This site uses cookies. Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site, while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used. For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
Cookie settings
cargos
Técnico en gastronomía
Jun 30, 2016 21:39
7 yrs ago
14 viewers *
Spanish term

Secretaría Técnica para el Servicio de organización...

Spanish to English Other Government / Politics
Hi everyone,

Any suggestions on how to translate "Secretaría Técnica para el Servicio de organización" in the following sentence?

"Secretaría Técnica para el Servicio de organización de siete (7) seminarios técnicos sobre gobierno y administración electrónica, dirigidos a técnicos de los ayuntamientos de la provincia de menos de 20.000 habitantes."

It's literally the first sentence of a section titled "Organisation of the seminars", even though it's not really a complete sentence. I would be inclined to put "Technical Secretariat for the organisation of seven seminars..." and omit "service" to make it sound more natural but I'm not entirely sure if I'm even understanding it correctly. The seminars are offered by a local council so it may be some sort of a body within this council.

Thanks for your help!
Proposed translations (English)
4 (secretarial services for the) organisation of
2 Coordinating Committee responsible for the organization

Discussion

Marcelo González Jul 1, 2016:
Servicios de ¿secretaría o secretariado? If it is, in fact, a private company, maybe the author confused 'secretaría' with what might be more accurately called 'secretariado'? And yes, the capital letters certainly didn't help. ;-)
philgoddard Jul 1, 2016:
Thanks!
Kerry Taylor (asker) Jul 1, 2016:
This seems to be another source using the term in the same way...

http://www.bicgipuzkoa.eus/wp-content/uploads/LICITACIÓN-co...
Kerry Taylor (asker) Jul 1, 2016:
Sorry, I forgot to answer your question. It isn't an invitation to tender but like I said the context is similar.
Kerry Taylor (asker) Jul 1, 2016:
You might have hit the nail on the head! Something didn't add up because the text keeps saying "nuestra empresa" did this or that to assist in organising the seminars and an initial data protection statement refers to a private company to which a service is subcontracted. Goodness me, why do they have to be so wordy? And why put it in capitals?
philgoddard Jul 1, 2016:
If you want to keep the idea of "secretaría", you could say "provision of secretarial services in relation to the organisation of..."
philgoddard Jul 1, 2016:
Is this an invitation to tender like this one, which uses the same phrase?
http://www.euskadi.eus/gobierno-vasco/contenidos/anuncio_con...
If so, I think it's just a very wordy way of saying "organising the seminars" - I don't think it's a department or committee.

And nine times out of ten, "technical" is an incorrect translation for "técnico".

Proposed translations

17 hrs
Selected

(secretarial services for the) organisation of

See the discussion box.

You could arguably leave out the bit in brackets - "secretarial" makes me think of typing pools and photocopying, and I would argue that the word is going out of fashion. "Secretaría" is often best translated as something like "administration".

I would include a translator's note explaining why the English is so much shorter than the Spanish.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 17 hrs (2016-07-01 15:03:07 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

My suspicions about the decline of "secretarial" are confirmed - it reached its peak in about 1980.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=secretarial&yea...
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thank you for your extremely helpful insight!"
42 mins

Coordinating Committee responsible for the organization

Although the word exists (and was the name of a famous thoroughbred, in fact) "Secretariat" isn't much used in English.
Something went wrong...
Close search
Term search
  • All of ProZ.com
  • Term search
  • Jobs
  • Forums
  • Multiple search