Chinese Translation Services
Business Language Services specialises in Chinese translation (both English to Chinese Translation and Chinese to English Translation). We handle all variants of Chinese, whether traditional or simplified, Mandarin or Cantonese. We have a broad network of highly experienced and fully qualified professional Chinese translators who only translate into their mother tongue. What’s more, all of our Chinese translations are proofread by a second, independent linguist and undergo final checks in accordance with the ISO 9001 quality standard.
Chinese Interpreting Services
BLS works with some of the very best Chinese interpreters, who have been assessed by Business Language Services over a period of 20 years according to their expertise, specialist knowledge, friendly attitude, professionalism and reliability. We fully understand the complexity of the Chinese Language and the intricacies of the different variants of Chinese. Our professional, highly qualified Chinese interpreters can be employed to meet your requirements.
Chinese Language Training
BLS is a specialist provider of tailor-made language courses in Chinese. We currently provide many classes for companies in the United Kingdom on an ongoing basis. We would work with you to match your precise needs and do all we can to fit in with you. We have ideal in-house facilities to provide Chinese language classes or we can fit in with your timetable and arrange lessons at your workplace. Our expert, quality assessed Chinese tutors enable us to offer you the very best opportunity to learn Chinese.
Here are just a number of reasons why you can put your trust in us:
- We are a full member of the ATC (Association of Translation Companies)
- Business Language Services has been a leading language service provider for more than 20 years
- Quality is everything to us. We adhere strictly to our own inteSrnal quality procedures and we are ISO 9001 accredited
The Chinese Language
Chinese is a broad term referring to a large language family spoken as a mother tongue in one variation or another by approximately one fifth of the world’s population, or around 1 billion people. Chinese is highly diverse and the internal variations are significant, with some classifying them as dialects, but many linguists arguing their status as languages in their own right, particularly as most regional varieties are mutually unintelligible, despite sharing certain vocabulary or other features. All the varieties of spoken Chinese are tonal, meaning the same syllable can represent up to ten different words.
Standard Chinese is the official language of China and Taiwan and one of four official languages in Singapore. It is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. Mandarin is by far the most spoken of the varieties, followed by Wu, Yue (including Cantonese) and Min. Mandarin is dominant in the north and south-west of China, while other varieties are more common in central and south-eastern China. Cantonese is an official language of Hong Kong (along with English) and Macau (along with Portuguese).
Though there are more than 20,000 Chinese characters, fewer than 10,000 are in common use. Chinese words are made up of two or more different characters, and there are therefore many more words than there are characters. Languages such as Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese have been heavily influenced by Chinese and thus contain a large number of Chinese loanwords. The English language also contains some Chinese loanwords, for example ‘tea’ and ‘kumquat’. Chinese has also absorbed a considerable number of words from other languages, e.g. 香槟 (champagne) from French and 高尔夫 (golf) from English.
A ‘sinophone’ is one who speaks Chinese natively or by preference. It derives from the Latin term for ancient China, Sinae.