Tweaked Spanish Healthcare Site Needs Grammar Lessons

Spanish-speakers looking for help and guidance in navigating the new healthcare program have waited long and hard for the Spanish version of the government's Web site to be up and running. After some tweaks here and there the Spanish site was once again welcoming Hispanic visitors to come in and get educated and informed on Obamacare.

And they are disappointed.

It seems that the technical problems have not been completely worked out, with visitors running into some of the usual dead ends they experienced before. Other times links are reported to send users back to the English-language site they weren't able to understand in the first place.
Complaints are streaming in on CuidadoDeSalud.gov, which many say has very bad Spanish; so bad in fact, many say the translations must have been done by computer.

And then sometimes the quality of the Spanish usage is just plain bad.

"When you get into the details of the plans, it's not all written in Spanish. It's written in Spanglish, so we end up having to translate it for them," said Adrian Madriz of Miami to the AP.

Much has been made of the Web site using the word "prima" for "premium" when the former usually refers to a female cousin.

"Don't be alarmed if your female cousin goes up next year," quips Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post. "What? Goes up where? Carrie, are you okay? 'Your female cousin will stay the same.' Gee, that's easy for you to say."

Unfortunately, as ThinkProgress points out, the government record on Spanish-language Web sites has a few glitches that go beyond health care.

In 2013 the New Jersey state Web site that provided information to Spanish-speaking residents affected by Superstorm Sandy was plagued with inaccurate information such as deadlines and office hours, and was conspicuously absent of information on how to file appeals if the original request for aid was denied.

The Spanish-language voter registration cards in Maricopa County, Arizona advertised the wrong election date, which officials chalked up to a "clerical error" (which in some cases didn't get fixed after being discovered).

And ThinkProgress also points to a handful of Republican candidates for elected office who noticeably toned down their border security and immigration rhetoric on the Spanish versions of their Web sites.