German to English business translation for quotations, tenders and marketing
- ISO 17100 and ISO 9001, audited by DEKRA
- Dual control principle: the translator never revises their own text
- Incoterms, company legal forms and standard numbers stay as written
- Quotations, tenders, framework contracts, presentations
Business translation covers the texts of sales, purchasing, trade and company management: quotations, tenders, framework contracts, presentations, press releases and marketing material. What separates it from financial translation is the reader. Business texts are read by customers, suppliers and contracting authorities, financial texts by shareholders, banks and supervisory authorities.
Exporters need translations for bids, fairs and procurement
Business translations usually come with a fixed date, because they depend on bid submissions, trade fair dates and procurement deadlines.
- Bid and tender documents for international procurement procedures, often under deadline pressure
- Framework and supply contracts with foreign partners, with the standardised clauses checked
- Sales material for international trade fairs
- Company profiles and presentations for meetings with investors, customers and partners
- Interpreting at negotiations, trade fairs and supplier meetings
Send the file or a text sample and, for a tender, the submission date of the bid. The latest order date is counted back from that date. Quotes are without obligation, usually on the same working day.
The submission deadline decides when the translation must be ordered
In a tender, translation time is part of the bidding period, not an add-on at the end. Counting back from the submission date almost always gives an earlier order date than planned. In a public procurement procedure (Vergabeverfahren), a missed deadline cannot be remedied: a late bid is not assessed, however good it is.
For an extensive bid package, count back from the deadline:
- The submission date is fixed and not negotiable.
- Minus submission and a buffer for portal problems, incomplete forms and signature issues.
- Minus internal approval by sales, engineering and the commercial department, the step most often missing from the plan and often longer than the translation itself.
- Minus format checking and foreign-language typesetting, if the layout is affected.
- Minus translation, including the mandatory revision.
- The result is the latest date to order the translation.
- Announce the job before the text is final. A known submission date is enough to reserve capacity.
- Split the package by document. Large packages are translated in batches, so internal approval can run in parallel.
- Send existing terminology. Earlier bids to the same buyer are the best reference.
Standard clauses are checked against the original
Every translation is revised by a second qualified translator, as ISO 17100 requires. In business texts that includes checking standard clauses such as Incoterms against the original wording, and your terminology is carried forward in follow-up jobs. Business and trade are named in the certified scope of both DEKRA certificates.
Business texts are billed per standard line or page
Business texts are billed by volume, per standard line (Normzeile) of 50 to 55 characters including spaces. The general basis of billing is explained under specialised translations.
Document types and languages for business texts
| Criterion | Details |
|---|---|
| Document types | Quotations and costings, tender and procurement documents, framework and supply contracts, presentations, business correspondence, company profiles and corporate brochures, press releases, marketing and sales material, training material |
| Scope boundary | Accounting, reporting obligations and capital market communication are covered under financial translation; contracts with jurisdiction and liability clauses under legal translation |
| Languages | All European languages plus Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Turkish and others |
Another type of business document? Reports, studies and other business documents are handled the same way, standardised clauses included. Send the document and your deadline
Incoterms and legal forms stay as written, while number formats are converted
Incoterms and other standardised trade clauses are not translated. A clause such as FCA Dortmund, Incoterms 2020 stays in exactly that form whatever the target language; only the surrounding text is translated. A translated or paraphrased clause loses its defined meaning and creates room for interpretation in a dispute where there was none before.
Incoterms are the trade terms of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), and the abbreviation itself carries the legal consequence. The current version is Incoterms 2020, in force since 1 January 2020. Older contracts citing Incoterms 2010 keep that reference unchanged.
Table: Elements in business documents that are not translatedHide table
| Element | Example | Why it stays |
|---|---|---|
| Incoterms | FCA, DAP, EXW with named place and rules year, e.g. DAP Rotterdam Incoterms 2020 | Standardised ICC clauses with a defined transfer of risk and costs |
| Company legal forms | GmbH (German limited liability company), AB, S.p.A., Sp. z o.o., B.V. | Part of the company name and defined by law. A translated legal form names a different company |
| Currency amounts | Amounts in SEK, CHF, PLN | Stated in the original currency, not converted. A conversion would change the content of the quotation |
| Standard and reference numbers | DIN EN ISO 9001, procurement reference numbers, tender IDs | Identifiers, carried over character for character |
| Product and type designations | Article numbers, type codes | They refer to the physical product and must remain orderable |
The list looks obvious, yet this is exactly where machine translation intervenes: it treats abbreviations such as FCA or GmbH as ordinary words and renders them by meaning. A paraphrased clause reads fluently and passes proofreading; the error only surfaces when a supplier reads the transfer of risk differently from the buyer. Clauses are therefore marked as segments not to be translated before work starts.
Number formats are the exception that does change: the currency stays as written, only the notation of the figure changes. German uses the comma as the decimal separator and the point for thousands; English does the reverse. A costing table translated without converting them shifts a quoted price by orders of magnitude, and a conversion that misses part of the table does the same. Number columns are therefore signed off separately, not read along with the text.
Marketing texts are translated, not transcreated
Translation reproduces the source text and is billed by volume. Transcreation rewrites an advertising message for the target market, with different imagery, different wordplay and sometimes a different argument, and is billed by effort. In advertising the goal is the effect in the target market, not literal accuracy. Eurolingua translates marketing copy and adapts the register to the target market; it does not offer transcreation. For that, a creative agency with copywriters in the target language is the right address.
| Criterion | Specialised translation (Eurolingua) | Transcreation (creative agency) |
|---|---|---|
| Tie to the source text | Close. Statement and structure are preserved | Loose. The intended effect is preserved, not the wording |
| Suitable for | Product descriptions, data sheets, company profiles, specialist articles | Slogans, campaign visuals, wordplay, advertising copy |
| Billing | By volume, per standard line (Normzeile) of 50 to 55 characters including spaces | By effort, typically by time spent, often with several variants to choose from |
| Back-translation as a check | Useful | Not useful. It is bound to look wrong, because the text departs from the source on purpose |
Say in your request which of the two you need. Expect transcreation and order translation, and you get a correct text that sounds bland in the target market. If your copy needs transcreation, we say so before you order rather than deliver a translation that misses the effect.
German business communication is more formal than that of most target markets, so German advertising copy rendered word for word sounds distant or old-fashioned. Adjusting the register is part of the service, not an intervention in your message.
Common questions about business translation
Which business fields are covered?
Sales and purchasing, trade and logistics, public procurement and tendering, corporate communications, marketing and trade fair material, HR and training documents. Accounting, capital market communication and reporting obligations follow different standards and are covered under financial translation.
Are Incoterms and company legal forms translated?
No. Incoterms keep their original abbreviation, named place and rules year, and a company’s legal form stays part of its name. Both can be explained where needed, for example in brackets, but never replaced.
How quickly can tender documents be translated?
That depends on the volume. You can plan it by counting back from the submission deadline: submission and buffer, internal approval, format check, then translation and revision. Internal approval is the step most often left out of the plan.
What does a business translation cost?
Business texts are billed by volume. The general basis of billing is explained under specialised translations. Quotes are without obligation.
Do tender and quotation documents stay confidential?
Yes. Everyone involved is bound by a confidentiality obligation, and documents are processed in line with the GDPR. A separate non-disclosure agreement is available on request.
Send the file or a sample with the target language and purpose, and you will usually have a quote on the same working day.