English Translation
Overview
When translating into English for the African market its important to be aware of the nuances. English has subtle differences from country to country within Africa.
Understanding context and country-specific standards is vital to ensuring translations are carried out correctly. This is especially so for specialist or technical documents which may need specific certification, terminology, style, formatting and the like.
We offer English translation services into and from other languages, whether French, Portuguese, Swahili or Arabic. When working on texts or projects with a target audience in Africa, we will capture the necessary information to ensure we localize the text accordingly.
Contact us about your project and we will talk you through options and budgets.
Quick Facts
- Language ISO code: en/ eng
- Number of speakers: although the numbers vary, around 360 million native speakers on six continents and over 500 million second-language speakers.
- Writing system: modern English alphabet is based on Latin script and consists in 26 letters.
Where is it spoken?
African countries as official language: Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, The Gambia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
About English
The English language is a Germanic language that belongs to the Indo- European language family and it is therefore closely related to German and Dutch. English is not only the third most spoken native language in the world followed by Mandarin Chinese and Spanish, but also it is considered the international lingua franca of our time. It is widely learned as a foreign language, an official language of the EU and also of the United Nations.
English dialects
English was spread first to North America and the Caribbean and afterwards to South Asia and Africa. With no any contact with the native speakers from the British Isles, each form of English became to develop differently resulting in unique forms of the languages, some standard and some non-standard varieties. Among all these forms, the two main standard ones are:
- British English: spoken by native speakers of English in Australia, England, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa and Wales.
- North American English: spoken by native speakers in the United States and Canada.