The Difficulties of Legal Translations Explained Translating consists of a lot more than simply taking a text written in a language and converting the text to a completely different language. In order for it to make sense and flow in a clear and accurately conveyed legal language, the translator must command a deep knowledge of the legal systems referred.
It is simply not enough to be simply proficient in two languages to do specialized translations in the legal field. Specialized legal knowledge is an absolute requirement and involves years of study.
Numerous skills are at play when you are translating, and legal documents, in particular, demand a lot from the translator. Serious challenges are often faced by translators when assigned a legal project. With such texts, there is simply no room for error: the smallest of errors can have very serious consequences and can be very expensive for the client.
Challenges in Legal Translation The nature of the legal language and the law accounts for most of the difficulties and complexities involved in legally translating a document. Legal translation is a difficult niche within the translation field because each country has its own unique legal system and legal terminology that must be accurately conveyed in the target language of a translation.
In addition, aptly referring and explaining the two legal systems and the standard linguistic and cultural differences between the societies of the two languages makes the translation task more arduous for the legal translator.
Legal systems are representative of the societies they were founded in; each society, in turn, is built on unique social, cultural and linguistic structures. In other words, the law and legal language of a country reflect the overarching legal system, which in turn reflects the history, culture and evolution of the country. The incongruence of the two legal systems the legal translation refers to constitute the core of the challenges in translating a legal document.
