Law firms deal in documents. So does RedLine.

Need a key term, not a full French legal translation? See French legal translation: resources.

French legal translation: challenges

Legal translation in any language can be difficult. Texts are often long and dense. French legal translation presents several challenges:

• France’s legal system is unique. It is different from the U.S. legal system. Translations, then, must account for differences between legal frameworks.
• French legalese can be as hard to read as American legalese. Often it’s even harder. Legal texts are dense. Take a recent French legal translation project that RedLine did. One sentence had 126 words. This is about 10 times the length of the average English sentence.
• French legal translation requires an understanding of both language and the law. Our legal translators have years of experience translating legal texts. The result? An accurate French legal translation that reads well.

Public hearings of the Court of International Justice, the main judicial arm of the U.N.

French legal translation and RedLine

Legal translation makes up more than half of our French-English projects. We do contracts, complaints, and memos. A U.S. company may need a translation of a hearing transcript. A French company may need a service contract to be translated.

Regardless of the text type, we give our clients a realistic estimate on turnaround time for their French legal translation. A four-page memo, for example, might take a day. A 30-page contract, closer to a week.

We use two translators for every project to ensure translation quality. The first translator translates the document. The second checks the first translator’s work. Clients appreciate our emphasis on quality.

Below are some of our recent French legal translation projects:

		• briefs		• complaints
		• construction contracts		• employment contracts
		• goods/services contracts		• non-disclosure agreements
		• hearing transcripts		• memos/notices
		• power of attorney contracts		• opinion letters

French legal translation: resources

Need help? Here are a few great online resources:

• TERMIUM Plus: The Government of Canada’s terminology and linguistic data bank
• Le grand dictionnaire terminologique (GDT): Terminology database administered by Quebec’s Office québécois de la langue française
• Legifrance: French government entity that publishes legal texts online

Matthew Kushinka is the founder and principal of RedLine Language Services LLC. Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the company helps commercial clients create, revise, and translate their written content. Send your questions or comments to matthew@redlinels.com or connect with Matthew on Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.

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Chinese translation services are in high demand. Strong economic growth has pushed China into the ranks of middle-class nations. The country has been a target for global companies for at least the past decade. Learn how our Chinese translation services can help your company.

Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian Province, People's Republic of China.

Companies need Chinese translation services for communication. They have to understand and produce various text types. Documents like reports, RFPs, and contracts.

English is still the major international language. However, business is conducted more and more in Chinese.

Chinese translation services by RedLine

RedLine offers translation in two directions. We translate from English to Chinese. We also work from Chinese to English. We can deliver Traditional or Simplified Chinese.

China has become a target market for U.S. companies.

RedLine recently provided Chinese translation services to two multinational companies. One is a Fortune 100 company. The other is one of the top 25 private U.S. companies. The first project involved subtitling. The second involved document translation.

Chinese translation services: specialties

RedLine works in multiple domains. We translate legal, financial, and marketing documents. We also work with scientific and technical texts. Download RedLine’s company flyer to see our specialties and the document types we support.

		RedLine’s Chinese Translation Services
		• Native Chinese translators ensure linguistic accuracy.
		• All work is proofed by a second translator.
		• Both Simplified and Traditional Chinese are available.
		• We offer document translation and audio translation (subtitling).
		• We offer design services in multiple file formats.

 
Over a billion people speak Chinese. Don’t you want to reach them?

		Facts about Chinese
		• Chinese is character-based. It has no alphabet.
		• It is a tonal language. It has four base tones.
		• Traditional Chinese is written top-down, not left to right.
		• It is considered one of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn.

Matthew Kushinka is the founder and principal of RedLine Language Services LLC. Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the company helps commercial clients create, revise, and translate their written content. Send your questions or comments to matthew@redlinels.com or connect with Matthew on Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.

Translation from English to French is RedLine’s bread and butter. (And no, that’s not pain et beurre in this context. The term gagne-pain would be a more appropriate translation.)

RedLine offers translation from English to French to clients in various industries. We’ve translated documents both large and small in domains such as law, finance, marketing, and business.

RedLine serves clients in France and other French-speaking countries.

Translation from English to French allows you to reach French-speaking companies—in the Paris financial district La Défense and elsewhere. Photo: David Monniaux

Translation from English to French: text expansion

Translation from English to French results in a longer text. Why? Because French takes more words than English to convey the same message. A word count that’s 10% higher is not uncommon. For example, the French version of a 500-word English webpage might have 550 words.

The opposite happens when you translate from French to English. The text “contracts.” Both contraction and expansion can affect document layout, a fact that designers need to remember.

If your page designer is unfamiliar with text expansion, send us an email. Your designer may have some page make-up to do once she receives the target (French) text.

 
Text expansion is normal with translation from English to French. Why? Because natural languages cannot be translated word for word. Sure, bonjour means “hello” and bienvenue means “welcome.” But this one-to-one match is the exception rather than the rule.

Do you have a question about your translation from English to French? Contact us to get a free quote on your project.

Matthew Kushinka is the founder and principal of RedLine Language Services LLC. Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the company helps commercial clients create, revise, and translate their written content. Send your questions or comments to matthew@redlinels.com or connect with Matthew on Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.

While the method of payment is largely determined by the client, we are happy to discuss the pros and cons of each method with our customers if they are flexible or want advice. Our goals are to make the payment process easy for clients and to keep fees for both parties to a minimum.

Contact us if you have a question about which method of payment to use.

• Check
• Bank transfer
• Credit card
• PayPal

Brazilian Portuguese translation opens doors. It lets your company reach the world’s fifth largest country. With over 200 million people, Brazil is a major force on the global stage. It’s the “B” in the so-called BRIC economies. Brazil, Russia, India, and China are now targeted by American companies.

A stamp commemorates the 1,000th goal by Brazil's Pelé, arguably the greatest ever to play O Jogo Bonito, The Beautiful Game.

Brazilian Portuguese translation is a must for the Brazilian market. The use of English there is limited. Contrast this with, say, Germany or Sweden.

Brazilian Portuguese translation is not only a courtesy to potential customers. It’s a recognition of the large role that language plays in business. A role that is crucial.

Facts about Brazil:

• It is the world’s fifth largest country (in both land area and in population).¹
• It has almost 20 times the number of Portuguese speakers as Portugal does.
• It is part of the Group of Twenty (G-20).
• It is attractive to U.S. businesses. It has economic openness, a growing economy, and a large population.

Brazilian Portuguese translation and RedLine

RedLine recently finished a Brazilian Portuguese translation project. It was for ten manufacturing companies. They are members of a trade mission to São Paulo, Brazil. We translated their marketing materials into Brazilian Portuguese. Now, their company brochures and business cards are localized.

Our deliverables were printer-ready files. This means that we generated PDF files from programs such as InDesign, Photoshop, and Publisher. The new files simply contained Portuguese text.

The Brazilian flag, with "Order and Progress" featured prominently.

Our translators and editors are native Brazilians. They specialize in business texts. They are as comfortable with technical reports as they are with company brochures.

Brazilian Portuguese translation: text expansion

Text expansion can affect design. It occurs when there are more words in the target text than there are in the source text. Text expansion is very common when translating from English to Brazilian Portuguese. The same is true for other Romance languages.

If your designer is unfamiliar with text expansion, contact us. Translating from English to Brazilian Portuguese can create design challenges. Of course, RedLine can handle the design for you.

Click on the image to download our translation service brochure.

Need Brazilian Portuguese translation? Contact us.

¹From the CIA’s World Factbook

Matthew Kushinka is the founder and principal of RedLine Language Services LLC. Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the company helps commercial clients create, revise, and translate their written content. Send your questions or comments to matthew@redlinels.com or connect with Matthew on Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.

RedLine has provided French-English translation for European and American clients. We’ve translated hundreds of thousands of words in various fields. Which ones? Technology, legal, marketing, and finance, to name a few.

RedLine works with a number of clients in France.

French-English translation: considerations

We know French-English translation. It’s RedLine’s specialty. It requires attention to several tasks:

• the transfer of meaning from a source text to a target text
• a clear, natural writing style in the target language
• design considerations

French-English text contraction

French often uses more words than English to say the same thing. So the text “contracts” when you translate. A 10% decrease in word count is common with French-English translation.

What about from English to French? The opposite occurs. The text “expands.” Take an English text of 1,000 words. It will likely be around 1,100 words in French.

Ask your designer about text expansion and contraction. French-English translation may have layout implications.

Text contraction is normal with French-English translation. Why? Words do not have perfect “one-to-one” correspondences. Sure, très means “very” and bienvenue means welcome. But this word-for-word match is the exception, not the rule.

Have a question about French-English translation? Contact us. We’ll respond au plus vite!

Matthew Kushinka is the founder and principal of RedLine Language Services LLC. Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the company helps commercial clients create, revise, and translate their written content. Send your questions or comments to matthew@redlinels.com or connect with Matthew on Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.

But Jordan’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies decided to embark on a massive project to translate the text into Arabic, an effort that took six years. The 20 volumes of the translated text required the collaboration of 90 translators, both Christian and Muslim.

According to Israël infos, the Center’s motivation was a better understanding of Judaism and the facilitation of studies in comparative religion.

RedLine provided Chinese-English translation services to Time Inc. Studios in late 2012. The company hired RedLine to subtitle 15 hours of video interviews. The footage was in Chinese, but our client needed English subtitles in order to cut the footage to “mini-documentary” length.

RedLine recently provided Chinese-English translation services for a mini-documentary. The film will be shown at the 2013 Fortune Global Forum in Chengdu, China.
Click image to go to video.

The film will be shown at the 2013 Fortune Global Forum. The event will take place in mid-June in Chengdu, China. See the Chinese-English translation that RedLine did for Time Inc. Studios.

RedLine called on its team of Chinese translators to listen to the interviews and produce English transcripts. This process is called “audio translation.” It’s considerably less expensive than transcribing the interviews in Chinese and then translating them to English. Simply put, audio translation saves money.

If you hire a translation company for Chinese-English translation, ask about contraction and expansion. There may be design implications for your company’s white paper, print brochure, or website.

However, audio translation requires a special skill set. This is true whether the project involves Chinese-English translation or another language pair. Translators who do audio translation must listen to the audio and “translate on the fly.” While listening to Chinese, for example, they type in English.

Chinese-English translation: considerations

Chinese-English translation is different from translation involving other languages. Chinese is a character-based language. One character might represent several words in English. “Expansion” occurs, then, when translating a text from Chinese to English. What takes up half a page in Chinese might take up a full page in English.

The reverse is also true. “Contraction” might be as high as 50% when translating from English to Chinese. This is important for clients to know because it often affects design, both for web pages and print materials.

Have a question about Chinese-English translation? Contact us.

Matthew Kushinka is the founder and principal of RedLine Language Services LLC. Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the company helps commercial clients create, revise, and translate their written content. Send your questions or comments to matthew@redlinels.com or connect with Matthew on Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.

We’re pleased to announce the distribution of RedLine’s first white paper. The document, titled Why Good Copy Is Good Business: An Overview of Best Practices for Written Communications, is primarily for small business owners who write their own marketing materials (web copy, newsletters, brochures, etc.). The paper offers advice on planning before you write, creating your text, and editing your material.

Click image to download RedLine's white paper on writing and editing effective web copy.

RedLine encourages readers to use this white paper as a resource and to share it with interested parties. However, you must use a citation if quoting from our paper for any purpose, commercial or otherwise.

RedLine is planning a series of white papers throughout 2012. We’ll let you know when our next set of insights and tips is available! In the meantime, send your comments on the paper to info@redlinels.com.

UPDATE, 2/26/13: Our paper was recently redesigned by Matt Hall of UK-based Jellyfish Design. Matt took a ho-hum visual and made it aesthetically pleasing. Thanks, Matt!

The content of Why Good Copy Is Good Business is as true today as it was last year when we published it. Copywriters and editors should aim for clarity first. Then, writers need to focus on concision. Last, they need to make sure their copy is grammatically correct. Have a question? Contact us.

Matthew Kushinka is the founder and principal of RedLine Language Services LLC. Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the company helps commercial clients create, revise, and translate their written content. Send your questions or comments to matthew@redlinels.com or connect with Matthew on Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.