Traditional Chinese Translation Services

Where Traditional Chinese is used and where your translation is accepted

Traditional Chinese characters are the official script in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, and they are common in older Chinese communities outside China, such as in the United States. Simplified characters are used in mainland China and Singapore. A document from Taiwan, Hong Kong or Macau comes in Traditional characters, and the destination decides the type of translation.

Traditional Chinese translation: what changes in each document

Traditional and Simplified Chinese are two standard sets of characters for the same written language. A translation into Chinese uses the characters of the place where the document will be used, and a translation from Traditional Chinese keeps names, dates and seals exactly as in the original.

• Characters: Traditional Chinese keeps the older, fuller forms, so country is written 國, while Simplified Chinese writes 国. A text for Taiwan, Hong Kong or Macau goes into Traditional characters.
• Speech: Cantonese, spoken in Hong Kong and Macau, is usually written in Traditional characters, and Mandarin is the official spoken language of Taiwan. The standard written language is the same, but each region has its own vocabulary, and the translation uses the words of the place where it will be read.
• Names: the surname comes first, and Hong Kong and Taiwan use their own romanizations instead of the pinyin of mainland passports, so the same surname 陳 can be Chan or Chen. The translation follows the spelling in the passport.
• Dates and numbers: dates are written year, month and day, and large numbers are counted in units of ten thousand (萬), so 5萬 is 50,000. Documents from Taiwan often count years in the Minguo calendar, which starts in 1912, so year 115 is 2026.
• Documents: identity cards, household records such as the Taiwanese household registration transcript (戶籍謄本), and birth and marriage certificates often carry red seals and stamps. The translation reproduces every seal, stamp and note.