Chinese Translation Services

When localizing into the Chinese market, you should pay attention to the following useful tips for a successful Chinese localization project:

• With nearly 1.4 billion native speakers, combined with its booming economy, China is one of the most potential markets in the world. The number of foreign companies entering this market has been constantly increasing. This creates a high demand for English-to-Chinese translation.
• Dating back over 3,000 years, written Chinese is the oldest system of writing in use as a living language with more than 20,000 distinct characters.
• Chinese joins English, Arabic, French, Russian, and Spanish as one of the six official UN languages.
• The Chinese language is classified into 10 dialect groups, each of which has its own variations. Among those dialects, Mandarin is the most popular, spoken by 71.5% of the population.
• There are two main varieties of the Chinese language – Traditional Chinese (used in Hong Kong or Taiwan) and Simplified Chinese (used in Mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia). Using the right variety will help you leave a great impression on your target audiences as it shows your understanding and effort into learning the Chinese language and culture.
• The Great Firewall of China blocks numerous foreign websites which require you to either get a server in mainland China and Hong Kong or partner with local brands.
• Baidu – a tailor-made search engine for Chinese internet users is the dominant search engine in China, not Google.
• QR codes are extremely popular in China.
• Colors have clear meanings in China. For example, red is the symbol of wealth, luck, and joy while white is death, and black is destruction, evil, cruelty, and sadness.
• Bright colors help increase your sales in China. Try to avoid dark palettes (black, brown, grey, etc.) in your apps or websites.
• Texts in Chinese are usually 20-30% shorter than in English.
• Chinese people use two levels of addressing – Informal and Formal to address the second person. For example, 您 (nín) is the formal addressing form for you, sir, or madam, while 你 (nǐ) is the informal one. The differences between these two addressing levels affect your way of approaching target audiences in this market.
• Chinese people use the metric system of measurement: kilogram, meter, etc. Chinese people also have their own measurement system. For example, in the market, instead of using kilograms, they use Jin (1斤 Jin = ½ kg).
• Chinese uses a logographic writing system (marked by a letter, symbol, or sign to represent a whole word)
• Chinese is traditionally written in a vertical, columnar fashion from top to bottom and right to left. It is now also written in a horizontal, linear fashion from left to right and top to bottom, like in English. Spaces are not used to separate words.
• Contrary to most languages, Chinese verbs do not change according to person, tense, or singular/plural
• The address format follows the template country – province – city – street name.
• The date format is year-month-day.
• The time format is either a 24-hour clock or a 12-hour clock with 上午 (AM) or 下午(PM).
• The full name format is the family name followed by the given name.