Technical Translation Time PT to FR

Portuguese to French Technical Translation Time

Plan for 250–350 words/day when a professional moves technical text from Portuguese into French. To turn that into a schedule, run days = (pages × words_per_page) / daily_throughput. The two languages share Romance roots, but that doesn't make French easy here: the syntax packs in more, the prepositional scaffolding gets heavy, gender agreement is unforgiving, and a finished French text tends to run 10–20% longer than the Portuguese it came from.

Don't skip the regional question. France French sticks to Académie française norms. Quebec French (OQLF) goes out of its way to translate anglicisms that other markets just let through (courriel vs email, baladodiffusion vs podcast). Belgian, Swiss and Sub-Saharan African French each carry their own number conventions, currency formats and administrative vocabulary. Pin down the target market before you start.

Applications

Reach for this when you're budgeting work for French-speaking markets: Brazilian engineering and aerospace docs (think Embraer→Airbus suppliers), cosmetics and pharmaceutical material, EU CE-marking dossiers, academic papers. The SFT (Société Française des Traducteurs) publishes reference rates that line up with the SINTRA band of R$ 0.50–1.00 per source word.

FAQ

Why is PT→FR slower than PT→ES? You end up reformulating more, gender concordance leaves no room for slack, and the gap between formal/technical French and the conversational kind is wide enough to slow you down.

Should I target France or Quebec? If the client is Canadian, go with Quebec French. The OQLF enforces its own terminology, and it shows up most in IT, automotive and labour law.

Are sworn translations available PT→FR? Yes. Sworn translators (tradutor público) registered with the state Juntas Comerciais handle apostilled documents bound for France and Quebec.