German (Deutsch)

German (de, deu) belongs to the West Germanic languages. Wikidata records about 76.5M speakers. It is written in German alphabet. It is an official language in 6 countries, including Austria, Belgium, Germany and Liechtenstein.

German compounds create long words that break layouts; nouns are capitalised; formal Sie vs du matters. Expect text to grow by up to a third.

Expect text translated from English into German to grow by roughly 10–35%, which matters for layouts, subtitles and page counts.

In the United States, 858,394 people aged 5+ speak German at home (Census ACS), and 128,107 of them (15%) speak English less than "very well" — a key indicator of demand for German translators and interpreters.

Translation guides

• English → German translation
• German → English translation

Where German is official

• Austria
• Belgium
• Germany
• Liechtenstein
• Luxembourg
• Switzerland

Rates for German translation

German falls in our major western european band: roughly $0.08–$0.16 per word for general commercial work. These are indicative ranges, not quotes — specialised, certified and rush work costs more, and literary translation is usually priced per 1,000 words.

For context, the median salaried translator or interpreter in the US earned $60,170 in May 2025 (BLS). See salaries by state →

Where German is spoken in the US, state by state →