How to Become a Professional Legal Translator?

What Is Legal Translation?

Legal translation, which is one of the most important branches of professional translation services, could be listed among the most frequently encountered and needed professions of the translation field in daily life. Although the sub-headings of the legal translation would make a very long list, the most in-demand ones can be listed as follows: contract translation, circular of signature translation, identity register copy translation, confidentiality agreement translation, commercial correspondence translation and visa documents translation. The involvement of any document in a lawsuit process makes it an official document in the field of law, and this official document is dealt under the title of legal translation if any professional translation service is needed. We can list passports, marriage certificates, death certificates, birth certificates, testaments and rental agreements among these documents.

What Are the Legal Translation Types?

• Passports
• Marriage Certificates
• Death Certificates
• Birth Certificates
• Testaments
• Lease Agreements

When the data in the field of law is analyzed, it can be seen that more than three and a half million court files were studied in Turkey, in 2018. It is noteworthy that a large percentage of these files belong to divorce and custody cases. Considering the big number of foreign partnerships in marriages and in the business world, the importance of the legal translation services can be seen even better.

In addition to this, legal translators can also be appointed to defendants, plaintiffs, or witnesses who do not speak sufficient Turkish to testify in courts. Provincial Justice Commissions of Jurisdiction create lists of people to be appointed as legal translators each year. Judges and public prosecutors select legal translators from this list to make assignments to the trials where the legal translation service is required.

How to Specialize in Legal Translations?

1. In common with medical and technical translations, legal translation is one of the translation branches that require specialization and long-term experience. The most important things to do on the way to specialization are; to deal with the same type of texts, to be aware of the structures of these texts, to know where and for what purpose they are used, and of course, to gain awareness of the sentence structures of the texts.

2. Being a native or near native speaker in both languages can contribute to translators who want to specialize in legal translation. Unlike the texts in other fields, legal texts can often be longer and more complex. Mastering both languages is an indispensable requirement for specialization in this field, so as not to get lost in sentences of a paragraph or a page.

3. A legal translator should also be familiar with the legal systems of the countries, where those languages are spoken, as the legal system of each country can be very different from each other, even though there are similarities between them in other subjects. Therefore, the words and expressions that legal translators will encounter may not correspond exactly to the target language. In this case, the legal translator’s background knowledge on the field of law becomes very important.

4. Whether it is verbal or written, there is no room for predictions, allusions, or personal comments, when making legal translations. Changing the meaning of a sentence in legal translation may cause serious and undesirable consequences. Expert legal translators, having the necessary qualifications and proficiency, work very carefully to transfer the legal concepts in such official documents from the source language to the target language.

5. Long sentences, conceptually heavy texts and mostly old words in legal documents can be counted as other compelling factors for legal translators. Legal documents have their own special language and terminology. A legal translator must know the major legal patterns and terms that have been in use for many years in this field.

6. Translators may need to make extensive and detailed researches while translating legal documents. Familiarity with the legal systems of the countries, where translation languages are spoken, allows translators to anticipate what to look for and how to get accurate information.

It takes long years of work to become an expert and to be able to translate properly in a specific field. Again, familiarity with the legal systems of the countries, where these languages are spoken, allows translators to anticipate what to look for and how to get accurate information. Special trainings, especially the ones in the field of legal translation, will contribute a lot to people who studied translation or who want to be an expert in legal translation.

Author: Esra Çengel

Publishing Date: 01/30/2020

Target Audience: All Translators, Students from the Department of Translation, Beginner Translators, Translators Who Want to Improve Themselves, Readers of Interesting Contents, People Who Need Translation Services

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