Looking for expert Fijian translation services? Since 2003, Green Crescent has been delivering professional translation services between English and Fijian to clients globally. We specialize in sectors such as legal, business, community, and marketing. Our team ensures accurate, high-quality translations tailored to your specific needs. Get a fast, free Fijian translation quote today!
Our Comprehensive Fijian Translation Services
Green Crescent’s skilled team of Fijian translators includes subject matter experts for industry-specific needs. We provide translations tailored to the linguistic complexity of Fijian, ensuring cultural and contextual accuracy across various dialects.
- Standard Fijian
- Eastern Fijian
- Western Fijian
We specialize in both English to Fijian and Fijian to English translations, offering the following services:
Simple Translation
Our simple translations in the English/Fijian language pair are designed for basic communication needs. These translations are completed by a single Fijian translator without the involvement of an editor or proofreader, and therefore should not be considered final or polished work for most professional or formal use cases. While they are typically of high quality, simple translations are essentially "rough drafts" that do not go through additional editing, proofreading, or other quality control processes. These translations are ideal for personal letters, informal communications, initial drafts that will later be revised, or for situations where you need to quickly understand the general meaning or "gist" of a Fijian text.
Standard Translation (TEP)
Our Standard Fijian Translation service is designed to provide high-quality translations for everyday use, including business correspondence, websites, reports, presentations, and similar content. This service includes translation, editing, and proofreading (TEP) to ensure the highest level of accuracy and clarity in your Fijian communications.
Organization Critical Translation (TEP+)
Our Organization Critical Fijian Translation service is designed for situations where precision is essential. This option is recommended for texts intended for large-scale printing, legal contracts, medical documents, or any case where an error could be critical or costly. Each translated line is reviewed by a minimum of three linguists, with multiple rounds of proofreading. Subject matter experts (SMEs) may be involved as needed throughout the Fijian translation, editing, and proofreading (TEP) process.
Bilingual Editing
Bilingual Editing for Fijian Translation is the process of editing a translated text by comparing both the source and target texts in the English/Fijian language pair. The editor, fluent in the source language and a native speaker of Fijian, ensures that the translation is accurate, consistent, and faithful to the source text while also maintaining clarity and fluency in Fijian. This step occurs after the initial translation in our TEP (Translation, Editing, Proofreading) Organization Critical and Standard Translation services. We also offer this service as a standalone option for translations completed by individuals or organizations not affiliated with Green Crescent.
Proofreading
Our proofreading service for English to Fijian and Fijian to English translations involves reviewing a single-language text to identify and correct surface-level errors, such as spelling mistakes, grammar issues, punctuation errors, and formatting inconsistencies. This step is the final phase in our TEP (Translation, Editing, Proofreading) Organization Critical and Standard translation services. We also offer proofreading as a standalone service for translations completed by individuals or organizations not affiliated with Green Crescent.
Legal Translation
Green Crescent's elite team of linguists, each with subject matter expertise in legal fields, is ready to assist you with the translation of a wide range of judicial, administrative, and private legal documents between Fijian and English. We can also implement enhanced security measures to ensure strict confidentiality upon request.
Technical Translation
Technical translations involve any text that features specialized vocabulary or language registers, necessitating additional research and terminology verification. Common technical subject matter includes legal, medical, scientific, and IT topics. These translations require the expertise of linguists with in-depth knowledge of the relevant technical field in both Fijian and English.
Medical Translation
Green Crescent provides professional Fijian medical translations with a focus on accuracy and confidentiality. Our team of skilled linguists, specialized in medical terminology, ensures that your translations are both precise and secure.
Localization
Our translation services are tailored for specific target markets that require localized varieties of the Fijian language. Green Crescent ensures that your content resonates with the intended audience. Our experienced linguists provide translations that are not only accurate but also culturally relevant and engaging.
Back-translation
Back-translation is a crucial component of quality control, particularly for critical translations in the Fijian/English language pair. This process involves translating a previously translated text back into its original language, either Fijian or English, and comparing the result to the original translation for accuracy.
Peer Review
Green Crescent offers professional peer review services where one or more linguists not involved in the original translation process assess the quality, style, and overall fitness of the translation for its intended purpose.
SME Review
Subject Matter Expert (SME) review is a specialized form of peer review conducted by non-linguist professionals with expertise in specific fields. This process ensures that Fijian to English or English to Fijian translations of highly technical texts are both linguistically accurate and technically precise.
Transcreation
Our Fijian Transcreation Service adapts your content creatively to resonate with Fijian-speaking audiences. We ensure that your brand’s messages maintain their original intent, emotional impact, and tone while aligning with the cultural and linguistic nuances of the target market.
MTPE-Full (Machine Translation Post-Editing - Full)
MTPE-Full involves comprehensive post-editing of machine-generated translations to meet the highest standards of linguistic quality. This includes correcting grammar, syntax, and terminology to ensure the text flows naturally in Fijian or English.
MTPE-Light (Machine Translation Post-Editing - Light)
MTPE-Light is a streamlined version of post-editing designed for situations where speed and cost-efficiency are prioritized. The human editor fixes major errors, ensuring the overall meaning is clear and understandable.
Additional Language Services and Options for Fijian
Certified Translation
Green Crescent provides certified translations of a wide range of legal documents, including birth, marriage, and death certificates, diplomas, school transcripts, passports, and much more, in both Fijian and English. Our certified translations are recognized for their accuracy and compliance with legal standards, making them suitable for official use. You can receive hard copies of our standard certificate of translation mailed directly to your home or business.
Rush Service
If you require expedited service, Green Crescent can usually accommodate such requests. However, please note that rushing translations may come with trade-offs, which could affect both price and consistency. Please consult with a project manager for more details.
Discounts
Volume discounts are available for large projects, long-term clients, and for non-profits, charities, NGOs, and government organizations.
Minimum Fee
There is a minimum project fee of $75.00 USD per language, which can be reduced or waived for regular clients.
Additional Language Services
In addition to translation, Green Crescent offers a range of other Fijian language services, including interpretation, transcription, website design and development, and desktop publishing.
About the Fijian Language
Fijian, known locally as "Na Vosa Vakaviti," is one of the official languages of Fiji, alongside English and Hindi. It is an Austronesian language spoken by approximately 350,000 native speakers and serves as a lingua franca for many more throughout the country. Fijian is integral to the cultural identity of the indigenous iTaukei people and plays a key role in the daily lives of Fijians in both formal and informal settings, from government to education, and in everyday communication.
The Cultural Context, History, and Linguistic Features of Fijian
Fijian has a long history that is closely tied to the culture and traditions of the Fijian people. As an Austronesian language, it shares similarities with other Pacific languages like Samoan and Tongan. Fijian’s oral traditions, including storytelling, songs, and chants, are important parts of its cultural heritage, and the language remains central to ceremonies and communal gatherings.
Fijian is a highly agglutinative language, meaning that words are often formed by adding prefixes, suffixes, and infixes to a root word. This allows for the creation of complex meanings within a single word, which contrasts with the more analytic structure of English. Fijian also uses vowel harmony, where the vowels in a word must match in terms of their phonological properties, adding another layer of complexity to word formation.
The Writing System: Latin Alphabet
Fijian is written using the Latin alphabet, which consists of 26 letters, similar to English, but with a few important distinctions. The Fijian alphabet includes five vowels and 21 consonants. However, the letters "h," "x," and "z" are not used, and the digraphs "ng" and "dr" represent sounds that do not have direct equivalents in English.
Vowels and Consonants: Fijian has five vowels (a, e, i, o, u), which can be short or long. The length of the vowel can change the meaning of a word, making vowel pronunciation critical in spoken Fijian. The language also features consonant clusters that are unique, such as "ng" (pronounced like the "ng" in "sing") and "b," which is often pronounced as a softened "mb" sound.
The Fijian Alphabet
Fijian uses the following alphabet:
- 5 vowels: A, a, E, e, I, i, O, o, U, u
- 21 consonants: B, b, C, c, D, d, F, f, G, g, J, j, K, k, L, l, M, m, N, n, P, p, Q, q, R, r, S, s, T, t, V, v, W, w, Y, y
The digraph "ng" represents a nasal sound similar to "ng" in "sing," while "dr" represents a retroflex sound that does not have an equivalent in English. Fijian's vowel harmony and length play an important role in distinguishing meaning, so proper vowel usage is crucial in both written and spoken communication.
Key Linguistic Differences Between Fijian and English for Translation
Several important linguistic features differentiate Fijian from English, and these must be considered in translation to ensure accuracy and cultural relevance:
Sentence Structure: Fijian typically follows a Verb-Object-Subject (VOS) sentence structure, whereas English uses a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) structure. For example, "The man eats the food" in English becomes "Kana na tamata na kakana" in Fijian, with the verb "kana" (eat) coming first. This difference requires careful reordering when translating between the two languages.
Vowel Length and Harmony: In Fijian, vowel length can change the meaning of a word. For example, "kava" means "empty," while "kāva" means "kava," a traditional drink. Translators must pay close attention to vowel length and ensure that it is correctly reflected in the English translation, even though English does not have the same system.
Reduplication: Fijian uses reduplication, where part or all of a word is repeated to change its meaning or intensity. For instance, "dromu" means "to sink," while "dromudromu" means "to sink slowly." Translators need to capture the nuance of these repetitions in English, even though English lacks a similar grammatical structure.
Noun and Verb Affixation: Fijian often uses affixation to modify nouns and verbs. For example, the root word "vaka" (to cause or make) can be combined with other words to create new meanings, such as "vakabula" (to save). Translators must understand the function of these affixes to ensure the meaning is accurately conveyed in English.
Borrowed Words: Fijian has incorporated a number of borrowed words, particularly from English, due to colonization and the influence of English-speaking missionaries. Translators need to be aware of these borrowings and how they are used in different contexts, especially when they carry different connotations or meanings in Fijian than in English.
Honorifics and Formality: Like many Pacific languages, Fijian places a strong emphasis on respect and formality, especially in addressing elders or people in positions of authority. These cultural norms must be carefully maintained in translation to ensure that the appropriate level of respect is conveyed in English.
By addressing these linguistic and cultural nuances, Green Crescent ensures that our Fijian translation services deliver culturally accurate and linguistically precise translations, allowing for clear communication across both Fijian and English-speaking audiences.
An Insight into Fijian Expression
This passage is from the Fijian epic poem “Ai Tukutuku kei Viti”, a traditional work that conveys the rich history and values of the Fijian people.
- Fijian: "Na bula e sega ni lako duadua, e dau salavata kei na nodatou veikauwaitaki."
- English Translation: "Life is not traveled alone, it always goes hand in hand with our care for one another."