Be discerning about your choice of Chinese translators

Translating from one language to another could be one of the most challenging tasks a bilingual person may get into. Notwithstanding, translating between Western languages tends to be easier than, say, English to Chinese translation. When converting a text from English to Chinese, translators need to keep in mind a broad range of factors, including differences in lexicon, syntax, and audience. Chinese also offers an additional layer of difficulty in the form of its character system. If you are in the market for professional translation and think you can rely on Google’s free software, you are likely mistaken.

Obviously, it helps to have a large vocabulary and a deep understanding of syntax and grammar when working on any translation. And this is especially true for English to Chinese translation, as finding the right word is often challenging in Chinese. A person may be bilingual in every sense of the word but lack formal training in this area, thus leaving room for grammatical errors in the written word. If this is true for a person, this is also true for free translation software systems, such as the one offered by Google. Just because the software can translate a few words like a dictionary does not mean that it will be able to produce high-quality, faithful translations. Furthermore, a professional translator should have a solid grasp on word order (syntax). A person that is well versed and formally trained in English to Chinese translation should have no problems whatsoever in capturing the essence of the message being translated. On the other hand, a person who has not learned the rules and exceptions to the rules (along with computer generated translations) will likely make mistakes in regards to word order. Does the noun come before the adjective? Where should the subject and verb go in a question? If your translator cannot answer questions like these, it may be time to consult a professional. Lastly, English to Chinese translation offers a very significant obstacle: transcription from the English alphabet to the Chinese system of characters. In recent years, this character system has become more standardized, but it remains a completely different method for writing out the language. In English, each letter and letter combination represents an audible sound. Conversely, Chinese characters represent whole words. There may be a symbol that represents the word “water”, but there is no alphabet for the reader to sound out this word. An additional layer of complexity is that many characters are used to represent more than one word, due to the limited number of symbols available in the Chinese system. This means that one character may represent, for example, the word “dog”, “mother”, and “elderberry”. The transcription process is incredibly complex, and so leaving this work to a machine or an amateur translator may be fine if the translation is for personal use or you just want to get a general message across. However, if the translation is for enterprise use, finding a well-qualified, professional, English to Chinese translation specialist may be the best solution for your business.

In conclusion, if you are considering using a bilingual friend or free translation software that can be found online, be sure that you do not need near 100 percent accuracy. If your business markets to China, it would be a good idea to source for professional English to Chinese translation service providers that can get your message transmitted clearly and eloquently to your intended audience.