In Spain, like in the rest of the world, the language translation industry plays an essential role in the economical, cultural and social development of the country.

Over the last decades, translation activities have grown rapidly. Nowadays, the professional translation market is growing at a rate of 6% per annum. This increase has been motivated by various causes, amongst which are technological and scientific advances, the increase of  international relations, growth of the tourism sector, increase of the new information diffusion media, more communication between different linguistic communities, etc.

The Spanish language translation market is composed of two main sectors: the public or institutional and the private sector. The first one includes translation in Institutions and Organizations which depend of the Public Services, National and International Organizations and Companies, Government agencies and departments. The private sector includes translation agencies and companies, editorial translation and freelance translators.

At present, there are around 750 translation agencies and companies working in Spain. More than the half of them are situated in Madrid (36%) and Barcelona (22%), but there are also important translation agencies in the main Spanish cities: Valencia (5%), Seville (9%), Bilbao (9%), etc. A big percentage of the agencies are “virtual translation agencies”, which operate only on the internet.

But the language translation sector is composed mostly of freelance translators. It is estimated that there are 4.000 translators working as a freelance in Spain, a figure which is growing at a significant rate, due to the large number of graduates in Translation and Interpreting that jumps every year in the labour market.

1400 students are graduating each year with a Degree in Translation and Interpreting, in the 25 Centres providing language translation studies in the country. This is a problem because of the big difference between the number of translators and the number  jobs offered. For this reason, a high percentage of professional translators decide to work in foreign countries.

One of the main problems in the profession of translation is intrusion, which is caused by the lack of regulation of the profession in the Spanish law.  This means that anyone with knowledge of another language can work as a translator. Most customers and the society in general think that being able to translate a foreign language is equivalent to knowing a language, which does not fit at all to reality, as translation is an extremely complex task that requires the mastery of a range of skills that go far beyond the knowledge of a language.

Despite these problems, the translation industry is and will remain a major sector with a high rate of growth.  The work of professional translators has become a basic need in all countries over the world.

As the famous Portuguese writer, Jose Saramago, said:

“Writers create the National Literature; Translators produce the Universal Literature”.

For more information about Veritas’s language translation services please visit our website.