5

What the title says, pretty much. This is for a website with a formal tone.

4 Answers 4

7

For "theme" what is used is:

tema

You can see the use of the word "tema" in iGoogle.

For "skin" you can use "apariencia" as suggested by Laura.

3
  • +1. How would you translate skin in this context? I was thinking about piel but it sounds weird. I think I would stick to the anglicism in this case.
    – Icarus
    Feb 28, 2012 at 16:46
  • 1
    @Icarus here at my work if we ever have to use the word "skin" we use the English word. Feb 28, 2012 at 16:58
  • 1
    You can use "apariencia" for "skin"
    – Laura
    Feb 29, 2012 at 11:15
3

The five most used words to describe a website's appearance are: Theme, Template, Skin, Design & Style.

In Spanish each would translate to:

  • Theme = Tema
  • Template = Plantilla
  • Skin = Apariencia
  • Design = Diseño
  • Style = Estilo
2

For an informal tone you could very well get away with just using 'skin' (without translating it).

Since you want a formal tone you could use tema or apariencia as suggested by Alfredo, or diseño or estilo.

1
  • It is posible to use as decoración o aspecto.
    – JLPrieto
    Feb 22, 2018 at 20:42
0

As long as "theme" and "skin" refer to technical concepts, it's necessary to be careful not to invent yet another fancy translation instead of using the one that is commonly used in the technical environment.

Regarding "theme", there is little discussion. It translation would be "tema". The links point to their Wikipedia entries, which also point to one another as their respective translations.

Regarding "skin", I would translate it neither as "piel" (weird) nor as "apariencia" (understandable, but not technically specific). As a matter of fact, the Spanish Wikipedia article is "skin". Again, both entries point to each other.

However, both Spanish articles start with:

  • tema: Un tema (skin, piel en inglés)...
  • skin: Un tema (skin en inglés)...

And their content is almost the same. On the other hand, the English versions are quite different, but they don't explain or make it easy to understand the difference between both concepts, as illustrated by this StackOverflow discussion.

So, if I had to translate either concept I would consider the following:

When the specific website has a single mechanism to control its aspect and you can refer to it either as "theme" or "skin" in English, I would use "tema" in Spanish.

When the website has two different mechanisms to control its aspect (named "theme" and "skin" in English), I would translate them as "tema" and "skin" respectively.

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