Chinese-English translation service in Singapore
Certified. Done by natives. Accepted by local authorities, ambassies and consulates.
Translating the Ancient Chinese Language
...knowing Chinese alone is not enough to do it correctly.Not at all.
Why? Because translation really requires more than a good knowledge of the language.
There is a lot involved in trying to interpret the intent of the original text into the target language.
An experienced Chinese-English (CH-EN) or English-Chinese (EN-CH) translator knows the exact procedure to understand the context and the intent and then skillfully translate it into natural, understandable text.
Singapore Chinese
...versus China Chinese
Singapore is made up of a majority of Chinese who are descendants of those who have migrated from China.
However, in spite of the shared history between the two countries, the need for document translators to and from Chinese continues to be huge - especially with the continual rising exchanges.
This is especially so in the context of tiny Singapore.
Thanks to the national "Let's Learn Mandarin" campaign initiated by the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew in September 1977, many from the older generation are also conversant in Mandarin. However, the spoken Chinese is mixed with some Chinese dialects, Malay, English, even Tamil.
Due to Singapore's education system, the younger Chinese people in Singapore are mostly bilingual and is good enough for daily communication - either verbal or written. However, the compulsory ten years Chinese language education is not sufficient for more serious document translation.
On top of that, translation is a skill that involves more than a knowledge of the language. It involves a good grasp of the culture, the knowledge of the target or source language and certain other attributes.
We are thus here to bridge the gap.
Chinese to English Translation
For translation to be done properly, the translator must be proficient in both the source and the target language. Either that, or he/she must possess the skill to not just fully understand the intent of the source document but also communicate it effectively.
Yet, it is not as easy as it sounds - especially when it has to do with Singapore.
Singaporean English is not the usual English and only local people understand it well.
Not only is our Chinese language a localised version, our English language is as well. The tiny ex British colonial island has such adaptation capability that we manage to mix several languages into one and still be perfectly understood among ourselves. One spoken sentence could contain three languages plus some dialects - making it hard for the foreigners (even native English speakers).
This tendency is evident in written languages as well. Experience tells us that it can be quite challenging for some Chinese translators to understand Singaporean English documents, imagine translating them.
On top of that, similar to the Spanish and Portuguese languages, the vocabularies, cultures and sentence structures are vastly different. Translation into the English language thus demands more than the usual procedures.
Some Chinese translators face difficulties understanding some of our English documents - simply because it is a somewhat different English.
This is where we can help.
