Portuguese Speakers per Country
A widely accepted “best practice” in our industry is for Portuguese translators and interpreters to work only in their native language: Portuguese.
Some companies often assume that if you can translate from a language, you can also translate into it. Bolstered by unwarranted confidence, some translators make the same assumption without ever putting it to the test.
The Translation Company firmly believes that the best practice is to have a qualified native speaker edit our work. Therefore, we have Portuguese translators in our team for different target countries:
We believe that a Portuguese translator should work in a single language pair, and most of our translators should work in a few specialties.
Camila Saunier, market manager, and a career Portuguese translator, explain that “specialty brings competence and confidence” – referring to her legal translation and language interpretation jobs and the continuous demand from a few selected clients for her services.
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Portuguese language territories |
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|
Country/Region |
Speakers |
Total |
Population |
|
Africa |
|||
|
Angola |
60% |
80% |
11,190,786 |
|
Cape Verde |
ND |
ND |
418,224 |
|
Mozambique |
6.5% |
40% |
19,406,703 |
|
So Tomé and Príncipe |
50% |
95% |
187,410 |
|
Equatorial Guinea |
– |
– |
1,014,999 |
|
not official: |
|||
|
Namibia |
20% |
20% |
2,030,692 |
|
South Africa |
2% |
2% |
44,344,136 |
|
Asia |
|||
|
East Timor |
ND |
20% |
1,040,880 |
|
Macao S.A.R., China |
5% |
7% |
449,198 |
|
not official: |
|||
|
Daman, India |
10% |
10% |
113,949 |
|
Goa, India[1] |
4% |
4% |
1,400,000 |
|
Europe |
|||
|
Portugal |
100% |
100% |
10,566,212 |
|
not official: |
|||
|
Luxembourg³ |
14% |
14% |
468,571 |
|
Andorra |
4-13% |
4-13% |
70,549 |
|
Spain |
2% |
4% |
44,187,127 |
|
France |
2% |
2% |
60,656,178 |
|
Germany |
2% |
2% |
82,689,000 |
|
Switzerland |
2% |
2% |
7,489,370 |
|
The Americas |
|||
|
Brazil |
99% |
100% |
186,112,794 |
|
not official: |
|||
|
Paraguay |
7% |
7% |
6,347,884 |
|
Bermuda |
4% |
4% |
65,365 |
|
Venezuela |
1-2% |
1-2% |
25,375,281 |
|
Canada |
1-2% |
1-2% |
32,805,041 |