Glossary

Target Language

The target language is the language you are translating into — the language the audience will read. In a Spanish-to-Japanese translation, Japanese is the target language.

Choosing the right target language variant matters. English has many variants (en-US, en-GB, en-AU) with different spelling conventions, vocabulary, and formality norms. Spanish has Latin American and Castilian variants. French has European and Canadian variants. For audience-specific content, specifying the region code alongside the language (e.g. 'pt-BR' for Brazilian Portuguese rather than just 'Portuguese') improves quality and appropriateness.

Target language complexity also affects translation time and cost. Languages with complex morphology (Hungarian, Finnish, Arabic), right-to-left scripts (Arabic, Hebrew), or logographic writing systems (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) may require additional review before publication.

Key concepts

  • The language the output document will be written in
  • Prefer region-specific variants (fr-CA, pt-BR, es-MX) over generic language codes for audience-specific content
  • RTL languages (Arabic, Hebrew) and CJK scripts may require UI layout adjustments beyond translation

How Vernacia uses this

Vernacia supports 73+ target languages. Select the target language in the translation job setup. For CJK and RTL languages, the translated PPTX/DOCX output preserves the original layout — but you may need to adjust text box sizes if the translated text is significantly longer or shorter.

Translate PPTX, PDF, DOCX, and 11 more formats — free to start.

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Target Language — Translation Glossary | Vernacia