Looking for expert Filipino translation services? Since 2003, Green Crescent has been providing professional translation services between English and Filipino to clients worldwide. We specialize in sectors such as legal, business, community, and marketing. Our team ensures precise, high-quality translations tailored to your specific needs. Get a fast, free Filipino translation quote today!
Our Comprehensive Filipino Translation Services
Green Crescent’s skilled team of Filipino translators includes subject matter experts for industry-specific needs. We provide translations tailored to the linguistic nuances of Filipino, ensuring cultural and contextual accuracy for all types of content.
- Standard Filipino
- Regional variations of Filipino
We specialize in both English to Filipino and Filipino to English translations, offering the following services:
Simple Translation
Our simple translations in the English/Filipino language pair are designed for basic communication needs. These translations are completed by a single Filipino 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 Filipino text.
Standard Translation (TEP)
Our Standard Filipino 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 Filipino communications.
Organization Critical Translation (TEP+)
Our Organization Critical Filipino 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 Filipino translation, editing, and proofreading (TEP) process.
Bilingual Editing
Bilingual Editing for Filipino Translation is the process of editing a translated text by comparing both the source and target texts in the English/Filipino language pair. The editor, fluent in the source language and a native speaker of Filipino, ensures that the translation is accurate, consistent, and faithful to the source text while also maintaining clarity and fluency in Filipino. 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 Filipino and Filipino 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 Filipino 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 Filipino and English.
Medical Translation
Green Crescent provides professional Filipino 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 Filipino 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 Filipino/English language pair. This process involves translating a previously translated text back into its original language, either Filipino 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 Filipino to English or English to Filipino translations of highly technical texts are both linguistically accurate and technically precise.
Transcreation
Our Filipino Transcreation Service adapts your content creatively to resonate with Filipino-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 Filipino 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 Filipino
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 Filipino 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 Filipino language services, including interpretation, transcription, website design and development, and desktop publishing.
About the Filipino Language
Filipino, known locally as "Wikang Filipino," is the national language of the Philippines and is based primarily on Tagalog, one of the country's many regional languages. Filipino serves as both a lingua franca for the Philippines’ diverse linguistic communities and an official language alongside English. It is spoken by over 90 million people, including speakers of Tagalog and other Philippine languages. Filipino has a rich linguistic heritage, incorporating elements from Spanish, English, and various regional dialects.
Filipino is central to national identity and is used in government, education, and mass media, playing a crucial role in uniting a multilingual population.
The Cultural Context, History, and Linguistic Features of Filipino
The Filipino language has evolved over centuries, shaped by both indigenous influences and colonial history. It traces its roots back to the Austronesian family of languages, which spread across the Pacific and Southeast Asia. The language was further influenced by three centuries of Spanish colonization, as well as American occupation in the 20th century, resulting in significant lexical borrowing from both Spanish and English.
Linguistically, Filipino retains many features of its Austronesian origins, including a focus on verb morphology and a flexible word order. Additionally, Filipino is known for its agglutinative structure, meaning that prefixes, infixes, and suffixes are added to root words to indicate tense, aspect, and mood. This characteristic leads to long, complex words that can convey detailed information, contrasting with English's more analytic structure.
Filipino’s grammar is relatively straightforward, though it features a complex system of verb conjugation, reflecting the language’s rich oral and written tradition.
The Writing System: Latin Alphabet
Filipino is written using the Latin alphabet, a change brought about during Spanish colonization. The pre-colonial writing system, Baybayin, is no longer in widespread use, though it is experiencing a resurgence in cultural and academic settings. The Latin alphabet used in Filipino consists of 28 letters, with the inclusion of the Spanish Ñ and Ng digraph.
Vowels and Consonants: Filipino has five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and 23 consonants. The phonetic nature of the language means that words are generally pronounced as they are written, making reading and writing relatively straightforward for learners.
Phonetic Consistency: One of the key features of the Filipino writing system is its phonetic consistency. Each letter represents a specific sound, with few irregularities. This makes the written language accessible and logical to both native speakers and learners.
The Filipino Alphabet
The Filipino language uses the modern Latin alphabet, which includes:
- 5 vowels: A, a, E, e, I, i, O, o, U, u
- 23 consonants: B, b, C, c, D, d, F, f, G, g, H, h, J, j, K, k, L, l, M, m, N, n, Ñ, ñ, Ng, ng, P, p, Q, q, R, r, S, s, T, t, V, v, W, w, X, x, Y, y, Z, z
Filipino also makes use of diacritical marks in some words, though these are not widely used in modern writing.
Key Linguistic Differences Between Filipino and English for Translation
When translating between Filipino and English, several important linguistic features must be taken into account to ensure accuracy and cultural relevance:
Sentence Structure: Filipino generally follows a Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) structure, though it can be flexible depending on the focus of the sentence. This contrasts with English’s fixed Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) structure. For example, the sentence "The child is eating rice" in English would translate to "Kumakain ng kanin ang bata" in Filipino, where the verb comes first.
Focus and Topic Marking: A key feature of Filipino is its use of focus markers to indicate the role of the subject in a sentence. These markers help clarify whether the subject is performing an action or is the recipient of an action. For instance, the sentence "Bumili ang lalaki ng sapatos" means "The man bought shoes," while "Binili ng lalaki ang sapatos" means "The shoes were bought by the man." This system requires careful handling in translation, as English does not have a direct equivalent for these focus markers.
Reduplication: Filipino often uses reduplication, repeating part or all of a word to convey different meanings, such as intensification or plurality. For example, "bili" (to buy) can become "bibili" (will buy), and "bahay" (house) can become "bahay-bahay" (house-to-house). This feature does not have a direct equivalent in English, so translators must consider the context carefully.
Verb Conjugation: Filipino verbs are conjugated based on tense and aspect, but unlike English, they do not conjugate based on the subject’s number or gender. For example, "bumili" can mean "bought," "is buying," or "will buy," depending on the context and additional markers. This requires careful interpretation to ensure accurate translation.
Politeness Levels: Like many Asian languages, Filipino uses different levels of politeness and formality depending on the situation and the person being addressed. Honorifics and polite expressions must be appropriately translated to maintain the cultural context of the original message.
By addressing these linguistic nuances, Green Crescent ensures that our Filipino translation services capture both the linguistic accuracy and cultural significance of the source material, delivering translations that resonate with Filipino-speaking audiences in a meaningful and authentic way.
An Insight into Filipino Expression
This passage is from the iconic Filipino work “Noli Me Tangere” by José Rizal, a cornerstone of Filipino literature and national identity. It reflects themes of social justice and the struggle for freedom.
- Filipino: "Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makararating sa paroroonan."
- English Translation: "He who does not know how to look back at where he came from will never get to his destination."