Communication agencies · Switzerland

Press release translation
for agencies in Switzerland

Your client’s announcement has to land in Zurich, Lausanne and Lugano on the same morning, and each newsroom should read it as if its own press office had written it. We translate and edit releases for German, French and Italian Switzerland, in your client’s voice and to your deadline.

  • German, French and Italian, together
  • Swiss spelling, titles and place names
  • Edited for each region, not only converted
  • Each client’s terms kept separate
  • Under embargo, with an NDA on request
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    Press release translation for communication agencies in Switzerland

    Switzerland is not one press market with three translations of it. German-speaking Switzerland, French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino each have their own newsrooms, their own regional angle and their own idea of what counts as news. Even the national news agency keeps a separate desk for each language. A release that is merely converted from one language to the next reads like what it is: something that came from somewhere else.

    For an agency, that is the whole brief. The client wants one announcement, one morning, three languages and a single voice across them, and you are the one who signs it off. We take the release in its source language and adapt it for each Swiss language region: the headline, the structure, the quotes and the details a local editor checks first. The versions are planned as one job and delivered together, so they can go out together.

    It is the same press release work we do for companies, set up for how an agency runs it: several clients, several languages, and approvals that pass through you before they reach the newsroom.

    Happy to be of service,

    Founder

    What changes between German, French and Italian Switzerland

    A few of the things a local editor notices in the first lines.

    • Swiss German, as printed

      Swiss Standard German has no ß, only ss, and a release is a Medienmitteilung rather than a Pressemitteilung. Quotations take « » instead of „ “. Small things, and a Zurich editor sees every one of them in the first paragraph.

    • Swiss French, not French French

      Swiss French counts in septante and nonante and has its own administrative vocabulary. A release written in Paris style tells an editor in Lausanne or Geneva that the market was not the point.

    • Ticino writes for Ticino

      Italian-speaking Switzerland is a small press market with its own regional angle. A release that sounds as if it was written in Milan tells the editor in Lugano that nobody thought about Ticino.

    • Names that change with the language

      The Federal Council is Bundesrat, Conseil fédéral and Consiglio federale; Geneva is Genf, Genève and Ginevra. Institutions, places and job titles are rendered the way each region prints them, then held in the client’s termbase.

    • Quotes that survive three languages

      The executive quote is the part an editor actually prints, so it gets the most care in every version. It is rewritten as speech in that language, not translated as a sentence.

    How a multilingual release goes out

    1. 1

      Send the release and the plan

      The source release, the languages, the send-out time and the embargo. Your client’s name can stay out of it, and we sign an NDA on request.

    2. 2

      Receive your quote

      A fixed price per language and a straight answer on whether the timing works, before you commit to anything.

    3. 3

      We adapt each version

      Each language is written by someone who writes for that region, revised by a second linguist and checked against the client’s terms. Because the set is one job, the three versions agree on facts, names and numbers.

    4. 4

      Approve and send

      You receive the versions together for your client’s review. Their comments come back to us as one round, applied to all of them, and the final files are yours to send in whatever format your distribution uses.

    Editing and optimising for each market, not only translating

    A release that is translated well and edited badly still fails. So the work goes past the language.

    Before we translate

    We read the source the way an editor would. If the headline buries the news, a quote says nothing or a figure does not add up, you hear it from us before three languages are built on top of it. Facts are never changed; they are flagged.

    The headline and the first paragraph

    These are what the online newsroom, the search engine and the editor see. We write them around the words each region actually uses for the subject, so the German and the French headline are two headlines for the same news rather than one translated into the other. When the release belongs to a wider campaign, keyword research for each language region is part of what we do.

    The regional angle

    The same news has a different hook in Basel than in Lausanne. We point out where the local angle is, and you decide whether the release carries it or the pitch does.

    Around the release

    A release rarely travels alone. The same announcement usually lands on a newsroom page or website that needs the same wording, comes with figures that have to match the annual report when the client is listed, or carries a video that needs subtitles in the same three languages.

    Machine drafts

    Many agencies now start from a machine translation or an AI draft, and as a start that is fine. A release is decided by its first line and its quotes, and that is where a draft needs a person who writes for the market — which is what a human review of a machine draft is for. Newsrooms have fewer editors than they used to, and they stop reading at the first sentence that sounds imported.

    Languages for Swiss press work

    German, French and Italian cover the three language regions, and English is the working language of many international clients. For any other language, just contact our team.

    • German
    • English
    • Spanish
    • French
    • Italian
    • Norwegian
    • Arabic
    • Chinese
    • Japanese
    • Romanian
    • Portuguese
    • Polish
    • Swedish
    • Finnish
    • Thai
    • Russian
    • Greek
    • Ukrainian
    • …and many others
    EnglishPortugueseSwedishGermanPolishGreekSpanishDutchTurkishFrenchRomanianJapaneseArabicUkrainianMandarinItalianRussianNorwegian

    Frequently asked questions

    Tap any question to see the answer!
    Can you work under our agency’s name?
    Yes. We deal with you, your client’s name need not appear anywhere in what you send us, and every translator on the job is under a confidentiality agreement with us. We sign an NDA on request.
    Can the German, French and Italian versions go out together?
    That is how we plan them: as one job rather than three. Tell us the send-out time when you send the draft, and we confirm honestly whether the set can be ready for it before you commit.
    Do you write in Swiss German dialect?
    No. Press releases in Switzerland are written in Standard German with Swiss spelling; dialect belongs to speech, and we work in text and subtitles only, with no audio.
    Which language can the source be in?
    Whichever your client wrote first: German, English, French or another. Each Swiss language is then written for its own region.
    Will you change the text?
    The phrasing, yes, because that is the job. Facts, names, numbers and claims, never. When a region’s conventions call for a structural change, or something in the source looks wrong, we flag it to you instead of fixing it silently.
    What happens when our client wants changes?
    Their comments come back to us as one round, applied to every language version together so the set stays in agreement. Tracked changes, a PDF with comments or an email are all fine.
    Do you keep our clients’ terminology separate?
    Yes. Each brand gets its own termbase, so one client’s product names and preferred phrasing never turn up in another’s release. The boilerplate is translated once and then sits identical at the foot of every release.
    What does it cost?
    By length and language, as a fixed price per release. Agencies that send regularly agree terms once and then simply send. Either way you have the price before we start, with no obligation.

    A release going out in Switzerland?

    Send the draft and the languages. You will get a fixed price and a straight answer on the timing.

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