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German to Dutch and Dutch to German document translations of the highest quality — meeting your needs with our services. We guarantee:
- Translators who are native speakers of the target language, whether it is German or Dutch
- ISO 9001 and ISO 17001 quality standard compliance
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See below, what kind of changes to the text might be expected for translations from German to Dutch or vice versa.
Translation differences
Translation from German to Dutch or vice versa entails certain changes in the resulting text. These changes are caused by the inherent differences between the languages. The following things in your order might be affected:
- The layout of the resulting text
- Time it takes to translate
- Translation complexity
Among other factors, these parameters can influence the final price as well. The layout factor is especially important to those, who are interested in our DTP (Desktop Publishing) services.
| Parameter | To German | To Dutch | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Writing system | Latin (German alphabet) | Latin (Dutch alphabet) | Same writing system, different scripts: minimal difference |
| Text direction | left-to-right | left-to-right | Same |
| Characters per word (average) | 7 | 6 | Minimal |
| Text length (characters) | 13% shorter | 15% longer | Minimal |
| Overall difference | Negligible | ||
Text length and document layout
The main factors influencing the length and layout of the translated document are:
- Writing system of the target language
- Writing direction
- Word length
- Relative lengths of the texts
Writing system
Both German and Dutch use the same writing system — the Latin alphabet. It means that usually the translated text can be displayed, using the same fonts as the source text. This lack of difference makes it easier to make the source and the target text be the same length. Please note, however, that the languages employ different sub-types (a.k.a. scripts) of the alphabet. Some fonts of the source language may not support all the signs in the target language.
Writing direction
Both languages are read left-to-right, meaning that there should be no significant changes to the layout in terms of the order of text elements.
Word length
Both languages have a similar average word length — 7 for German, and 6 for Dutch. Thus, the word length should not affect the layout.
Text length
On average, documents translated to German are 13% shorter than source texts in Dutch. On the other hand, Dutch texts are 15% longer than their German counterparts. It means that some formatting differences are to be expected in the translated texts, although they should not present a serious formatting issue. Please note, that the actual visual length is also influenced by the font used.
Word order
Depending on your needs, the word order might be rather important for the translation. Things like slogans and brand names may convey an entirely different meaning, if their word order is changed.
Neither German, nor Dutch have a standard word order. The meaning of sentences is largely independent from it, and the sequence can be safely conveyed in the same fashion as it is in the source text.
Translation complexity
Translation complexity is partially dependent on how closely the languages are related. The further apart the languages are, the more time and effort it takes to express an idea from one language in another one. As a consequence, it affects the price and time it takes to translate a document between German and Dutch.
Both German and Dutch belong to the Indo-European language family. Moreover, the two belong to its Germanic branch, which generally implies that it is easier to transfer the meaning of the German text to its Dutch counterpart, and vice versa.