Looking for Translating German to English Website?

Author: Shreya Gupta

Translating into any language is an onerous and multi-faceted challenge. This challenge was superbly paraphrased by Jorge Louis Borges when he said: "The original is unfaithful to the translation".

When it comes to languages like German, the whole process has to incorporate various perspectives and dimensions also.

What is of utmost significance is the challenge of keeping the original impact of the communication intact despite the endless changes, text modifications, and structure-related morphing that any document goes through. This takes up a new level of difficulty in German to English translation as the languages differ immensely in their complexity, syntax, basic flow and phrasing.

At the same time, one should remember the outcome side issues in terms of length of words and extra efforts in explaining the context. German words come with a unique phonetic aspect and they are also technically-anchored in their origins. They may be too big and too complex and at the same time if one translates them in English without also transporting the context or circumstantial meaning then the effort is only half-baked.

An English reader may not immediately grab the exact import of a certain German word. Translators, especially, experienced ones ensure that they invest more time and energy in making the reader grasp the original impact as comprehensively as possible.

Such experts also take cognizance of the expansion or contraction of text that happens when one is about to translate German to English website and their associated impact on visual elements, space, and layout. For a legal or technical translation, the ad verbatim manner of translation may not leave much scope for playing around.

Every type of translation including German to English translation of websites and other documents face the following 3 challenges,

  • Language structure

  • Idioms and Expressions and

  • Cultural differences

Use of compound nouns, word count, sentence length, and syntax deployed would affect the destination translation in many ways. It is not necessary, peculiarly in German to English translations that word count would vary in direct correlation to overall text length as both the languages have different structures.

Professional translation service providers pay attention to salient features, prime connotations, linguistic challenges, intended effects, audience genre, and overall context of the translation effort.

The translation should also consider the type of Website being translated from German to English or vice-versa. The websites could be Promotional websites, Informational websites or Commercial websites (like e-Commerce) etc. The technical challenges in the backend would also need to be considered before translating.

There are many players that offer the languages as part of their services but one needs to consider the format in question, the complexity of the message and the design aspects of the communication before picking a certain translator. Such level of detailing is crucial because only someone who can capture the nuances of the source language, target language and the demands of coherency and barriers in reconstruction can allow adequate treatment of the subject.

What matters here are both quantitative and qualitative factors where understanding, formulation & interpretation with respect to inferences and strategic goals have to be dovetailed well. This may also need expertise on semiotic communication or exegetic translation or other complex aspects that a player with enough portfolio experience and a good grip on both the languages can effectively deliver.