How to Differentiate French European and French Canadian?
Apart from English, French is the only other language present on every single continent of the world. As a bilingual country, Canada is the perfect place for a translation company. At LingoStar, most of our projects involve French translation, even though we are located in English-speaking Vancouver. However, these translation projects can be in either French European or French Canadian.
Among all these projects, we can differentiate between the French Canadian and French European projects, which have to be handled by different translators. We take pride in the fact that we make sure our clients are happy with their translations and recordings, and that our final French translations are accurate.
French European Translations and Recordings
First, let us talk about French European projects before we tackle the French Canadian ones. One thing to keep in mind is that France is not the only country to use the European version of French. You can also find it in Belgium, Switzerland or Luxembourg. Each country has different expressions and accents, but the vast majority of the language stays the same.
We have dealt with a lot of French European projects recently, one of which was a translation and voice-over project. The voice-over part is interesting because you can clearly hear the difference between the two French varieties. Indeed, a French person can distinguish in seconds whether a recording comes from a French European or a French Canadian speaker. Therefore, it is extremely important to choose the right voice artist depending on the version asked by the client.
What About French Canadian Translations?
As mentioned above, selecting the right version of a language is vital if you are looking the get into a certain market. And even though both French varieties belong to the same language, they have distinctive differences. To some extent, French Europeans may not understand French Canadians and vice-versa.
We recently had a French Canadian translation project which needed to be adapted to its European equivalent. You may think that a job of this nature is easy. However, it requires a lot of research to determine whether we need to change a word or not. Indeed, some Canadian words may have a different meaning than their European equivalents.
Consequently, a bad choice in your translation could prove harmful to you or your company. At LingoStar, we make sure we provide you with the best translators, in both French varieties.
Lingostar Translation and Recording Services
If you are in need of a translation or recording, LingoStar is here for you! We work with professional and native translators and voice-over artists. Not only do we provide French translation in European and Canadian, but we also provide translations for more than one hundred different languages. For more information, call us at 604-629-8420 or send us an email at info@lingo-star.com. You can also get a free quote here.
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