As a business owner who is looking to expand beyond international boundaries, if you are new to the world of translation and other language services, you will come across a number of technical jargon associated with the field; understanding these is vital in forging relationships

In this thread, we share some of the key #translation terms every translation buyer should know, including:

Native language
Source language
Target language and
Language pair

Native Language -

Refers to the language a professional translator acquired in early childhood because it was spoken at home or in the region they reside. It is also known as Mother Tongue.

Source Language -

The original language of a document that needs to be translated.

Eg. when Swahili needs to be translated into English, Swahili is the Source Language.

Target Language -

The language in which a document is required to be translated into.

Eg. when Swahili needs to be translated into English, English is the Target Language.

Language Pair

This is the source and target language with which any Translator works.

Eg. for a translator that translates from Swahili to English, their language pair would be Swahili-English.

These are only a few of the many terminologies used in the language service industry, we'll be sharing more in future posts.

Tell us, which of these terms did you know before now?