Languages · Network pair
Arabic translation for public agencies.
Right-to-left is a layout rebuild, not a text swap. A document whose Arabic reads correctly but whose page still runs left to right has not been translated so much as filled in.
- العربية
- Vetted partner linguists
- Returned same business day
Decisions
What we settle before the first sentence.
These are choices, not defaults. Each one is agreed at intake, recorded, and carried into the next document so a set stays consistent with itself.
Modern Standard Arabic for official documents
Notices, forms, and anything of record are written in Modern Standard Arabic, which is the written language across every Arabic-speaking community your agency serves. Regional spoken varieties differ substantially and are not written in official documents; a document written in one of them addresses a fraction of the readership and reads as informal to the rest.
Numeral form, chosen and applied consistently
Arabic text can use Arabic-Indic digits or the Western digits you already have in the source. Both are current, and different audiences and different agencies expect different ones. We pick one per document set — and where a number has to be matched against an English form, a case number, or a phone keypad, we keep the Western form so a reader can act on it. What we do not do is mix the two without a rule.
Full mirroring of the layout
The reading direction change moves everything: column order, table column order, list markers, the gutter, the logo position, the sequence of a form's fields, the direction of arrows and progress indicators, and the side a signature block sits on. We rebuild the layout rather than pouring right-to-left text into a left-to-right template. Charts and diagrams are reviewed one by one, because some of them mirror correctly and some become wrong when mirrored.
Names and untranslated strings
Agency names, addresses, URLs, and form numbers generally stay in Latin script so they can be matched against an envelope or a website, with an Arabic gloss where the reader needs the meaning.
Hazards
Where this pair breaks.
Most of what goes wrong in a translated public document is not a mistranslation. It is a production failure that survives approval and shows up in the file your reader receives.
Bidirectional text where English appears inline
An English form code, a URL, a phone number, or a date sitting inside an Arabic sentence is the hardest thing in this pair to get right. The stored order and the displayed order are not the same, and a run that displays correctly in one application can display with its parts reordered in another — a form number that reads correctly on screen and wrong in the printed PDF. We set the directional handling explicitly around every such run and check the exported file, not just the editor.
Punctuation and brackets that flip
Arabic uses its own comma and question mark, and paired characters such as parentheses and quotation marks reverse their apparent direction in right-to-left context. Reused source punctuation is immediately visible as wrong.
Fonts, shaping, and diacritics
Arabic letters change shape by position and must be joined; a font or an export pipeline that does not shape correctly produces disconnected letterforms or reversed word order. Line height also runs taller than Latin text, which reflows a template built to the English.
Text expansion and contraction
Arabic can run shorter than English in body text and longer in headings and labels, so a template tuned to the English breaks in both directions. Laid out to the Arabic rather than measured against the source.
California context
Why California agencies buy this pair.
Arabic appears in California public-agency work more often through federal obligations than through a local threshold count — Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Executive Order 13166, and §1557 of the Affordable Care Act all bear on meaningful access for limited-English-proficient people, and health and benefits programs reach Arabic-speaking residents statewide.
The reason agencies single this pair out when they solicit a vendor is production risk rather than linguistics: it is the pair where a translated file most often arrives broken. We handle the typesetting rather than subcontracting the layout back to your team, and we deliver Arabic through vetted partner linguists with availability confirmed at the time we quote.
Descriptions of the law here are general. What a particular department owes in a particular case is the department’s determination, not ours.
We deliver this pair through vetted partner linguists. The review and the certificate are identical to a core pair; the delivery date is confirmed against a linguist's availability before the quote goes out.
Send the deadline with the file and the quote will say whether it holds.
Intake
What we will ask you.
These are the Arabic questions specifically. Answering them in your first email shortens the quote and removes the round trip.
Are we producing the final PDF or InDesign file? For this pair we recommend it.
Do any English form codes, case numbers, or URLs appear inside sentences?
Arabic-Indic or Western numerals? If your readers will be matching numbers to an English form, Western is usually right.
Are there charts, diagrams, or arrows in the document?
Send us a Arabic document.
Attach the file, tell us the deadline, and answer whichever of the questions above apply. A written quote comes back same business day.