Working with many companies both inside and outside of the UAE and Dubai, we deal with translations in many languages.
A common misconception is that translation in Dubai and the UAE generally is all about translating between English and Arabic.
Wrong!
One thing you quickly learn about Dubai is that variety is definitely the spice of life.
Although Arabic translation is of course our number one language in terms of volume, it is does not account for a large part of our translation work.
Arabic is the language of government, law and commerce and for companies marketing, advertising or serving the local Emirati marketplace, Arabic is also the prime language.
English is the common tongue – everyone in shops, your taxi driver, banks, etc. speaks English, and has to. 75% of the population are expats and English is the language used to serve all of them.
However, this is not where it ends.
It is important to consider the diversity of the expatriate population and the languages they bring with them. On top of this, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the UAE also receive tourists from certain key countries.
These both impact the languages we translate.
Working with both local and international companies, translating documentation, training courses, health & safety rules and the like into the languages of the working population means we have to deal with languages such as Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Bengali and Tamil.
In fact, if you speak any of the South Asian languages, you will find plenty of people to practice with in Dubai.
Tourists from non-English speaking countries include Russia, Italy, Japan, China, Korea and many other places. All are catered for by the hotels and tourism-dependent services in the UAE meaning a constant demand for languages such as Chinese, Russian and Japanese.
So next time you think of Dubai and translations – remember, we are one very multilingual place! It’s not just about Arabic…
