In various cases operating in different jurisdictions, legal documents require translations. because of the detail-oriented nature, these need to be carefully translated to get the best results. Here’s how:
Figure Out What Needs to Be Translated
Before you start translating an entire text, it’s best to go over it a few times. Get an understanding of the material that’s presented in the document, some of the key terminologies and concepts mentioned across the document. In case you realize that you need to do some research before you can get to translating it, this is where you begin.
Note down anything that you’re unfamiliar with. Just because you’re short on time doesn’t mean that you do a bad job. Any preliminary research you do will simply make your life easier.
First Translation
Being short on time does not mean you rush the job. Legal documents have various facets that need 100% accuracy so the more attention you pay to it, you’ll be done with it earlier. There are generally two approaches when it comes to the first translation. Some prefer to go over entire chunks of related sentences, translating them directly.
Others prefer to go with enough sentences that they can retain at a time, which includes 10 words at max. This is preferable to ensure no words are missed out, which can be crucial for various legal terminologies or conditions.
Compare Your First Draft
Put your first draft side by side with the source text and go over each of them. Your task is to figure out what you’ve missed out on. Ideally, you should compare sentence by sentence to ensure that they’re the closest to 1 to 1 translation bar some of the nuances and subtleties of the particular language.
The goal is to get the document as close as possible to the original text’s details. Ideally, this is an iterative process.
Fix Any Errors
At this stage, you can put the source material aside knowing that the draft contains all of the details that you need to understand what the original document says. Here, you will be going over the draft several times to find out any unnaturalness in the sentence structure and tone of the document. The objective is to make it natural for a native and non-native of the translated language to understand the document without any difficulty.
Hiring A Translation Company
If all of the above is too much work and it seems like you don’t have enough time, why not hire a professional to do it? Consider a proficient company that’s skilled in the legal domain as well so that you have quality translations available to go.
Don’t DIY your legal document translations. Get professionals for the job that provide the best results. Apart from certified document translation, PA Localisation also offers voice-over, website translation services, subtitling, scientific journal, and medical manuscript, academic editing, and proofreading services among others.
Reach out to us today to get started on your project.