How Argentine consumers understand the Spanish translation of the 9-point hedonic scale

• Published in: Food quality and preference Vol. 12; no. 3; pp. 217 - 221
• Main Authors: Curia, Ana Valeria, Hough, Guillermo, Martı́nez, Marı́a Carolina, Margalef, Marı́a Isabel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01-04-2001; Elsevier
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Food industries; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; Hedonic scale; Methods of analysis, processing and quality control, regulation, standards; Spanish meaning; South America; Argentina; America; Hedonic scale; Spanish meaning; Consumer behavior; Verbal comprehension; Evaluation scale; Descriptor; Spanish; Foodstuff; Ambiguity
• DOI: 10.1016/S0950-3293(01)00012-X
• EISSN: 1873-6343
• ISSN: 0950-3293

The objective of this work was to study how ambiguous the meaning of the Spanish translation of the 9-point hedonic scale was for Argentine consumers. Three versions of the 9-point hedonic scale were tested: a literal translation of the original English version, a liberal translation of this same scale and the liberal translation of a scale phrased for children (e.g. where ‘like extremely’ was replaced by ‘super good’). Children, adolescents and adults from two cities of Argentina, making up a total of 288 subjects, performed the tests. These consisted in ranking the phrases from each one of the three scales from ‘like least’ to ‘like most’. In most cases the scale phrased for children performed best. Using this scale approximately 30% of the subjects ranked the translated phrases differently in relation to the English version, that is inverted the order of two or more phrases. The results from the present work show that the use of the 9-point hedonic scale translated to languages different to English should be done with caution.