An Accent on Accuracy

The highest quality translations, brisk turnaround schedules, competitive rates, and sharing of our knowledge, are all requisites for ALT‘s success. The complete and accurate translation of your company’s communications is vital to your success. That’s why ALT is obsessed with providing the best translators for YOUR project. High-quality translations are the product of a highly talented and experienced translation team with expertise in your industry. ALT puts all the pieces together to make it happen.

Why choose us for English to Portuguese or  Portuguese to English Translation?

Advanced Language Translation’s Professional Portuguese translation services utilize only native speakers to ensure quality and precision translations for your target audience. With Portuguese in particular, a deep understanding of Portuguese culture is needed for translation to be successful. When doing business in a Portuguese-speaking country, professional human translation is a must. Do not expect to close a business deal or impress your clients with spotty software translation. Only through human translation, edited and customized to your target audience, can your meaning be honestly conveyed and your audience not be offended.

We are proud of our excellent reputation for reliable and high quality Portuguese to English and English to Portuguese translation services. We have assembled teams of translators from around the world, with an array of skills and specialties and can custom fit the knowledge and strengths of our teams to your specific projects and to your specific Portuguese-speaking market. To demonstrate our commitment to quality and our dedication to our clients, we offer free consultations and provide an industry leading 180-day warranty on translation!

We provide quick and easy custom quotes for your Portuguese translation and localization needs.

Need to get the “gist” of Portuguese?

Although professional translation is highly recommended for any business, legal or sincere correspondence in Portuguese, sometimes it may be ok to use machine translation (via software or the internet) to get the gist of an e-mail or web page. By no means is machine translation an acceptable substitute for professional translation—the technology is not there yet. But it is great for quickly getting the general idea of an article, e-mail, or web site.

Interesting Facts about the Portuguese Language

With approximately 200 million native speakers, Portuguese is the seventh most widely spoken language. Portuguese is the official language in 7 countries and is one of the official languages of many international organizations, such as the European Union and Mercosul. It is also one of the administrative languages of the African Union.

For the most part, Portuguese dialects from different regions and countries are mutually comprehensible, but significant divergences may exist. For example, certain grammatical aspects and vocabulary may change from region to region. In addition, there is a separate orthographic standard for the Portuguese of Portugal and for that of Brazil. There may also be variations in pronunciation.

In the US, there are more than half a million speakers of Portuguese, making it the 13th most-widely spoken language in the country. Portuguese-speakers are mostly grouped in the states of Massachusetts, California and New Jersey.

History of the Portuguese Language

The Portuguese language belongs to the West Iberian branch of the Romance languages, which is in turn a branch of the Indo-European language family. The Romance family also includes Latin (the parent of all languages in this group), Catalan, French, Italian, Occitan (Provençal), Romanian, Rumansch, Sardinian, Spanish and a few other smaller languages.

The history of the Portuguese language begins with the Roman conquest in the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C., when local languages were replaced by Latin, or more precisely, Vulgar Latin. With the collapse of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, various groups occupied the land, each exerting their own influence on the language. These groups included Germanic tribes from the east, and the Moors from North Africa. Over the centuries, this gradually evolved into the language that was a mixture of what is now recognized as Portuguese and Galician. The separate political histories of Portugal and Galicia would eventually result in two distinct languages.

Between the 14th and 16th centuries, the political and commercial interests of Portugal would bring the Portuguese language to regions of Africa, Asia and the Americas. Indeed, by the end of that period, Portuguese had become a lingua franca in Asia and Africa. Even post-colonization, many of those same countries still recognize Portuguese as the official language

Written Language

Portuguese utilizes a modified version of the Latin alphabet. Diacritics include the acute accent (á,é,í,ó,ú), grave accent (à), circumflex (â, ê, ô), diaeresis (ü) in Brazil, tilde (ã,õ) and cedilla (ç).

The pre-eminent organization promoting the Portuguese language is the Instituto Internacional da Língua Portuguesa (IILP), a non-governmental body first established in 1989 by the Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa (CPLP). The organization seeks to promote relations between Portuguese-speaking countries and to create a Portuguese standard, but does not regulate the language.

Portuguese Language Statistics

• Portuguese is the native language of more than 200 million people. Another 15 million people speak Portuguese as their second language.
• With almost 200 million speakers, Portuguese-speakers outnumber Spanish-speakers in South America.
• There are more than 30 different dialects, including: Azorean, Caipira, Estremenho and Luandense.
• It is estimated that over 3 million people worldwide speak a Portuguese-based or Portuguese-influenced Creole.

Translation and Localization Issues with Portuguese

Advanced Language Translation Inc has extensive experience with commercial and technical translations from English to Portuguese and from Portuguese into English. We have also amassed years of experience in typesetting Portuguese content. Here are some of the common issues with English to Portuguese translation that we have learned:

• As there are so many significant differences between Portuguese spoken in various countries (and even in different regions of the same country), it is extremely important to take these differences into account when translating into Portuguese. Due to this fact, Advanced Language Translation Inc. carefully selects the translation/localization team for your target market, taking into account not only the team’s subject matter expertise, but also their dialect and locale knowledge.
• Texts usually expand by about 30% when translated from English into Portuguese. It is  extremely important to take this into account in the document authoring stage. For example, buttons on a web site should allow for this expansion.
• Portuguese is a Latin 1 language and typesetting of Portuguese texts does not pose any major technical difficulties, but hyphenation can be an issue.
• Beware of false friends. Portuguese is often considered simply a mixture of Spanish and French, but it is NOT mutually intelligible with either to any practical extent. Also, as with any other language, having taken a couple years of Portuguese or being able to speak Portuguese, does not necessarily make one a translator. Translation requires more skills than just good command of source and target languages.

Portuguese Language Vital Information

Speaking Population: Approx. 200 million
Where Spoken: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, São Tomé and Principe, S.A.R. of Macau (to China), Mozambique.
Writing Systems: Latin 1
Code Pages:
ANSI - 1252
Mac - 10000
Windows – Western European
Unicode Supported: Yes
Common Phrases: (phonetic pronunciations in parentheses)
Portuguese:português (por-chu-GESCH)
Hello: olá (oh-LA)
Good-bye: adeus (ah-day-OSH)
Please: por favor (poorr-FA-vor)
Thank you: obrigado/obrigada (oh-BREE-ga-du/oh-BREE-ga-da)
Yes: sim (seem)
No: não (now)
English: inglês (ing-LESCH)