Dutch: Translation & interpreting

Dutch (Nederlandse taal) is the official language in the Netherlands, and it is also spoken in Belgium, Suriname, and in some Caribbean countries. Worldwide, there are about 23 million native speakers and 5 million people who speak Dutch as a foreign language.

The Dutch culture is known for its openness. Many Dutch speak at least one other language, e.g. English, German or French, apart from their native language.

Dutch is a West Germanic language and is traditionally considered to be something of a cross between English and German. It belongs to the Low Franconian languages and, like German, it is a language of the West Germanic group of the Indo-European languages. The Dutch language variations spoken in Belgium are called Flemish.

Considering all these particularities, it is always advisable to use an experienced specialist translator or interpreter who is familiar with the major and minor differences between the respective language variants to guarantee optimal translation and interpreting. However, finding the suitable language mediator costs a lot of time and effort – we are happy to take on this task for you. The language agency AP Fachübersetzungen has an extensive database and a strong network of competent and experienced Dutch interpreters and translators. If you entrust AP Fachübersetzungen with your Dutch translation or interpreting job, you can rely on us to find the right language expert for you.

In the case of certified translations of documents and certificates, we only use experienced, publicly appointed and sworn Dutch translators for public documents to guarantee impeccable quality and correctness for the Dutch translation of your documents. For your Dutch interpreting project, we will use our best consecutive, court, conference and simultaneous interpreters.

The history of the Dutch language can roughly be divided into the periods of Old Dutch (around 600-1100), Middle Dutch (around 1100-1500) and Modern Dutch (from around 1500-today). The standard Dutch language of today developed out of the Dutch and the Brabantian written dialect.

The 17^th century was the pinnacle of Dutch culture; it is called the Dutch Golden Age. The Dutch people became independent from the Spanish monarchy during the Eighty Years‘ War between 1568 and 1648 and developed into a trading power during the 17^th century that consequently also exported its language all over the world. The Dutch language was partly mixed with the local languages or developed further. For example, in some parts of Southern Africa, Afrikaans is spoken - a language that is derived from Dutch.

In 1637, the States Translation or States Bible (Statenvertaling, Statenbijbel), probably the most historically significant translation of the Bible into the Dutch language, was completed. It is also interesting to know that it was even proofread by proofreaders from different parts of the country. Even at that time, special emphasis was put on a high-quality and correct translation. Obviously, this is still true today. Therefore, at AP Fachübersetzungen, we have your texts translated into the desired target language by competent and experienced specialist translators and then proofread by a qualified native proofreader. This way, we can ensure the impeccable quality and accuracy of your Dutch translation.

Since the German and the Dutch language are closely related, Dutch language mediators will come across things they know in many areas. For instance, the Dutch and the German syntax are largely the same, and there are also many parallels between the two languages regarding orthography. However, while there are three articles in German, there are only two in Dutch. Yet, both the German and the Dutch language have three genders. However, there are big differences in the phonetic system, and although the two languages partly use the same words with a similar spelling, these do not always have the same meaning. Other words in the Dutch vocabulary exist in German as well, but they are already considered to be dated. This also holds true vice-versa. Not only did the Dutch language adopt loan words from the German language but also words from the Romance languages and from English.

To avoid misunderstandings and unclear or even false translations, the Nuremberg language agency AP Fachübersetzungen works exclusively with native speakers and experienced experts of the Dutch language. Thanks to our strict quality management system, we can guarantee the correct and accurate specialist translation of your texts. With us, your translation and interpreting projects are always in good hands.