China is a burgeoning market that virtually no company can afford to ignore. It has about 1.3 billion native speakers, making it the number one most spoken language globally. It’s also one of the most challenging to learn. As a result, Chinese translation services are in high demand.
Bureau Works established relationships with expert linguists to service this need. Our translators have a wide range of backgrounds, ensuring that you are matched with the perfect linguistic and subject matter expert for your projects. While it can be challenging to find professional translators who specialize in Chinese, we’re here to provide the need.
Considerations in Translating Chinese
One of the most famous translation faux pas occurred in China when Kentucky Fried Chicken attempted to enter the market in the 80s with their “Finger Lickin’ Good” tagline. Unfortunately, in Chinese, it translated to “we’ll eat your fingers off”—a less than appetizing prospect.
It’s surprisingly easy to make mistakes like this when completing Chinese translation because there are many unique language challenges to consider.
Dialects |
Dialects can vary widely in China. The country has seven major dialect groups and tons of smaller regional variations. While Mandarin is the most commonly spoken, a translator should never default to it. |
Format |
Character direction is vertical and is occasionally written right to left. Many other languages use a horizontal, left-to-right format. This difference creates significant layout challenges. |
Characters |
Hanzi, or Chinese characters, form the base of many written Asian languages and are challenging to learn. There are over 50,000 characters and even most native writers don’t know all of them. |
Nuances |
Chinese has a number of idioms that have no direct translation into other languages. A deep understanding of both the Chinese language and the target language is necessary to know how to overcome these cultural nuances. |
Origin |
Chinese’s roots are based in the Sino-Tibetan family. When translating it into languages not from that family, like those in the Indo-European or Germanic segments, direct translations are incredibly challenging. |
How Bureau Works Tackles Chinese Translation Services
At Bureau Works, we help our clients reach new audiences and connect with employees to expand their businesses to China. We’ve translated a wide range of content, including:
- Websites
- eCommerce pages
- Onboarding content
- Blogs
- Technical documents
- Apps
- Marketing collateral
- Customer support
- Audio files
- Legal documents
- Financial statements
- Videos
- Training materials
- Pamphlets
- Social media posts
This is by no means an exhaustive list of our Chinese translation services. Thanks to our myriad of tools and features, we can support just about any translation project.
Tools We Leverage
Intelligent Machine Translation (MT) |
Algorithm-Controlled Assignments |
Client Knowledge Management Tools |
| While Chinese translations aren’t generally machine friendly, our intuitive program that leverages detailed translation memories is more adept at handling these challenging projects. We build an engine specifically based on your content to support MT. | We use an AI-enabled algorithm and translator metrics to match you with the best linguists for every project. These tools save you valuable time when finding the right expert. | Corporate lexicons, termbases, and translation memories set up a foundation of client knowledge management that powers linguist tools and helps them stay brand-accurate. |
Boundless Integrations |
Flexible Pricing |
Powerful Developer Tools |
| We offer a wide range of integrations for popular programs like Drupal, GitHub, Zendesk, WordPress, and more. You can manage reporting, automatically upload content, and even benefit from continuous localization in a structured environment. | With our three tiers of pricing, we offer a localization program to support just about every budget. If you need a one-time job, ongoing support, or a total enterprise solution, we have a plan that fits your needs. | With our command-line interface (CLI) and application programming interface (API), developers can decide how to interact with our program. Whether they enjoy an API’s structure or the control of a CLI, we can support them. |
Bureau Works offers Chinese translation services in a wide range of dialects. To learn more, Contact our team.
Our offices
SF Bay Area
3685 Mt Diablo Blvd, Suite 353
Lafayette, CA 94549
USA
Miami
2980 McFarlane Rd.
Miami, FL 33133
USA
