Greek translation and localization services

Modern Greek for Greece and Cyprus: software, games, e-commerce and EU-regulated content, with accents, case endings and all-caps rules handled.

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Native Greek linguists translate, localize and test content for Greece and Cyprus, with project management and QA handled by our in-house team. AI teams can source Greek speech and text datasets from the same network.

Greek translation at El Turco covers Greece and Cyprus in Standard Modern Greek, a language with its own alphabet, a stress accent on most words and all-caps rules that drop it. Native Greek linguists translate and a second linguist revises under ISO 17100, machine translation post-editing follows ISO 18587 and in-house project managers run every Greek localization project from brief to delivery.

Greek localization is shaped by its own alphabet and a rich inflection system. Greek has three genders and four cases, marks stress with an accent on most words and drops that accent in all-caps text, so a string that looks right in a spreadsheet can break once it reaches a button or a banner. Our Greek linguists can work in RWS Trados, memoQ, Phrase or XTM. No Greek file leaves us without a pass through What's Wrong?, the translation QA tool from Still Needs a Human.

Dialects and variants

Greece or Cyprus: which Greek do we translate into?

Standard Modern Greek is the written norm for business, media, software and public administration in Greece and Cyprus. Spoken dialects differ in pronunciation and vocabulary, which matters for speech data, but written business content follows one standard. Spelling follows the monotonic system, which marks stress with a single accent.

Standard Modern Greek (Greece)
Used for most software, e-commerce, marketing, legal and technical projects. Greek is an official EU language, and IATE already holds its EU terminology.
Greek for Cyprus
Written content follows Standard Modern Greek. Cypriot Greek is the everyday spoken variety, and some administrative and legal terms differ from usage in Greece, so we flag Cyprus as a separate locale when the content is regulated or local.
Polytonic and historical Greek
The polytonic system survives in religious, classical and some literary texts. Business content is monotonic, and Ancient Greek is a separate specialist brief.

Script and layout

Writing system and layout notes

Greek uses its own alphabet, written left to right. Most words of more than one syllable carry an accent mark (tonos) on the stressed vowel, and a diaeresis (dialytika) shows that two vowels are pronounced separately. Lowercase sigma has two shapes: σ inside a word and ς at the end of a word.

  • All-caps text: Greek capitals drop the accent (Αθήνα becomes ΑΘΗΝΑ). A dialytika appears where the accent kept two vowels apart (Κάιρο becomes ΚΑΪΡΟ). A plain toUpperCase() keeps the accents, and CSS text-transform applies the Greek rule only for text tagged as el, so we test uppercase labels in the build.
  • Punctuation: the Greek question mark is the semicolon sign (;) and the raised dot (·) works as a semicolon. Code that appends "?" shows an English question mark, while a stray English semicolon reads as a question. Quotation marks are «…».
  • Numbers, prices and dates: comma as decimal separator, period for thousands, the euro sign after the amount (1.250,50 €) and dates as 04/11/2026. Written dates put the month in the genitive case (4 Νοεμβρίου 2026), while a calendar header uses the nominative form (Νοέμβριος).
  • Look-alike letters: Greek capitals such as Α, Β, Ε, Η, Κ, Ο, Ρ, Τ and Χ look identical to Latin letters. A Latin letter inside a Greek word breaks search and spell checking, so our QA scans for mixed-script words.
  • Fonts and expansion: many display and game fonts lack Greek glyphs. Greek text also tends to run longer than English, so buttons and table headers need room.

Localization pitfalls

What makes Greek localization different?

Concrete issues our Greek linguists and engineers check for on every project.

  • 01

    Gender and case around placeholders

    Articles and adjectives agree with the gender, number and case of the noun. "Delete {item}" cannot carry the right article if the variable can be any noun, so we rewrite such strings with a fixed noun before the placeholder or request variants.

  • 02

    Names in greetings

    Greek addresses people in the vocative case, which changes many masculine names: Γιώργος becomes Γιώργο in "Dear {name}". The word for "dear" also changes with gender, so email templates need a neutral greeting or variants.

  • 03

    Formality: εσείς versus εσύ

    Banks, public services and B2B software use the formal plural "εσείς", while games and consumer apps often use informal "εσύ". Verb endings change with the choice, so it is set once per product and recorded in the style guide.

  • 04

    Plurals and agreement

    CLDR gives Greek two plural categories, "one" and "other", but the adjective changes with the noun as well: "1 νέο μήνυμα" and "5 νέα μηνύματα" for new messages. ICU messages are tested with real numbers before delivery.

  • 05

    Accent-free search and Greeklish

    Users often type Greek search queries without accents or in Latin letters, a style called Greeklish. Store search, filters and SEO slugs need accent folding and transliteration, ideally following the ELOT 743 standard.

  • 06

    Regulated and legal language

    Greek wording for EU legislation, product labels and medicines information is standardized. Legal Greek also keeps vocabulary from Katharevousa, the formal register once used in law and administration. Legal text therefore goes to a legal-domain linguist.

Greek services we offer

Every service below is available in Greek. Pricing is per-word, hourly or project-based, quoted after scoping.

Which industries do we serve in Greek?

Industry pages describe the workflows; each one applies to Greek as summarized here.

AI training data

Greek AI training data

Request a free pilot batch AI data solutions

Greek is covered in multilingual models, but not the way Greeks actually write and speak: accent-free text, Greeklish in Latin letters and Cypriot speech that differs sharply from Athens pronunciation. El Turco collects Greek speech in Greece and Cyprus, transcribes it in monotonic spelling, labels text for intent, sentiment and entities with Greeklish normalized to Greek script, ranks Greek model responses for RLHF with register and accent errors scored and builds Greek-English parallel corpora for MT and LLM fine-tuning. The Greek pilot batch is free.

Often paired with Greek

Languages that regularly appear in the same project plan.

All languages we cover

FAQ

Greek translation FAQ

Which source languages does El Turco translate into Greek?

Greek is translated at El Turco from six source languages: English, German, French, Chinese, Turkish and Arabic. The reverse direction, Greek into English, is offered as well. Companies working between Türkiye and Greece often need Turkish to Greek, while German is a common source for engineering and automotive files. Further source languages are quoted on request, subject to Greek linguist availability.

Do you localize Greek for Cyprus as well as Greece?

Yes. Greek content for Cyprus follows Standard Modern Greek, so one translation usually serves both markets. El Turco flags Cyprus as a separate locale when content is regulated or local, because some administrative and legal terms differ from usage in Greece. Marketing copy may also need adaptation for Cypriot audiences, which we handle as a transcreation brief.

How do you handle Greek case, gender and plurals in software strings?

Greek UI strings go to linguists who review the code context before translating. Placeholders that would need an agreeing article, adjective or vocative ending are rewritten so the variable stands alone. Where that fails, the developer is asked for variants. ICU "one" and "other" messages are tested with real numbers, and uppercase labels are checked for unwanted accents in the build.

Do you handle Greeklish and accent-free search for Greek stores?

Yes. Greek users often type searches without accents or in Latin letters (Greeklish), so store search, filters and autocomplete need accent folding and a transliteration layer, ideally following ELOT 743. El Turco supplies the Greek keyword list in accented, unaccented and Greeklish forms, checks slugs and SEO titles against ELOT 743 and tests the search behavior in the build before an e-commerce launch.

Do you translate Greek legal text that uses Katharevousa vocabulary?

Yes. Greek legal and administrative language keeps vocabulary and forms from Katharevousa, the formal register used in law and public administration until 1976, so contracts, court documents and regulatory filings read differently from everyday Greek. El Turco assigns legal-domain Greek linguists who write in that register, aligns terms with the Greek versions of EU legislation and adds a second legal reviewer. Consumer-facing terms stay in plain Standard Modern Greek.

What does a company send to start a Greek localization project?

To start a Greek localization project, a company sends the content type, volume, source language and timeline through the contact form. Enterprises can request a free pilot, and LSPs receive a free test translation of up to 300 words. The glossary, style guide, Greece or Cyprus locale and file formats are agreed next. Pricing is per-word, hourly or project-based, quoted after scoping.

Planning Greek content?

Tell us what Greek content you have, how much of it and when it is due. We reply with a scoped plan and can start with a free pilot or a free 300-word test translation.

Get a quote for Greek How we work with enterprises