Portuguese: Translation & GMP interpreting

The Portuguese language is an Ibero-Romance language and belongs to the Romance branch of the Indo-European language family. It is the official language in nine countries and the most widely used language in South America. There are more than 240 million Portuguese native speakers around the world and about 30 million who speak it as a foreign language. Due to the expansive missionary activities and colonization by the Portuguese in the 16^th and 17^th century, the Portuguese language is still spoken in several Asian and African countries today. The countries with the highest concentration of Portuguese-speaking population are Portugal and Brazil.

There are several dialects and language variants in Portuguese as well. While Brazilian Portuguese only slightly differs from European Portuguese, it does have a different grammatical structure and vocabulary. The differences can be compared to those between British and American English. However, the particularities in each case must be known to the specialist Portuguese translator or interpreter to guarantee the optimal translation and interpreting. If you entrust AP Fachübersetzungen with your Portuguese translation or interpreting job, you can be sure that we will find the suitable language mediator for you since experience, competence and reliability are our top priority.

Smooth communication is a top priority, especially when dealing with authorities or other important appointments, and this depends to a large extent on the specialist interpreter. In order to avoid unnecessary problems and misunderstandings, we at AP Fachübersetzungen exclusively employ competent Portuguese translators and interpreters who have many years of experience and impeccable references. Our strict quality management sets high standards and guarantees the impeccable quality of our services. At AP Fachübersetzungen, your translation and interpreting projects are in the best hands. Whether you need a consecutive, simultaneous, liaison or conference interpreter or a specialist translator for Portuguese, you can always rely on our interpreting and translation agency.

During the Romanization of Europe in the 3^rd century BC, Roman legionnaires brought spoken Latin to the territory of modern Portugal. In the period of Roman rule of the Iberian Peninsula, legionnaires and citizens settled and formed communities which communicated in Latin. This early spread of spoken Latin created the fundamental basis for modern Portuguese. Thus, the Portuguese language developed out of Latin after the decline of the Roman Empire, as did the other Romance languages (e.g. French and Spanish). Written evidence of Portuguese dates back to the 11^th century.

Portugal developed into a world power between the 14^th and 16^th century, and with its dominance, the Portuguese language also spread. Therefore, Portuguese also became an administrative language in the Portugal’s colonies in Africa, America and Asia and is still spoken in many of the former colonies today. A rough distinction is made between European (Lusitanian) Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese.

The development of the Portuguese language is generally divided into two phases: Old Portuguese (12^th – mid 16^th century) and Modern Portuguese (starting from the mid-16^th century).

As in all Romance languages, a large part of the vocabulary in Portuguese comes from Latin. The Portuguese language uses the Latin alphabet with 13 diacritical signs (e.g. à, õ or ú) and thus comprises 39 letters. However, the letters K, W and Y are only used for proper names in Portuguese.

While the German language has three genders, the Portuguese language only has two: masculine and feminine. Usually, the gender of nouns is determined by their ending; yet there are also a few exceptions.

The position of adjectives in a sentence is largely regular as well. In most cases, they come after the noun. But there are also adjectives that always come before the noun and adjectives that change their meaning depending on whether they come before or after the noun. Here, the Portuguese translator and interpreter has to be extremely careful and precise, of course.

Some moods (imperative, indicative and subjunctive) exist both in the German language and in the Portuguese language, though with different rules regarding use. Another mood is the personal infinitive, which only exists in Portuguese. There is no direct equivalent for this in German, and consequently, it is the translator’s task to render it correctly in the target language.

Due to the special grammatical features of the Portuguese language, it is advisable to entrust the translation of your specialist texts or interpretation to a native speaker or very experienced language expert. Therefore, we at AP Fachübersetzungen exclusively employ certified and experienced Portuguese translators and interpreters and can thus guarantee the high quality and accuracy of your Portuguese translation. Our interpreting and translation agency exclusively entrusts certified, publicly appointed and sworn translators with certified translations for Portuguese.