Translation from English to Dutch and from Dutch to English
Translation You Can Trust
HumanTranslation is an agency focused on providing Dutch translation services you can trust. Of course, trust is built over time, and we understand that all we can do now is to engender trust by telling more about our workflow and inviting you to try it.
The translation is an industry that verges on the art, so it is hard to measure or formalize. As a result, each translation agency relies on the best industry practices and elaborates its own way of dealing with texts that is scaled to create the unique service we offer.
How do we produce texts you can trust?
- We thoroughly analyze the text and sometimes ask you additional questions to know exactly what you want. All parameters are important: the target audience, the message you intend to convey, the country where your text will be distributed, and so on. Your text has a goal, and we cannot be up to your expectations if we don’t know the goal.
- As soon as we know everything we need about the text, we assign it to the translator with the best-matching experience, cultural background, and skills. He or she will be the native speaker of the target language, of course.
- How do we select translators? The human factor is the key. Of course, we require appropriate credentials as we believe that a good translation can only be done by an educated professional, not an amateur or just any bilingual person. Or, for instance, a certified translation can only be done by a certified (sworn) translator. However, we have long-term cooperation with translators who can deliver high-quality translations over the years, are disciplined enough to meet 100% of deadlines, and have enough initiative to communicate with the customer over unclear places.
- Translators do make mistakes. To err is human, you know, even if this human is a highly-skilled professional. With that in mind, we never skip the editing and proofreading stages as all mistakes are usually eliminated at this step. And this is the way to build trust, too: you may find it hard to believe one person, but the text should be considered accurate if three pairs of eyes worked on it.
- We do use all the best automatic tools available in the industry, like CAT tools and QA instruments, and we never resort to machine translation. Machines help us to be consistent and support human attention but never replace humans.
Do you need Dutch-to-English translation services you can trust? Or maybe you’ve found this page because you are looking for English-to-Dutch translation services, right? Do not hesitate to try.
Contact our managers to order a small piece from us that could lay the foundation of long-term fruitful mutually beneficial cooperation.
Dutch Facts
- Do Dutch and Deutsch look similar? And they are indeed similar: the Germans understand Dutch and vice versa. What is more, the word Dutch was used many centuries ago to denote all Germanic languages!
- Though Dutch occupies only 56th place among the most commonly spoken languages in the world, its real power is much greater as the Netherlands is one of the wealthiest countries on the globe.
- The Dutch are the best English speakers in the world among non-natives, and that’s truly amazing.
- Many slang words in Dutch come from Hebrew as the Jewish community in the Netherlands is quite large, especially in Amsterdam.
- Interested to know which words came to English from Dutch? Here they are: bazooka, coleslaw, iceberg, waffle, and Santa Claus!
- What about the Dutch itself? Well, 75% of its vocabulary actually consists of loaned words! Most of them come from French and even retain the same spelling: horloge (clock), plafond (ceiling), and chantage (blackmail).
Language Tips:
The quality of the translated text may be roughly assessed as follows: correct translation; a translation that is pleasant to read and easy to understand; culturally appropriate translation tailored to suit the needs of the target audience. Make sure you know the customer’s aims and expectations and are skilled enough to come up to them.
Dutch is also an official language in Belgium (Flanders) where it is called Flemish. However, this is a dialect of Dutch rather than a separate language, and you need to ask the customer whether he intends to target this area as well as the language and culture are different there and require some alterations to be made.
As the resulting text in Dutch will be about 30% longer than in English, the customer should be informed of that in some cases. Sometimes it is unimportant, but if we talk about a booklet that will be printed in large quantities, this will mean more expenses on paper, printing, etc. If the customer is on a budget, a cheaper solution is to shorten the text to be translated by a third.
