Professional Chinese Translation Services

Order Chinese translation from professional translators using our custom API.

English to Chinese Translation – Fast, Affordable and Professional

Lionbridge provides high-quality Chinese translation services at affordable rates. Thousands of companies—big and small—trust Lionbridge to fuel their global growth.

Working with Lionbridge gives you immediate access to years of translation and localization experience, plus the expertise to work with your existing technology within your ecosystem. Translate from English to traditional or simplified Chinese quickly and at scale. Our team helps you plan and manage projects of any size, in a way which is scalable and affordable.

Our Chinese Translation Customers

English to Chinese Translation

Despite being two of the world’s most commonly spoken languages, English and Chinese are extremely dissimilar, with each containing its own linguistic subtleties and complexities. The Chinese language is highly contextual, so any professional Chinese translator must fully understand the intended purpose of a sentence and the language’s intricacies to avoid misunderstandings.

With seven distinct Chinese dialects and many more local dialects—which are often not mutually intelligible—the intended audience of a piece of translated writing must also be carefully considered. A piece of writing that works for one section of the population may not work for another, meaning only translators with a firm grasp of regional differences can be trusted to create work that produces the intended effect. As a language rich in its own idioms and intricacies, Chinese translators must also be equally confident in their grasp of the English language to avoid any loss of meaning in their translations.

Chinese Translation Services

Lionbridge is a leading provider of English to Chinese translation services. With thousands of professional English to Chinese translators located worldwide, no other translation company can provide fast and high-quality Chinese business translation at a more competitive rate. We currently deliver hundreds of Chinese translation projects each month, easily and at scale.

Quality You Can Trust

Ordering a Chinese translation on the Lionbridge system gives you access to hundreds of native Chinese translators experienced in translating to and from Chinese. In addition, our platform features many built-in QA tools to ensure quality and accuracy across all your projects.

Simple Pricing

Thousands of businesses big and small choose Lionbridge based on our attractive rates. Our prices are among the most competitive, with per-word prices starting from just $0.05. Request a quote for professional translation to and from Chinese from Gengo, Lionbridge’s self-serve translation platform.

Speed and Scale

Most businesses have urgent translation needs. Lionbridge offers around-the-clock support to ensure all your content is translated into Chinese quickly, whether you need to translate two hundred or two million words.

Our Areas of Expertise

For your business to succeed in the challenging Chinese market, you’ll need to translate all your content quickly, efficiently and affordably. Lionbridge supports traditional and simplified Chinese translation of a wide range of document and content types, including:

Chinese website localization
Chinese mobile app localization
Chinese game localization
Chinese product description translation
Customer support translation
Chinese marketing copy, ads and social media
Chinese news articles and entertainment
Chinese travel listings and guides
Chinese document translation
Chinese emails, letters and more

Chinese Translation Tips

Traditional vs Simplified Chinese

There are two distinct versions of written Chinese. In the mid-twentieth century, in an effort to increase the literacy rate, the People’s Republic of China began a process of simplifying written Chinese. As a result, two versions of written Chinese came into being: traditional and simplified. Simplified Chinese is predominantly used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, whereas traditional Chinese is primarily used in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Learn more about when, where and how to use both traditional and simplified Chinese.

READ ARTICLE

Our Chinese Translators

Lionbridge’s Chinese translators are experts in their field with years of professional translation experience under their belts. That’s why global companies trust Lionbridge to produce high-quality translated content at lightning speed. Our innovative translation platform and global network of translators means that no matter the size or complexity of your Chinese translation project, we can deliver on time, every time, with quality assured.

Popular Chinese Translation Phrases

Take a look at some of the most searched-for Chinese translations of English phrases.

What to translate from English	Chinese (Simplified) translation	Pinyin*
Hello	你好	Nǐ hǎo
Thank you	谢谢	Xièxiè
Goodbye	再见	Zàijiàn
Good morning	早上好	Zǎoshang hǎo
I love you	我爱你	Wǒ ài nǐ
I miss you	我想你	Wǒ xiǎng nǐ
Good luck	祝你好运	Zhù nǐ hǎo yùn
Happy New Year	新年快乐	Xīnnián kuàilè
Happy birthday	生日快乐	Shēngrì kuàilè

* Pinyin, which literally translates as “spell-sound”, is the standard system of romanized spelling for transliterating Chinese.

Chinese Language Facts

Chinese is the oldest written language on the planet and is part of the Sino-Tibetan language family. In the 1950s, a form of simplified Chinese was developed. Today, this system continues to be used in mainland China, while the traditional version remains in use in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau.

With nearly 1.3 billion native speakers worldwide, about 15% of the world’s population speaks a dialect of Chinese as their native tongue.
Written Chinese dates back over 3,000 years. It consists of more than 20,000 distinct characters.
Chinese is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, along with Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
The Chinese language has seven major dialect groups, and each has its own variations. Mandarin dialects are spoken by 71.5 percent of the population.

Chinese Dialects

Although native speakers will often describe Chinese as a single language, it is more accurately thought of as a language family. Linguists disagree on just how many varieties of Chinese exist, but it is generally accepted that there are between 7 and 13.

With approximately 960 million speakers, Mandarin is the most common Chinese dialect. Mandarin is also referred to as Standard Chinese and is the official state language of China and Taiwan. According to official estimations, roughly 70 percent of Chinese citizens currently speak Mandarin as a first or second language.

Wu, or Shanghainese, and Cantonese Chinese are key dialects of the Chinese language, with roughly 70 million and 60 million speakers respectively. Despite sharing some vocabulary, Cantonese and Mandarin are mutually unintelligible, due to their differing systems of grammar, lexicon and pronunciation.

Lionbridge’s native Chinese translators are experts in Mandarin, Wu and Cantonese, making them fully equipped to optimize your content for your target audience.

Chinese Localization Tips

Localizing Websites using Hreflang Meta Tags

When translating a website, it’s important to ensure that search engines can understand exactly which language your content is available in. In addition to the language attribute on the <html> tag, each page should also include a <head> section in which links to its localized equivalent are listed.

If the primary language of your website is English, for example, and you want to translate it into Chinese (Simplified), then every translated page should include the following block of code in the <head> section:

Keep in mind that this block should be added to both the original and the localized versions of your page (in this case: example.com/about/ & example.com/zh-hans/about/). By doing this, each page points to every available localized version of itself, making it easy for search engines to understand the structure of your site and display the appropriate translation for every user.

Targeting a Language and a Country

In addition to specifying the language of your content, you can also specify countries that you would like to target. This is ideal for a language that is spoken in multiple countries, such as Chinese. To do this, the target country can be included in the hreflang attribute, like so:

FAQs

Still have questions about professional Chinese translation? Here are the answers to the questions our customers frequently ask.

How much does a Chinese to English translation cost?

Our order form (which connects to Gengo, our self-serve translation platform) provides cost estimates for both English to Chinese translation and vice versa. Simply upload your document and select your language pair to receive your estimate. For larger translation projects, reach out to our sales team for more details.

When do I need to use traditional Chinese translation services?

Hong Kong and Taiwan use traditional Chinese. If you are translating documents for these regions, please select Chinese (Traditional), language code ZH-HANT, as part of your language pair. Translations for mainland China should use Chinese (Simplified), language code ZH-HANS.

Learn more about the difference between simplified and traditional Chinese by reading our article here.

How do you translate English to Chinese or Chinese to English for a website?

Lionbridge is experienced in translating and localizing web content from English to Chinese and vice versa. We can help you to create, translate, and optimize content for your website’s requirements. We also offer consultation for all your marketing needs, including technical SEO for Baidu. Get in touch with one of our offices in mainland China, Taiwan, or Hong Kong for more support.

What is PIPL and is Lionbridge PIPL compliant?

The China Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) is a new data privacy policy enacted in China. Like the GDPR in Europe, PIPL aims to protect personal information and applies to any organizations or individuals who handle personally identifiable information (PII) in China. Lionbridge is PIPL ready and able to assist you with PIPL-compliant localization.

Contact Us

Start translating your content into Chinese today using our API.

Business Email* : Please enter business email

First Name* :

Last Name* :

Company Name* :

Phone Number :

Industry :

Country or Region* :

Message* :

By checking the box below, you agree to receive our marketing emails. You will receive information on innovative leadership, best practices and market trends in language services. Sign up to receive Lionbridge emails

To unsubscribe and find out how we process your personal information, consult our Privacy Policy.

Chinese Translation Thought Leadership

Chinese Pharma Regulatory Changes: 3 Implications for the World

China is disrupting global markets across industries. How will Chinese pharma's regulatory changes impact the world? Here's our take.

Lionbridge Gaming Expands China Capabilities in Functional Test, Localization Test, Localization

To better serve customers in every market, Lionbridge now has gaming labs in multiple Chinese cities. Find out how this can help you create better gaming experiences.

The Difference Between Simplified and Traditional Chinese

What's the difference between Simplified and Traditional Chinese? Learn what distinguishes the Chinese writing systems, where they are used, and how to optimize translation efforts to reach one of the world's top economic powers.

Back Translation in Life Sciences Content

Back translation is a key part of quality assurance during localization of life sciences content. Learn about the benefits of back translation and how to do it properly with Lionbridge.

WHAT WE DO

GENERATIVE AI

INDUSTRIES

LAⁱNGUAGE CLOUD™

WHO WE ARE