When it comes to translating from German to English, the devil lies in the differences, so to speak. German syntax and the German tense system differ greatly from English syntax and tenses.
German and English are both Germanic languages belonging to the Indo-European language family. As such, they share certain features. Examples are cognates such as Sommer/summer, trinken/drink and kommen/come.
A literal German to English translation appearing in Mark Twain’s tongue-in-cheek essay, The Awful German Language, illustrates the differences:
“In the day before yesterday shortly afte releven o\’clock Night, the in this town staernnding tav called `The Wagoner\’ was downburnt. When the fire to the on the down burning house resting Stork\’s Nest reached, flew the parent Storks away. But when the bytheraging, firesurrounded Nest itself caught Fire, straightway plunged the quickreturning Mother-stork into the Flames and died, her Wings over her young ones outspread.”
Literalisms in German and English translation are subtler, of course, than in Twain’s celebrated example. Even so, literalism has no place in the business of translation. For this reason, IL Consultancy only makes use of properly qualified and highly experienced German and English translators.
There is a vibrant global demand for translation services between German and English. The language statistics speak for themselves.
German is the official language of Germany, Austria and parts of Switzerland and is spoken by about 95 million people.
English is the mother tongue of over 400 million people. The distribution is roughly as follows: 5 million in South Africa, 3 million in New Zealand, 23 million in Australia, 4 million in the Republic of Ireland, 60 million in the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales), 19 million in Canada and 270 million in the United States.
The demand for German/English translation services spans most subject areas. IL Consultancy provides expert German to English translation and English to German technical, legal, financial, marketing (including tourism) and literary translation services. Our localisation (localization) services ensure that the translation product you receive from us is suitable for your target market.
In addition to our comprehensive range of translation services, IL Consultancy offers high-quality and cost-effective language, translation, editing, graphic design and branding services.
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Contact us now for a quote and see our translations page for more information.
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