Financial Translation and Interpreting
Financial language looks translatable and is not. Accounting terms are defined by the framework they belong to, so a term under IFRS, US GAAP and Brazilian CPC can share a dictionary equivalent and mean three different things. The reporting calendar then removes the time to catch it.
Why can't accounting terms be translated word for word?
Because they are defined terms, not vocabulary. A line item means what the applicable standard says it means, so the correct target term is the one used by the target market's framework — and where no equivalent exists, the right answer is the recognised term plus a note, not an invented one.
The same applies to entity types, instruments and tax concepts, which follow national law rather than language. We build a glossary against your reporting framework at the start of a relationship and reuse it every quarter, which is also what keeps successive filings consistent with each other.
Where do numbers go wrong between English and Spanish or Portuguese?
In the scale words. In Spanish and European Portuguese, billón means a million million, so an English billion is mil millones or mil milhões. Brazilian Portuguese uses bilhão for a thousand million, matching English. The error is invisible in a table and catastrophic in prose.
- Decimal comma and point separators reverse between English and both targets
- Spanish billón is 10^12, not 10^9 — use mil millones
- Brazilian Portuguese bilhão matches the English billion
- Currency symbol placement and spacing follow the target convention
How is an earnings call interpreted?
Simultaneous interpreting, with a rotating team, and the material sent under embargo beforehand. The prepared remarks are scripted and can be prepared from the deck; the Q&A is unscripted and is where preparation actually pays, because analysts use compressed internal shorthand.
Give the interpreters the results deck, the script and the prior quarter's transcript as soon as they exist, under NDA. Interpreters treat embargoed financial material as market-sensitive and are used to working under those terms.
For a listed company, consistency across quarters matters as much as accuracy in one call: the same metric should be rendered with the same words every time, which is a glossary function rather than a talent one.
Can you work to a results-day deadline?
Yes, if the workflow is set up before the day. Reporting documents reuse most of their text quarter to quarter, so translation memory reduces a results release to the changed sections, which is what makes a same-day turnaround realistic rather than heroic.
Frequently asked questions
Do you handle market-sensitive material before release?
Yes, under NDA, with access limited to the assigned linguists and files shared through controlled transfer rather than email. Tell us the release time and we treat everything before it as embargoed.
Can the same translator cover every quarter?
That is what we aim for, and it is worth asking for. Continuity plus a maintained glossary is how successive reports stay consistent. Where the same person is not available, the glossary and memory carry the consistency instead.
Do you translate into Brazilian and European Portuguese?
Yes, and in finance the distinction is not cosmetic: the scale words, the accounting lexicon and the regulatory vocabulary differ. Tell us the market and we set the variety accordingly.
Reporting or a results call in another language?
Send the calendar and the framework. We set the glossary before the first cycle.
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