How Translators Are Indispensable for Legal Practices?

22nd Jun 2018

Whilst the world will be waiting with baited breath for the excerpts about the much hyped summit meet between president Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, their two people facing humongous pressure would be their translators to provide the word-to-word verbal exchange.

legal translation services

There is barely any scope for translation mistake when the world leaders will come face to face after a prolonged delay and a bitter verbal lashing on each other.  The record amount of anonymity and secrecy over content is ineluctable yet understandable, and inflates the indispensability of translators in international discussions and discourse.

However to some extent, the confidentiality could be equated with legal practices wherein a legal text has to be converted into other comprehensible language without changing the implied meaning. Just a trivial mistake, and you could land up your client in a legal soup.

That’s why it is better to consult professional legal translation services to get a neat and tidy job done without fearing any legal backlash.

Most often used in the international court cases wherein you may have parties involved from different countries, translators are expected to carefully listen and read the legal documents to translate them to other acceptable languages within the jurisdiction for future references.

A number of legal documents need legal translations. For instance, business reports, financial reports, patents, witness statements and much more. All these documents are meant for official purpose and ought to be dealt with utmost perfection to avert any petty mistake that can cost your client a bomb.

Legal Translation riddled with technical jargon

Legal system constitutes a central aspect for any country with inherent culture making it mandatory for translators to honor every minor nuance of the law. However, it isn’t that easy either for legal translation can get extremely complicated to traverse across countries without altering the meaning.

legal document

It requires lot of patience and close attention to details to figure out the intricacies that if ignored could change the core premise of a legal document. For instance, if a judge happens to catch any translation error, the legal document may no longer be admissible in the jurisdiction.

A lot of pressure resides on the shoulders of legal translations for a single mistake is unacceptable.  You need to have experienced translators that can demonstrate their prowess in understanding legal concepts whilst being pro in different languages.

You will find most legal documents demanding exact translation with little or no scope for deliberation lest it may temper with the legal accuracy. Probably the biggest anomaly comes in the form of legal or technical terms that are specific to one country and may not stand any ground in other countries.

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There are many impossible translation issues you’re likely to come across whilst doing the legal translation for a country. Whilst it is mere tip of the iceberg for there are many percolating terms and concepts that are distinct in legal systems and cultures of every country.

No matter how good you’re at languages, legal translation can get tricky when it comes to lexical and contextual considerations. For instance, textual tone, use of idioms, and other cultural references could have difference in their meaning in countries around the world.

If that’s all, you may encounter some syntax issues as well. A one-off variation in using a simple comma or apostrophe could alter the meaning beyond comprehension.

To wrap up…

Here at Waterstone Translations, we provide high quality and accurate translation services to help you meet all your documentation needs. Call us at +86 21 6224 3798 or write to us at info@waterstonetranslations.com for further information on translating services.