[Professional Translators Speaking from Experience] Things to Note for Translation into Taiwanese (Traditional Chinese)

Hello, everyone. In this article, we will give an introduction to the Traditional Chinese used in Taiwan.

We will explain the differences between the Simplified Chinese used in Mainland China and the Traditional Chinese used in Taiwan, and elaborate on what happens if Simplified Chinese is used in Taiwan.
Finally, from the perspective of professional translators, we will share with you the things to note when commissioning a translation company to translate texts into Traditional Chinese.
If you need to have texts translated into Chinese or you are interested in the differences between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, be sure to read this article!

Differences between the Chinese used in Mainland China and the Chinese used in Taiwan

The difference between Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese

The biggest difference between the Simplified Chinese used in Mainland China and the Traditional Chinese used in Taiwan is the number of strokes in the characters.
In the past, Traditional Chinese characters were used in Mainland China as well; however, the number of strokes in Traditional Chinese characters was reduced later on to facilitate greater ease in learning and writing Chinese characters and improve overall literacy, thus becoming the Simplified Chinese characters used in Mainland China today. While Simplified Chinese characters have reduced the difficulty of learning Chinese characters, the aesthetic beauty of the characters and the principles behind the creation of the characters have been diminished. In Taiwan, traditional Chinese characters continued to be used, preserving the aesthetic beauty and characteristics of traditional Chinese characters.

Please refer to the following for an idea of the differences between the two systems:

Some Simplified Chinese characters only have a small portion of their strokes altered, and may still be intelligible for Taiwanese people, but there are also many Simplified Chinese characters that have been altered to a greater extent, such as “體” becoming “体” in the aforementioned example. If Taiwanese people are provided with articles or websites that use Simplified Chinese characters, it may result in difficulty in reading the text and misunderstandings.

Differences in terminology

Next, I will list a few terms to illustrate the differences in the terminology used in Mainland China and in Taiwan.

When I was traveling in Singapore, I met someone from Mainland China who asked me where the “地铁” was, and I had no idea what the person was talking about. I was confused because in Taiwan, one usually calls the metro “捷運”.
Also, the word “土豆” usually refers to peanuts in Taiwan; however, the term refers to potatoes in Mainland China. Therefore, watch out for false friends when doing Chinese translation.
There is also the word “挺” (very), which is often used in Mainland China to emphasize adjectives; however, the word “很” is used in Taiwan to do so.
Isn’t it interesting? Even though both Taiwan and Mainland China use the Chinese language, there are many differences in terminology.

Things to note when commissioning the translation of documents into Traditional Chinese for a Taiwanese audience

Next, I’ll go over the things to note when commissioning the translation of documents into Traditional Chinese for use in Taiwan.

Make sure that no Simplified Chinese characters are used

The first thing to note is to make sure no Simplified Chinese characters appear in Traditional Chinese texts. You may think it’s needless to say so, but in practice, it’s common for Traditional Chinese texts to be interspersed with Simplified Chinese characters.

Here is a real example of an advertisement I saw in my Google mailbox in August 10, 2021.

Even though most of the screen has been blurred and it’s hard to see clearly, can you see the character “气”? It’s actually a Simplified Chinese character that should be written as “氣” in Taiwan.
It’s an advertisement made for Taiwanese people, but some Taiwanese may mistakenly think it’s an ad for a product made by a company in Mainland China when they see the Simplified Chinese character in it, and that the product is not sold to Taiwanese people, resulting in a loss of customers.

Avoid using terminology from Mainland China

In the previous chapter, we already listed some of the differences between the terminology used in Mainland China and in Taiwan; we also illustrated that there are situations where a term may have different meanings in the two places. I often see companies that use software to simply convert Simplified Chinese characters into Traditional Chinese ones in order to save on translation costs; doing so may result in misunderstandings and difficulty reading the text. If terminology from Mainland China is used by accident, it will make the text lose all appeal in the eyes of Taiwanese people.
Considering that the content of advertisements and websites has the ability to influence sales performance, I would recommend commissioning a Taiwanese translation company to translate or proofread texts.

Make PTSGI your first choice for Traditional Chinese translation

Although the Taiwanese market is not as large as the market in Mainland China, Taiwan still has a population of over 23 million people, which is almost equivalent to the population of Australia (whose population in August 2021 was approximately 25.36 million people).
For professional translations of Traditional Chinese text, leave it to PTSGI. Our headquarters are located in Taiwan, and we have more than 50 years of experience in translating Traditional Chinese texts and over 10,000 contracted translators and employees. As of now, we are able to support 141 different languages, and we have provided translations into Traditional Chinese and other languages for well-known enterprises such as Sony, Samsung, and McDonald’s.
Currently, PTSGI is offering a free trial of 300 words, so don’t hesitate to get in touch with us via the contact form.