English German translation and German English translation for business and for people - including notarised or certified German translation - from experienced professional mother-tongue translators. Established in 1990, we're also leading providers of German interpreting UK and Europe-wide plus subtitling, transcription and German voiceover UK.

- where the German accent's on you!

German English and English German translation; German interpreting; German voiceover UK; certified translation

UK Freefone 0800 783 4678  Intnl  0044 1772 558858

email ... our German translation UK team at german@lifelinelanguageservices.co.uk

UK Freefax 0800 328 4149 Intnl Fax 0044 1772 558878

	German translation has been a core business since 1990, both from and into English. Our preferred provider status to leading translation companies within Germany itself confirms the quality of our German English translation while our many UK clients attest to our English German translation. Although our most popular language is Spanish, closely followed by French, demand for German translation and interpreting is booming with high volumes of technical/engineering, logistics, insurance, legal, and general commercial and financial material, as well as private clients (particularly for certified German translation). Recent work includes 100,000 words for BMW, 90,000 words of software manuals and 60,000 words of high-level reports for several German Government Ministries.
	Sounds good... I need German translation, anything I should know?
	For German English translation, not really. For English German translation, note that Austrian German and Swiss German both vary somewhat from the Federal Republic, so if you're targeting Austria please tell us so we use the optimal translators. German punctuation is similar to English, but quotemarks change - so for "Berlin", an English German translation would show „Berlin“ - opening quote at bottom, quotes outward. Numbers differ - commas and points switch, so 1,234.56 in English German translation becomes 1.234,56. German grammar is very different to English so translated word order is often totally different to the English source.
	Finally, German business translation can be very formal; many long-term colleagues will still address each other as "Herr" (Mr) or "Frau" (Mrs).
	What if I need the translation in Quark or Illustrator?
	If typesetting remember German translation from English is typically 10-20% longer and may have long compound words, like "Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften" - hyphenation's critical and best left to German linguists! Many characters are accented, usually umlaut - ä,ë,ö and ü, which REALLY affects meaning so beware. There's also one unique letter - ß called "sz".
	Wow... do you have a German interpreting UK base too?
	We provide German interpreting UK wide and abroad - see our interpreting page. If you need German interpreting just call us on Freefone 0800 783 4678 or drop an e-mail to our German interpreting UK team. As well as liaison interpreting we also offer full conference simultaneous interpreting, including provision of all systems, as well as court interpreting and DPSI public service German interpreting.
	So what's "certified translation"?
	Certified translation is the UK equivalent to Europe's "sworn translation"; the translator needs a good language qualification and extensive experience. A "certified translation" carries legal weight in court - we also notarise and legalise if required. There's more info on our Legal & Police services page.
	Do you offer German transcription?
	Sure - transcription (converting audio to text) is widely used for research and conferences, and can be mono- or bilingual - so German transcription may also have a German English translation (and for legal use may require certified transcription). See our Transcription page. Leading software developers are large transcription clients.
	And finally, German or Austrian German voiceover or subtitling?
	Yep - see our voiceovers page. Since we're first and foremost a language service, the translation standard of our German voiceover scripts is identical to our mainstream German translation - mother-tongue, professional translators + 100% review in-house - sadly not true of every voiceover provider. For German voiceover UK demand is usually for Germany itself, although we also provide both Austrian German and Swiss German voiceover. Some samples of our German voices include (click name to hear sample): Franz; Thomas; Dani and Riena; an example of Austrian German voiceover is Sigi, and of Swiss German voiceover is Dieter.
	Be careful with translation for German voiceover. While wordcount is the usual guide to how well a script translation fits the original runtime (key to avoiding problems at recording), German's many compound words are deceptive; a script's German translation may have fewer words yet take 30-40% longer to read! You may find our Really Useful Voiceover Guide helpful if you have a German voiceover project - or one in any other language. And our German subtitling receives the same attention to detail - where hyphenation's just as critical as in typesetting.
	OK then... so can I get a quotation?
	Sure - just click here to e-mail our German translation team, or here to go to our Quotation form, or simply call us on 0800 783 4678