websites listed in the Global by Design ranking – published annually by Byte Level Research, this report provides a list of globally localized websites, showcasing best practices and emerging trends in their globalization)

• 62/150 localize by translating into Spanish.
• 1/150 localizes by translating into Venezuelan Sign Language.