05:04 Feb 10 

No, no, está bien José. Todos los comentarios son bienvenidos y te los agradezco mucho, pues uno va aprendiendo. La verdad es que a veces uno vacila bastante en tomar estas decisiones, sobre todo cuando se trata del mítico "español de Estados Unidos." En mi casa también comemos ejotes (mi esposa es guatemalteca). Pero mis vecinos argentinos comen "chauchas" y, lo que es más divertido aún, ¡untan su pan con "manteca"!

04:10 Feb 10 

Many of the larger stores especially the one that starts with W are putting the translation into SP for many of the things they sell...however, one feels that it is a forced thing sometimes... I just went to my pantry and found these as examples ... Fruit cocktail in heavy syrup... Cóctel de frutas en almibar (in Mexico it is Coctel, not Cóctel, and they din not translate the "heavy" part). Sliced peaches plus description, les llaman duraznos en tajadas para mi son gajos. Green beans les llaman Chauchas ????.

No te quiero discutir, solo hacer observaciones... de niño no conocía yo el "blue cheese" y ahora le sigo llamando blue cheese y no queso azul... en fin, si no es meritoria la traducción, creo que no hay que hacerla porque ahora tengo que ir al diccionario para saber por que a los ejotes (green beanss) les llaman chauchas...

03:27 Feb 10 

Thanks José. Yes, it is a difficult call. I live in the USA and my wife is a native Spanish-speaker (from Central America), so we are in constant contact with people of many national backgrounds, including Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. I agree that many people would just say "peanut butter", but many others (most I think) would say mantequilla de maní (or cacahuate). It's a constant challenge that we face when translating materials into the mythical "US Spanish". The original translator of the piece that we were editing, obviously from a land far in the South, had written "manteca de cacahuate crujiente". Personaly I like my lard smooth, not crunchy! Thanks again to all!

03:19 Feb 10 

MHO is that if it is for the US of A...disregard putting it in SP. It will be just peanut butter... that is all. I thought it was going somewhere else... I do not think you need to translate it.

02:31 Feb 10 

Dear collegues, thank you for your help! I failed to mention that the destination country is the USA, and even though Mexico is our greatest source of immigrants, I chose to avoid a term that is too regional. I have opted for "mantequilla de maní con trozos". I'll award the points to the first person who gave that suggestion, though all of your inputs were most useful.

01:11 Feb 10 

Destination country is important CONTEXT because as you are probably aware, peanuts do not have the same name in Spanish everywhere.