English to Tamil Translation

Pay close attention to the language structure

English and Tamil are languages that belong to two different language families: English is an Indo-European language and Tamil is a Dravidian language. Languages that belong to different families usually have quite different structures – this must be taken into account in English to Tamil translation.

The difference between the languages manifests in different ways. The word order is different in the two languages, with the subject-verb-object order more prevalent in English, and subject-object-verb more prevalent in Tamil. The morphological system of Tamil is much more complex than English, with a large system of suffixes to express various meanings and grammatical categories.

When you translate English to Tamil, it is thus important not to translate word for word, but to translate the meaning of the sentence, what the author wants to communicate. This way you will translate documents more accurately.

Avoid using machine translation

In some cases, machine translation can work quite well: usually, when you translate very simple short texts between two related languages. It might be tempting to use it as it is quick and cheap. However, it is not a good variant for English to Tamil translation, especially if you need to translate important documents or other texts in a formal context.  

Machine English to Tamil translation is complicated a lot by the morphological and general structural differences between the two languages. To translate English to Tamil adequately, without any mistakes or loss of meaning, it is better to work with an experienced translator who can work out all the differences and convey nuanced meanings using correct Tamil equivalents to English words and expressions.

One of the world’s weirdest languages

At the moment, English is the world’s most widespread language by the total number of speakers, as well as the most popular language among foreign language learners. However, it is also perceived by many as one of the strangest languages in the world.

For instance, English sounds unusual to many people. With 44 phonemes, it has more phonemes than languages do on average (25-30), including 11 vowels (most spoken languages have 5-6). This is partly the reason for the complicated spelling that English has, with just 26 letters of the alphabet trying to accommodate such a large number of phonemes.

English pronunciation rules are quite complex with many exceptions. English grammar is also sometimes quite unusual, with English question structures unlike those used in other languages.

Despite that, English is still a language in high demand, including English to Tamil translation.

The language of words

Although it is hard to count the exact number of words in a language, English is estimated to have more words than most other languages in the world. The estimated number is around 600,000 words (this is the number of entries in the Oxford Dictionary), but some scholars say the number is as high as 1.2 million. Around 700 new words are added to English dictionaries every year.

One of the reasons for such an extensive vocabulary is the fact that English has borrowed heavily from many languages it came into contact with over the course of history.

Luckily, an average speaker does not need to know all these words. And if you need a high-quality English to Tamil translation, the experts at our translation company in Singapore will provide the best results no matter how many words are there.