Through professional translation, linguistic and cultural differences do not affect the meaning, thanks to the work of expert translators. In this article, we will talk about Arabic translation: general knowledge, the difficulties of translating it, and what services we offer at Translinguo Global®.
General knowledge of Arabic
Arabic is a macro language belonging to the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family, like Hebrew. In terms of number of speakers, it has around 280 million people. It is also the fifth most spoken language in the world. In fact, it is an official language in twenty countries and co-official in approximately six others. All Arabic speakers have their own native colloquial variety. However, they usually learn Standard Arabic, as it is used in the workplace and in the media.
It is a very complex language, as it is quite different from Spanish. Arabic has a very particular calligraphy and alphabet, as well as a large difference between its spoken and written form. Its alphabet is entirely different from the Latin alphabet used in Spanish, for example. Its calligraphy is composed of 28 consonants, 3 long vowels and others with a very short sound. In addition, Arabic is written from right to left and texts are read from back to front compared to Spanish. In short, it is completely different from Spanish.
Arabic translation and its difficulties
When it comes to translation, there are many problems that make Arabic translation difficult. First of all, the Arabic language does not use prepositions or conjunctions when expressing syntactic relations. This problem only poses difficulties when translating from Spanish into Arabic. For example, a Spanish speaker always tends to use prepositions to indicate direct and indirect complements.
Secondly, in Arabic, the verb has “aspect” and not “tense”. Therefore, in order to qualify these tenses and modes, they use temporal particles and modifying verbs. Another feature of the Arabic language is that sentences are coordinated and there is almost no subordination. A good trick to translate from Arabic into Spanish is the use of the gerund, for example.
What types of Arabic translation services do agencies offer?
In order to provide an optimal translation, translation agencies rely on translators who are native speakers and specialised in the language. In addition, Arabic is a language of great religious, cultural and historical importance. Therefore, the cultural context must be taken into account when localising a text.
Translation agencies offer numerous Arabic services: translations of generic texts, legal translations, technical translations of manuals, etc.
