Professional Translation agency for
German translations

German is spoken in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium Germany is also understood and spoken in the regions of Denmark, France and northern Italy that border Germany. Over 130 million people in the world speak German as a second or foreign language, about 100 million of them as their first language.

Germany is known for its complex grammar, especially among new learners of the language. One-to-one translations into or from German may work if all that matters is conveying information. But they are not necessarily effective, fluent (or error-free). Of course, that should be the case if you want your message to come across correctly. And certainly, when it comes to translations of contracts and legal documents, it is not sufficient to be able to speak German well. You have to know your way around this specialist area, too.

When you read something, sometimes it has an impact on you, sometimes less so. There can be several reasons for this – and the form of address is one of the most important. Advertising texts in particular (e.g. posters, flyers, social media ads) can have different effects on people. Of course, you should like the product or at least have the potential to do so. If you do, the way you are addressed can determine whether you buy it or not. Are you being addressed formally or informally? Do you like to be spoken to like an old friend or do you prefer a more formal distance? These are all questions that are just as important for marketing translations as they are for the original marketing texts. There are differences in the forms of personal address between languages. And language is one of the most effective levers in winning over potential customers.

Another point relating to the correct form of address: genders. Gender-neutral language is a hot topic (and not just in the marketing) world and can be found on an increasing number of platforms and in various forms of text. Of course, that makes a translation more challenging – whether it is into or from German. How do I reach all the people I want to reach with a translation without excluding anybody? Is gender-neutral language indicated in the target language by asterisks or colons? These are the questions you should answer before you have your website translated, for example. Because different languages and cultures deal with this issue differently. And you should keep that in the back of your mind at least.

There are some German texts that you cannot understand even though you are a native speaker. Usually these are specialist texts, scattered with technical terminology and specific formulations. Because every sector and every specialist area speaks its own language. Getting that right is the great art of a professional translation. (So far) no translation tool can promise reliable, error-free translations with a specialist focus. Human specialist translators (still) have their noses in front here and should at least proofread AI translations. But machine translations are catching up in terms of quality. And they clearly already have an advantage in terms of speed!

As a rule of thumb, “the more complex, the more professional” certainly applies to specialist translations. But when is a text sufficiently complicated for you to need it translated? Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all rule. Even though precision and accuracy are important in both, an academic translation certainly has different requirements to a technical translation. Our recommendation: this is where you should seek help. Ideally from the experts at a professional translation agency.