Should you require a certified translation service for any given reason, it always helps to know a thing or two about the target language. Not that you have to be an expert of course, but just as long as you at least modestly understand the nation in question, certified document translation becomes a much less daunting prospect for the customer.
So while it may be more for entertainment purposes than education, read on for a few fascinating things you probably didn’t know about the German language:
- Contrary to popular belief, German is the most widely-spoken language across the European Union. Along with being the official language of Austria, parts of Switzerland and of course Germany, German is spoken in Northern Italy, Eastern France, the Baltics, Belgium, Slovakia, Poland, Denmark and more.
- In terms of global demand, more than 40% of EU-focused translation jobs are requested for the German language.
- While the German language may appear on the surface to be poles apart from English, they originate from the same family of languages. The sheer volume of English words in the German language makes it comparatively easy for English speakers to pick up.
- Incredibly, with around 45 million Americans having German ancestry, German immigrant descendants represent the largest of all ancestry groups in the United States.
- Many of the world’s biggest brands were established by immigrants from Germany and still bear their names to this day. Examples include Levi Strauss, Pfizer, Heinz and Boeing.
- As an inflected language, German has the potential to be challenging to translate accurately and in context. Inflected languages change the ending or form of some words in accordance with their use in the sentence—Polish and Finnish are also inflected languages.
- Last but not least, compound words tend to be rather difficult and indeed common in the German language. One prime example being ‘rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz’ – translating literally as ‘the law for the delegation of monitoring beef labelling’ of all things!
For more information on German translation services, get in touch with the Semiotic Transfer team today.
