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Language Expansion/Retraction
Thread poster: kwint
kwint
kwint
United Kingdom
Local time: 05:56
English to Albanian
+ ...
Sep 30, 2009

Hi

Am hoping some translators may be able to help us out with their experience.

We are trying to get some sort of outline of how languages behave when going from one language to another.

For example, if translating from French > English does it expand/retract? If going from English > Turkish does it expand/retract.

We would like responses from people who work with English as one of their pairs and percentage wise how the target word count works... See more
Hi

Am hoping some translators may be able to help us out with their experience.

We are trying to get some sort of outline of how languages behave when going from one language to another.

For example, if translating from French > English does it expand/retract? If going from English > Turkish does it expand/retract.

We would like responses from people who work with English as one of their pairs and percentage wise how the target word count works out.

For example: "When translating from Turkish > English" the text can expand around 40%".

Hope you can help.

Thanks ▲ Collapse
 
Jack Doughty
Jack Doughty  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 05:56
Russian to English
+ ...
In memoriam
Russian>English Oct 1, 2009

My experience is that the source (Russian) text word count is only about 70% of the target (English). This is due to factors such as the absence of definite/indefinite articles In Russian, the use of case endings instead of prepositions in some cases, and the joining of words together which in English would be separate.
However, if you look at the character count, there is very little difference.

P.S. The word you want is "contract", not "retract".

[Edited at 2009-10-... See more
My experience is that the source (Russian) text word count is only about 70% of the target (English). This is due to factors such as the absence of definite/indefinite articles In Russian, the use of case endings instead of prepositions in some cases, and the joining of words together which in English would be separate.
However, if you look at the character count, there is very little difference.

P.S. The word you want is "contract", not "retract".

[Edited at 2009-10-01 07:08 GMT] ▲ Collapse
 
urbom
urbom
United Kingdom
Local time: 05:56
German to English
+ ...
some (largely unsubstantiated) numbers from the web Oct 1, 2009

Google text expansion localization and you'll find some numbers.
 
Buzzy
Buzzy
Local time: 06:56
French to English
You can find some examples on the web Oct 1, 2009

Try searching for "expansion rate" in relation to "translation" - here's an example (as always nothing on a website is guaranteed to be true...)

http://www.datawords.co.uk/translation-source-target-language

Below are some examples of expansion rates between various foreign languages and French:
-English to French: from 15 to 20 % more words
... See more
Try searching for "expansion rate" in relation to "translation" - here's an example (as always nothing on a website is guaranteed to be true...)

http://www.datawords.co.uk/translation-source-target-language

Below are some examples of expansion rates between various foreign languages and French:
-English to French: from 15 to 20 % more words
-Spanish/Italian to French: 5 % more words
-German/Dutch to French: 40 % more words
-Swedish/Norwegian to French: 30 % more words


If you can understand French, the term is "taux de foisonnement" and this past kudoz question has some examples
http://www.proz.com/kudoz/French/other/547434-taux_de_foisonnement.html
- actually I suspect it's the same example and may be taken from the same source! ▲ Collapse
 
Susana González
Susana González
Local time: 06:56
English to Spanish
+ ...
Expansion when Spanish is the target language Oct 1, 2009

I work with the language pairs DE-ES and EN-ES. In the first case there is a 40% expansion factor and 20% for the EN-ES language combination.
I hope it helps.
 


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Language Expansion/Retraction







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