mexiguoren

I really hope that we get the Spanish revised NWT as sson as possible also. I see @Thesauron and @jwhess’s points regarding whether the revised version would be released at the Miami Spanish International convention. I remember in 2014 at the Korea International convention, the revised Korean Bible was released. However, the Korean language is not the native language of so many people all over the world. It was very convenient to release it in Korea since most of the native speaking Korean witnesses in the world were there. Spanish, on the other hand, is the native language of people in at least 20 different countries with a combined population of at least 430,000,000 people distributed among six time zones, more or less. When the revised English Bible was released, they didn’t release it in one country. The did it at the 2013 Annual meeting, but they also tied in seven different branches where English is the main language in at least four of them (USA, UK, Canada, and Australia). I can’t think of the other three at the moment. Maybe the U.S. Virgin Islands, Bahamas, etc. The point is that they released the revised Bible at the same time in all these English speaking countries and then on the same weekend, they replayed the program in other countries and had a total attendance of about 1.4.million people. I seriously doubt that the GB is going to release the revised Spanish Bible only at the Miami Spanish International convention in May and then have everybody keep it a secret until December when the last Spanish International convention will be held in Argentina. The only way I think they would do it is if they tie in all the Spanish speaking branches to the release in Miami and/or record it and replay it on that same weekend in all the other Spanish-speaking countries. Otherwise, they will probably have a special meeting in one of the main Spanish-speaking countries, maybe Spain since the translation department is there or Mexico since most of the audio is recorded there. Then they will probably tie in the other branches and record and replay it on the same weekend in all the Spanish-speaking congregations. It would be great for this to happen in Miami because this would mean that it would happen in May, the sooner the better! But, I feel that it’s going to be something similar to the second option I mentioned in the previous paragraph. The new Jesus book has been available for about a year now, so it feels like this year is going to be special for Spanish speakers as far as the revised NWT is concerned.

I would like to add a little more to what @carlos already mentioned. The English term for the Spanish that is spoken in the American continents is Latin American Spanish. As @carlos mentioned, the main difference is reflected in pronunciation. Namely, this is evident in the written form ’ce’, ’ci’, and ’z’. In these cases, the letters ’c’ and ’z’ are pronounced /s/ in Latin America, some parts of southern Spain, and in most of the Canary Islands which are part of Spain. The other main difference is in the usage of ’vosotros’ which in English is the plural ’you’. In Latin America and most of the Canary Islands it is not used. Instead, a formal plural ’you’ is used (ustedes). In regards to the NWT, the written language is exactly the same except that the NWT does not use ’vosotros’. Instead, it uses the formal plural you ’ustedes’, which is part of the Spanish language but is used less in most of Spain. What is interesting is that many non-witnesses in Latin America use old translations that do use ’vosotros’. People in Latin America have no problem understanding ’vosotros’ and all of its conjugations, it’s just that they normally don’t use it when speaking. Regarding the JW recordings, most of them are done in Mexico which is now called the Central American Branch because the branch was combined with the Central American branches that existed before. Most of the brothers that do the recordings for the videos are Mexican, but some of them are Central American. You almost have to be Mexican or Central American to tell the difference in the accent. One of the ’biggest’ differencea in pronunciation is the /n/ sound, especially at the end of words. Most Mexicans pronounce it /n/ as it is pronounced in Spain. But, Central Americans tend to pronounce it /ŋ/, which is produced using the rear part of the tongue with the rear part of the palate. This is also found among Carribean Spanish speakers and Portuguese speakers. As @carlosmentioned, we really don’t have any serious problems in understanding each other especially when we all try to speak ’standard’ Spanish which anyone who has gone to school has learned. This is due to the fact that all Spanish speaking countries are members of the Spanish Royal Academy which works hard to standardize the language.

Wonderful news! As someone said previously, the revised German Bible might be released on Feb. 2nd. If so, I hope the revised Spanish Bible is coming down the pipe soon!

Very interesting!!! Are you still able to order the current Bibles or are they back-ordered? I remember in the U.S. before the revised Bible was released, it was not possible to order what, at that time, were the current Bibles, so they were simply back-ordered until further notice. Well, the notice later was that there was a revised version available!

I think it depends on how widespread the language is in the world. If you have a language that is spoken in several countries spread out over the world and multiple conventions over a period of time, then most likely they would have a special meeting. But for a language that is not as widespread and if you can get most speakers of that language together at a convention either live or through video, then that would probably be convenient. That is what happened with the Korean Revised NWT. We were at the International Convention in South Korea in 2014 when the Revised NWT was released live by Brother Splane just before lunch on the first day. There were other conventions in the country that were tied in via video also, so the whole country was able to be present while Bro. Splane gave his discourse and released the Bible.

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Wow! We sure hope the Spanish Revised NWT will be released soon. I have a question. Is the "New Publications Available" list that you mention the monthly "Announcement to all Congregations" where we are notified of new publications available? I've looked at the past ones available up until April 2017 and I don't see the announcement of the Jesus-The Way book in Spanish and the other languages. Is it in the May 2017 "Announcement to all Congregations"?

Can someone please send me a link to the 2016 Watchtower Library DVD in English and in Chinese if available?

Thank you very much Brothers for posting the download link for the Broadcasting video. This month's video is still not up on the home page as of now. This is strange since it is already Monday evening in New York. Usually by this time the home page already has the video up. So, this is actually awesome that we can go directly to the site and download it. I appreciate very much your help.

@bohemian is correct. We definitely haven't received the revised NWT in Chinese yet. However, there will be a Special Convention in Taiwan later this year in November where all of Taiwan is assigned to this convention including the foreign language congregations. Furthermore, there likely will be unofficial Chinese speaking attendees at this special convention as well. Most of the Chinese speaking friends in the world wold probably will be at this convention. Therefore, many are suspicious of this and are hoping that the GB will take advantage of this opportunity to present the revised NWT in Chinese. Of course, we don't know for sure that this will happen, but wouldn't it be convenient for the GB to do this at that time? We'll know in six months.

I cannot wait until the revised version in Spanish comes out either. I wonder how the GB is going to handle the announcement since there are so many countries where Spanish is spoken in different time zones and to make one announcement at the same time would be challenging. Further, regional conventions are held in different seasons depending on the countries involved. It would almost need to be a special meeting when all the countries are connected at the same time. It will be definitely interesting to see how they do it. I also cannot wait until the revised version in Chinese is released. It is very interesting that there will be a Special Convention in Taiwan from the 11th to the 13th of November. In fact, the whole country is assigned to this convention including other languages such as English, Japanese, Taiwanese Sign, Min Nan, and Amis languages. Most of the Chinese speaking brothers and Sisters in the world are expected to be at this convention. It would be very convenient for the GB to take advantage of this opportunity to release the NWT revised version in Chinese at this convention. That would be awesome and we'll have to wait until November to find out.