Chinese Translation Services: Script, Region, and Voice 

Buyers discover this one late: Chinese is not a single target. Simplified and Traditional are writing systems. Mandarin and Cantonese are spoken languages. The two questions are separate, and answering only one of them is how a project ends up technically accurate and practically unusable.

The Translation Company has delivered Chinese translation services in both directions since 2005 — for legal teams, manufacturers, technology and life-science companies, government agencies, and school districts. This page covers the decisions worth settling before you send the brief.

Script and spoken variety are separate questions 

Script governs anything written:

Spoken variety shapes what you hear: Mandarin covers most Mainland and Taiwan settings; Cantonese covers Hong Kong and many long-established US communities. This matters for interpreting, audio, and video, but not for documents.

The two don't map neatly onto each other, which is what catches people out. A contract for Shanghai and a package insert for Taipei are both "Chinese" and share almost no production decisions—different scripts, different terminology preferences and often different regulatory vocabulary. 

What Most Chinese Programs Cover 

• Contracts, corporate filings, and cross-border transaction documents

• Litigation and discovery material moving into US courts, with certification where required

• User manuals, engineering drawings, and technical specifications

• Regulatory submissions and clinical documentation

• Financial statements, audits, and investor communications

• Employee handbooks and HR material for Chinese-speaking staff

• Vital documents and parent-facing communications for agencies and school districts

• Software, websites, and apps — where character sets, fonts, date formats, and interface length all shift between Simplified and Traditional targets

Bidirectional programs are common: the same project manager should coordinate both directions against one shared terminology base. For scoping a multilingual program beyond Chinese, see the companion guide to language translation services.

Certification, Live Settings, and How Work Runs 

Certified Chinese translation carries a signed statement of accuracy prepared to the receiving court, agency, or institution's requirements. Confirm what the receiving party wants in writing before commissioning — certified and standard are separate orders.

Mandarin and Cantonese interpreting is delivered in-house rather than brokered, over the phone, by video, and on site for depositions, negotiations, conferences, and public meetings, with simultaneous equipment where conference work needs it.

Every project runs translation, editing, and proofreading as three separate linguists, with a project manager accountable for terminology and schedule. Machine translation with human post-editing is available where the content profile suits it — high-volume internal reads, low-risk documentation — while contract, patent, clinical, marketing, and certified work stays fully human. That judgment is agreed in writing before work begins.

Scoping a Chinese Program? 

Settle script, region, and whether spoken settings are in scope. Those three answers change the quote more than word count does.