German translation – we deal with requests for German translation services every day – along with interpreting and transcription requests. German is a fascinating language – so here’s a bit of an introduction!
Quick question – how many of the words in the following English sentence are borrowed from German? Brad’s curious wanderlust made him pack his rucksack and set off in search of his doppelgänger, but instead he found a poltergeist. Answer at the bottom of the page.
German is one of the most popular languages we translate to/from English. It has ‘official language’ status in five countries outside of Germany. These being Belgium, Austria, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. In total there are almost 89 million native speakers in the world. If we can help you, please contact us today on 01727 812 725, use the Live Chat option to chat to a real person right now, or email us at team@atlas-translations.co.uk.
A Creative Language
German is a very creative language. One special feature being the ability to create new words by joining two or more words together, to make a more descriptive – and longer – word. For example, Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänswitwe is ‘widow of a skipper of the Danube shipping company’.
German Translation
It’s this that makes German one of the few languages which employs fewer words in writing than English. Being from a UK based translation agency we’re acutely aware of this when it comes to German translation projects. We are accustomed to English word counts being lower than the language the text is being translated into/from, but not with German.
Another thing to bear in mind is that there is one more letter in the German alphabet than the English. This letter is the ß or the ‘double s’. The only diacritical marks used in German are the umlaut marks (ä, ö, ü).
Dialects
Like many other languages, while the written form of German is standard, there are many variants of dialect. However there are two main divisions. There is High German (Hochdeutsch) which is mainly spoken in the area around Hannover in Lower Saxony. There are strong dialects spoken in the southern regions. Then there is Low German (Plattdeutsch) in the North. Low German bears a closer resemblance to other Germanic languages such as English and Dutch than High German.
Famous Non-Native Speakers
Famous non-native German speakers include Leonardo Di Caprio, Nathalie Portman and Vladimir Putin. Bruce Willis was born in Germany and can speak German, while Sandra Bullock picked up the language from her German mother.
Need a German translation?
As the second most popular language we translate into/from, Atlas Translations is highly experienced at dealing with English/German projects.
Since 1991, we have reference-checked and approved more than 4000 linguists based across the globe, proficient in more than 340 languages and dialects – including German. They are professionally qualified, many are DBS (formerly CRB) checked, and each is selected for their specialist sector knowledge and experience.
Call us on 01727 812 725 to let us know what you need and we can let you know straightaway if we can help. Send us an email to team@atlas-translations.co.uk. We respond quickly to all email enquiries. Or use the little icons here on the website for live chat (it really is one of us) or to request a call back within 27 seconds.
Answer
Four. The borrowed words are: Wanderlust, rucksack, doppelgänger & poltergeist.
