3 REQUIREMENTS OF PROFESSIONAL LEGAL TRANSLATION

The qualities needed for a legal translator

A professional translator who specializes in legal and legal translation does so because he likes the law and its issues. It must also combine the qualities that will enable it to carry out good legal translations:

·          Know how to search for and choose the appropriate legal terms that correspond precisely to those used in the source text.

·          If the exact term does not exist in the target language, be able to transcribe the author's intention.

·          Never neglect the details, which can be of paramount importance in a legal text such as a contract. Understand that the way you express yourself in a legal framework may be different from a natural language.

·          And of course, have some knowledge of the legal and regulatory systems in place in both countries.

Added to this are the qualities common to translators in general, including rigour and the ability to improve productivity.

Several types of legal translations

Clients who delegate their legal translation to a translation agency do so for sometimes very different purposes. The texts to be transcribed are therefore varied.

The translator is expected to know the different types of documents and to translate them independently. Without being a professional lawyer, the translator must nevertheless know how to produce a document that will be legally recognized if necessary.

Each type of document - contract, terms and conditions, statutes, etc. - has its own lexicon that must be identified. Some of these documents can only receive a valid translation if it is made by a sworn translator, such as official acts.

Sometimes a client may ask the translator to provide a certificate, without it being a sworn translation. This is sometimes the case for translations of report cards. It is up to the translator to decide whether he agrees to provide this certificate, the best of course to discuss it beforehand.

Different legal environments

One of the biggest challenges of legal translationis transposing a text from one legal system to another. In a European context, this difficulty will not be the most difficult. The legal frameworks of Member States are relatively similar, and languages sometimes very close. The crops are also neighbouring.

The level of requirement increases by one notch for the translation of a text between aCommon Law jurisdiction and a continental law. Forciori, legal translation to or from Chinese can be even more challenging. However, situations where these difficulties will actually arise are only specific cases