SpanishLegalTranslation

In Addition to Dictionaries and Glossaries

2011-12-15T12:27:00.000-08:00

There are two common fallacies for beginning translators and laypersons: One is that each source language term has an exact equivalent in the target language, it and the other is that bilingual dictionaries have the last word (No pun intended.) in translation. The harsh truth is that neither belief holds water in the day-to-day chore of legal translation.

Before leaving you with a link to an excellent article on researching legal documents, I will say this: Spanish and English, not to mention Latin American (or Spanish) legal systems and US (or British) legal systems, are two different entities with a life of their own.
Therefore, we cannot treat the process of translation as it we were putting together pieces of the same linguistic jigsaw puzzle. In fact, many times we are faced with devising an new text in the target language that reflects the original meaning. In order to do so, translator Madeline Newman Ríos stresses the need to research the original legal provisions mentioned in the source text. By understanding a particular article or provision, it is easier to understand the way a judge or other lawmaker worded a particular sentence as opposed to plugging in a definition from a bilingual dictionary without any context.

You can read the entire PDF document, Researching Legal Translations: The Whys and Hows here.

Book Review: Fidus Interpres

2011-12-01T13:36:00.000-08:00

Fidus Interpres

by Fabio Said

I just finished reading this monumental work on Fabio Said's life as a professional freelance translator and his view and description of the translation universe (industry does not fit the vast scope of this e-book). Even though it is written in Brazilian Portuguese, with the aid of a dictionary (WordReference), I was able to readily understand a fair amount of it. Therefore, if you love languages as much as I do, and you are willing to look up the occasional Portuguese word, you will have much to learn from this book, and you will enjoy the experience as well.

Said is a superb communicator, as he is able to get his ideas across in a way that makes me, the reader, believe that he is standing right in front of me. I envision him in a classroom setting; wearing a tie and engaging me in an informative and thought-inspiring lecture. From the outset, he makes it clear that being a translator is not something that anyone can do. He does point out that anyone can pay his or her dues at an online site such as ProZ, but that does not necessarily mean that he or she is fit for the job. He lets the reader know that besides the pitfalls in the act of translating itself, there are several obstacles that are on the road to success in the business world when dealing with translation agencies.

Here are some of the many topics covered in Fidus Interpres:

· Translation techniques
· Glossaries and terminology management
· How to use social media and translator sites
· How to collect from late payers
· How to set up your own website
· Marketing techniques
· Difference between translators and interpreters
· Different types of translators and specialization
· Organizing your work schedule including taking vacations

If you are starting out as a freelance translator, you will save yourself some headaches if you follow Said's advice. Although the business environment emphasizing this book focuses mainly on Brazil, if you live in another Latin American country or do business with Latin America, you will most likely recognize practices that are similar to your own. If you have been in the business for several years as I have, you will run across techniques and practices that you already have in place. Nevertheless, it is reassuring to know that another professional translator thinks it wise to do some of the same things that you yourself are doing, and serves as reinforcement. Even so, I gleaned more than a few new ideas from this book. I won't go into detail because I want you to read it yourself, but I will say that I was particularly intrigued by what Said had to say about direct marketing.

To sum up, there is something in this book for everyone. No one can read it from cover to cover and put it down without being influenced positively. Therefore, even if you come away with a handful of tips from this book, it will have been worth the purchase. I know I will be turning to it for years to come.

Click here to order Fidus Interpres either as an e-book or paperback.

A comment on your comments

2011-11-26T17:03:00.000-08:00

Some of you, and I won't name names, choose to leave meaningless comments with the explicit intention of adding a link to your websites. As comments are moderated on this site, I summarily delete any comments of this nature because they do not contribute in any way to this blog.

That isn't to say that I would not allow a commenter to add a link to his or her website, but the comment would have to be meaningful and perhaps useful to other readers. In fact, the best way to get exposure and attention is to offer to submit a guest post, and I will be happy to add a byline with a link to your blog or website.

As with many things in business, it's all about how you go about doing something.

Old but not entirely archaic

2011-11-14T10:43:00.001-08:00

It is interesting to note how many old Spanish words are used in everyday speech. In fact, in Chile, fierro is frequently used instead of hierro for iron, denantes means something like just a little while ago and I am always touched when I read (not hear for the most part) the possessive pronoun vuestro instead of su as it has a classy ring to it.

Legal Spanish is no stranger to old expressions that are not commonly used by most people. So pena de... to mean "Under penalty of...", foja instead of hoja to mean page and the construction -se after an imperative verb form as in notifíquese and hágase are a few you can expect. Not to mention, of course, the frequent usage of Latin terms, which deserves a separate post altogether.

The other day I was stumped by a Guatemalan term: Escribano de Cámara y de Gobierno. According to the Velázquez Spanish-English English-Spanish Dictionary, an Escribano de Cámara is "the clerk of a high court of justice who is also a notary". Incidentally, notaries are known as escribanos in Argentina as well.

In turn, an escribano is a scribe, and I wonder if notaries of yore in the Spanish colonies of the New World had other duties in addition to notarizing documents. Even today, a notary public is a well-respected and oft-consulted figure in the Chilean legal and business worlds. In my research of this term, I came across this page on Spanish colonial terms. I found it fascinating, even for the sake of browsing, and I hope it will be of use to you as well. These archaic terms serve as a reminder that we are part of a continuum in which we are speaking and writing words that will be archaic and perhaps someday even lost to future generations.

Boricua Law - A blog dedicated to Puerto Rican law

2011-10-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

Although the vast majority of the legal documents piling up on my virtual desktop are from Mexico, there is good reason to include Puerto Rico in some of my blog posts. As there is a constant flux of Puerto Ricans moving from the island to the mainland, there is a moderate need to translate some of the documents on which their names appear. Most of these documents entail divorce and child support documents.

I really enjoy translating Puerto Rican documents because their legal system is similar (but not the same as) to the U.S. legal system. Additionally, the language used is sometimes a direct translation from the English. You will see words like "información sensitiva" for "sensitive information" and "mandatorio" for "mandatory". In fact, sometimes I get the impression that I am doing a back translation. As a result, there is less guesswork involved.

As invariably happens when I see the same text over and over, sometimes hundreds of times, I start to wonder about certain names, places and concepts. On one such foray in Google, I discovered a blog called Boricua Law. It is written by lawyers, and it includes a wealth of information in both English and Spanish on Puerto Rican law. Here you will discover who Figueroa and Ferrer were, and their impact on Puerto Rican laws. You will also learn in depth what a PIPE is, and if you are curious or need to know for your translations, you will discover why there is no common-law marriage in Puerto Rico.

Besides visiting this blog to gain a deeper knowledge of Puerto Rican law, I foresee that it will help me locate the best English translation for unique Puerto Rican legal terminology.

The Prosperous Tranlsator

2011-08-30T17:02:00.000-07:00

If there is one memorable fact or lesson that I come away with after reading a book, then it was well worth reading. In the case of The Prosperous Translator by Chris Durban, that one fact would be the recommendation to read On Writing Well by William Zissner. I immediately started to read it and know that I will be referring to it often for years to come.

Before I say anything more about this book, I would like to congratulate Ms. Durban on her writing style. She explains her ideas succinctly with clear language interspersed with wit and humor. I can bet that her translations read very well.

This book is a compilation of e-mails to Chris Durban and Eugene Seidel a.k.a. Fire and and Worker Bee, two freelance translators with decades of experience. Instead of saying "There is one way and only one way to translate and run a translation business.", they answer advice seekers in an open-ended way that leaves room for interpretation and adaptation. This makes the book more congenial and creditable than some other alienating, totalitarian "advice" I have read elsewhere such as on the Internet.

This is not to say that FA&WB are not firm about certain points. They are sticklers for quality, punctuality, networking and translating into your own language. They advise readers to specialize and actively seek direct clients. They also point out that machine translation is not going to put human translators out of business unless you are considering clients who want Google Translate to do the job for them for free.

Of course The Prosperous Translator has many more nuggets of advice to offer translators, but I would rather leave it up to you to read it yourself. At only $25.00, it is a real bargain considering the countless hours it will save you, not counting the money it will help you earn in better understanding and streamlining your freelance translation outfit. The book is available here.

Just what the doctor ordered

2011-08-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

I am always stricken by how versatile legal proceedings can be. Contracts can be about a plethora of subject matters: construction, telecommunications, engineering or animal husbandry to name a few. Certificates, though more limited in scope, deal with major life events: birth, marriage and death. Home studies and social worker reports, though not always strictly legal in nature, often describe children's physical and mental health issues.

It is no wonder then that my medical terminology database and my knowledge of all things medical are growing by the month even though I am anything but a medical translator. I couldn't be happier though, because there is scarcely a subject matter under the sun that I am not interested in.

Additionally, as long as I am not translating a manual on open heart surgery or something else along those lines, I am consoled by the fact that a) there are many, many medical resources on the Internet whether they be bilingual and monolingual glossaries and dictionaries or comprehensive explanations for the layperson (yours truly) b) most terms have a one-to-one correspondence. Not only that, most terms are cognates of Latin or Greek origin in both Spanish and English so there isn't much guesswork. Cardiología couldn't be anything else but cardiology and hospital, well the obvious.

On that note, one difference I do see is more lay terms accepted in English than in Spanish. In English, as an adjective you see lung and heart as well as pulmonary and cardiac, whereas in Spanish, you will most likely see pulmonar and cardíaco exclusively.

As always, anticipate your upcoming translations. If you go to the doctor, pay attention to any and all documentation related to your visit. Be sure to save all tests and scan them if they are not already in digital format. That way, when you are hit with that 10,000 word social services report, you have something on file and ready to go.

Here is a good site for blood tests in English.

Fuzzy matches: the good and the bad.

2011-07-11T15:48:00.000-07:00

In writing this post, I am assuming that you use CAT tools, whether gleefully or grudgingly. The polemic on whether they are a boon or a bane can be found at the ProZ.com forums and elsewhere.

One thing I enjoy about translating with a CAT tool is that I can recycle my translations. If there is a segment that is identical or similar to one I had translated before and therefore is in the memory or TM, I can reuse all (100% match) or some of it (fuzzy match). Hence the fuzzy match. (Needless to say this makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside).

As legal translators, we can benefit from fuzzy matches because there is so much boilerplate text out there, especially in contracts. Many a time, a client will send me a stack of contracts that are very similar with only a few words that change from one contract to another. Here are some to look for:

Names: Often the party signing a contract with the company drawing up the contract will change. Place names in addresses change too.

Numbers: Tax IDs, addresses, dates and sums of money all include numbers that may potentially change.

Dates: Different contracts may have different dates. It is important to check the month, date and year and any other potential changes such as dates written in words.

Rule of thumb for fuzzy match usage: Set your fuzzy match percentage to 80% to avoid fuzzy matches that involve too many changes. When the TM match pane is marked with too many changes or looks too confusing, retype the entire segment. It can be easier this way sometimes. Whenever you are making changes to a fuzzy match, use your finger to check the changes you made against the text marked in red in the TM match pane. It doesn't hurt to check the source segment with the target segment just in case you missed something. In fact, when proofreading your translation before exporting it, you should check the fuzzy match segments (marked with a percentage and in some CAT Tools have a different color) to make sure that you didn't leave anything out or add anything. Nothing is worse than handing in a translation with incorrect information in it!

Illegible handwriting

2011-06-28T15:58:00.000-07:00

Along with scanned photocopies and faxes, we legal translators are obliged to decipher and translate handwriting. This is not a bad thing because it is a form of writing that machines cannot read as well as humans which means that handwritten texts will most likely not be machine translated.

There are two types of illegible handwriting: texts written by people with not a great deal of formal schooling who may find it difficult to put words onto paper and beautiful, intricate script that many are not accustomed to. I have seen the latter on Mexican and Argentine birth certificates from the 1950s and before.

What to do when confronted with hard-to-read handwriting?

* Study the context. Read the entire passage and get a general feel for what the writer is saying. Based on context, you can sometimes extrapolate seemingly hard to read words. If there is related printed information in the rest of the document, you could possibly find some answers there. I usually have luck with people's names by doing that.

* Look for patterns. I often find that many writers of Spanish who print write their o's almost like their a's. However, if you read something like: "Estaba descansando en mi caso con mi familia", you know that what looks like an "o" to you is really an "a". Then you can look at the rest of the "o's" and "a's" and figure out which is which. Numbers are also written differently according to each person. Once you have established a pattern, things get easier.

* Finally, don't hesitate to ask. What looks like chicken scratches to you may be readily understood by someone else. I have been able to get help through KudoZ. What you need to do first is snip the illegible portion of the document (with some surrounding words for context) as an image file, upload it to Dropbox or Evernote, create a link, and then post that link in your KudoZ question. That way, KudoZ answerers can view the text themselves and provide you with the answer you were seeking.

Mexican legal documents: which person?

2011-06-17T19:52:00.000-07:00

It can be confusing in some Mexican legal documents (divorce papers in my case) when the third person is used in Spanish when the first person would be used in English. Time and time again, I see phrases like "la suscrita manifestó", referring to a narration by the wife in a divorce trial, only to see the same person referring to herself in the first person with something like: "yo le pedí ayuda económica a mi hermano porque el hoy demandado se negó a proporcionarnos alimentos".

It is tempting to treat this text like a fossil and preserve it as is for English speaking readers to puzzle over. However, it is not feasible in this case. The other day, I chanced upon this KudoZ answer by Henry Hinds which essentially says that this type of phrase msut be rendered entirely in the first person. You can read it in full here. I've never heard of the term "a chaleco", by the way.

Adding foreign terms to Word's spell checker, where do you draw the line?

2011-05-25T19:09:00.000-07:00

When spell checking a legal translation in Word, do you ever find it obnoxious to have to keep hitting the "Ignore" or "Ignore all" button? I know I do. This has led me to add some foreign terms and all names, foreign or not to Word's spelling dictionary by pressing alt+a in the spellcheck dialog.

However, I do not add words like Calle, which must be kept in Spanish if it is part of a street address or Colonia or Circunvalación or Polígono or Zacatecas or any number of place names.

This, of course makes the spell checking process more tedious and cumbersome. I could decide to add them and have them infiltrate as "visitors" to the official English realm, but then what if for some reason I was overwriting a document in Spanish and I left some of those words in by accident? This would make the spellchecker less reliable.

I know that there is a custom spellcheck dictionary that I could set up in Word, but I have not taken that step yet. Another possibility would be to use a different word processor and create a spell check scheme to accomodate my needs. A good place to find solutions to this and other Word-related dilemmas is Word Tips.

Off Topic: Dropbox

2011-04-27T12:36:00.000-07:00

I recently tried this service. Dropbox allows you to upload your important files to a secure site and access them from any computer. Very useful for backups and files you may be translating both at and away from home. With the free version, you can have up to 10 gigabytes of space, and if you want to pay, there are two plans: one for 50 gigabytes and the other for 100. Click here to join!

SOS Translation Chat

2011-03-31T04:22:00.000-07:00

I wanted to tell you about SOS Translator Chat, a new service designed to answer those "quick questions" that clients have. We all get them. Agencies or direct clients will e-mail or message us asking how to say "cosa juzgada" and we courteously reply with a quick answer. (At least I do).

We as translators receive a fee per minute by answering clients' questions via a proprietary chat interface. Payout is via Paypal. Once this service starts up, I will post my impressions. Meantime, here is what SOS Translator Chat has to say about itself:

"SOS Translator Chat is going to be launched in May. Until then, we are recruiting translators for all language combinations. Please contact your colleagues and let them know that a new company is on the translation market and so one more opportunity for them to earn money from translations. The more translators there are in the system, the more successful live chats for the clients!
SOS Translator Chat is an idea that has been developed due to the needs of clients who require translations on a regular basis: small translations, sometimes only a sentence, sometimes only a word that is needed in another language. When you register as a translator, which is free, the customer can chat with you about their translation request. Payment will be based on your price per minute, with or without the start rate, which you can set in your account. You, as a translator, will set your own prices and your own start rate. Keep your prices attractive as the client can see your prices and your qualifications. You can request the release of payment whenever you want via your online account.

To edit your translator profile, please login to: http://sostranslatorchat.com/"

Legal Links

2011-03-29T13:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some links I have collected over the months:

Law.com

Child Support Network

Divorce.com

Justicia Chile

Use country name

2011-03-02T03:37:00.000-08:00

When a document is being written for an audience in the same country, there is no need to specify which country the author is talking about. "en este país" is the most appropriate way to phrase it in most instances. Nor is it necessary to do so when naming national institutions, figures and publications. What would be the point? Emphasis is the only reason that comes to mind.

However, when translating that same document into English, it is usually appropriate to translate "en este país" as "in Mexico/Colombia/Spain/etc." We cannot expect the target reader to automatically know which country the author is referring to, at least not in the first instance. Perhaps it later instances of the document, the translator could omit the country's name since he or she already mentioned it in the first instance of this phrase.

National institutions, as alluded to above, may also require the country's name in the translation even when not explicitly included in the source term. "Tesorería General de la República" should be translated as "Chilean Treasury Department". (I have seen "General Treasury of the Republic", but "Republic of what?" is the question that pops into my head when I see it translated that way).

Any of you who have translated any number of translations from Spain will have come across the "BOE" or "Boletín Oficial del Estado". I translate it as "Official Spanish Gazette" because upon saying Spanish, I am saying that the publication belongs to the Spanish government which, in turn, alludes to "Estado" or "State".

Put a table inside a text box!

2011-02-04T05:14:00.001-08:00

Have you ever had to put a table in line with some text in Word only to have the text split up and displaced by the table. Does this frustrate you? Fortunately, I have a solution to this.

1. First, create a text box. Then make the borders invisible.

2. With the cursor inside the text box, insert a table according to your needs.

3. Move the text box with the table inside it wherever you like without disturbing the text lying outside the text box!

Some tips for answering KudoZ questions

2011-01-26T10:47:00.000-08:00

Before this year, I was more of a KudoZ asker than an answerer. For those of you who don't know, KudoZ is a system at ProZ whereby translators ask how to translate difficult terms and other translators post their answers. The more points an answerer is awarded, the higher his or her ranking. Additionally, it is a positive experience for the answerer because the ProZ community and anyone who searches that term or phrase on Google can see the quality of his or her research and reasoning.

To make KudoZ answering a better experience, I would like to give you a few tips:

- Only answer if you are positive or almost positive you know the translation. This usually means sticking to your field of expertise. If you have information to add but aren't sure of the translation, you can add reference information.

- Try to include as much information as possible in your answer (links to sites backing up your answer). If you only cite a dictionary as your reference, this may not be enough.

- Answer as fast as you can. If you don't somebody else may unwittingly post the same or a similar answer. One trick is to post the translation so you get your answer out quickly and then go back and edit your answer and include the definition and any other pertinent information.

- Don't succumb to the competition. As KudoZ is a competitive arena, other translators may try to discredit you. It is important not to get emotional about this and politely defend your answer if you think it's necessary. After all, your answer will be immediately indexed in Google and will stay there for a long time.

El Plop - A source for slang.

2011-01-26T10:30:00.000-08:00

You would be surprised how much slang pops up in legal documents. Even if judges and court clerks write in formal legal Spanish, the people who need to make use of the law sometimes do not. As part of being legal translators, we translate letters, sometimes handwritten, and witnesses' testimony.

One way to cope with this phenomenon is to amass a wealth of resources. You never know what you will be facing when you have a tight deadline. I have found El Plop helpful on numerous occasions. It is a compilation of words and phrases contributed by individual speakers from all over Spain and Latin America.

Who said what to whom?

2011-01-25T15:56:00.001-08:00

Spanish is a language in which it is not necessary to specifically name the subject of a sentence with a pronoun or otherwise. If I say canto, it is obvious that I am doing the singing because the verb cantar has the unique o ending for the first person singular. However, when we are dealing with the third person singular, (canta), we really don't know who is doing the singing without a context. He/she/it/the wind?/ sings. It gets even worse in the imperfect. Cantaba can mean I sang/used to sing, you (formal) sang/used to sing or he/she/it/a frog sang/used to sing.

Then we have su/sus. This word could correspond to his/her/its/your (formal singular and plural)/their. If there are several persons involved in an account and the text is not clear enough, it can be a potential pitfall to the translator.

Fortunately, most of the time, legal texts are fairly straightforward -barring the famous legalese, but that is a different problem. Legal language provides lingustic safeguards such as "del mismo/de la misma/de los mismos/de las mismas" to signify his/her/its/their. Similarly, if there is more than one person involved in a suit (there usually is), then you will commonly see "el primero/la primera" and "el segundo/la segunda" to signify the former and the latter.

In my experience, I have found that the ambiguous language comes from transcribed oral proceedings such as a reply to interrogatories (prueba confesional) where the respondent is required to answer questions about the facts of the case and his/her answers are written down. There is often a context which the translator is not entirely privy to, and the information is not presented in legal language.

My answer to this potential ambiguity is to read the unclear passage of the source text several times and, at the same time, ask myself "Who is doing what to whom?" There are usually several clues to help sort out the details.

Book Review: Wiley's English-Spanish and Spanish-English Dictionary

2010-12-21T16:59:00.001-08:00

If you have been in the translation business as long as I have, you have probably amassed your fair share of dictionaries and glossaries. As legal translations are my specialty, I have taken great pains to buy as many Spanish-English legal dictionaries/glossaries as possible.

To get the most out of your money and time spent researching, it is important to have resources with concise translations for each term that suit your translation style. There are many works on the market that have terms that are more explanatory than they are translations.

I have read mixed reports about the Wiley's English-Spanish Spanish-English dictionaries. Some translators are not keen about the "word list" aspect about them. Although I wouldn't use this dictionary as my primary source for legal translations, I have found terms that I hadn't come across in my other legal resources (It has a total of 40,00 of them).

If you have many Spanish<>English legal dictionaries/glossaries, perhaps you don't need this one, but if you only have a few, I recommend it.

Look before you leap!

2010-09-08T10:04:00.000-07:00

And now a little legal advice for those of you who publish, either on blogs and websites or through other sites like Scribd: If it's not your original material (images, text, files) do not publish it without permission from the content's owner!

This seems like common sense, but I feel that since we are removed from the "real world", that is being face to face with, we sometimes feel immune from any prosecution. I'm sure that in some cases, no one notices or really cares, but then again, corporations have been known to pursue individuals for copyright infringement over the Internet. Do you want a legal adversary for the price of gaining a benefit from someone else's work?

Here is a good guide for translators and how to avoid plagiarism.

Learning Terms Backwards

2010-08-24T18:47:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I come across a term in English, my target language and I work back to what it would mean in Spanish, my source language. Take the word "felony". My initial attempt may come out as a direct translation that does not reflect the true meaning of the concept, but with a little research, I hit on the right answer.

Many times I need to flesh out what the English term itself means (as in, what is the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony?, how is it used in a sentence? Who has been accused or sentenced for a felony?). To do this, I "reach" for online thesauri as well as a site called Wordnik and Google searches as well. I also look up the term in an English-Spanish dictionary. Then I look up the most suitable Spanish definition in a Spanish monolingual dictionary such as the Diccionario de la Real Academia de la Lengua Española.

The clearer the picture, the better, and the better equipped I will be when I encounter the Spanish term (delito mayor, crimen) in a Spanish document I am translating.

Checking links and e-mail addresses

2010-07-23T21:06:00.000-07:00

When re-keying URLs and e-mail addresses, and there are many of them on official court documents, especially from Puerto Rico, it is a good idea to click on them and see if they respond as they should. It is easy to misread or mistype a URL or e-mail address. This would render it useless to potential readers.

With websites, you will know that you have come to the right place if you are taken to the site stated in the URL (and you haven't been given an error message). E-mail addresses require a different tactic. (You probably are not going to write the person or agency saying "Hello, I am writing you to check if I got your e-mail address straight. I am the translator working on the document you drafted."). You could, however, either google the e-mail address and see if there is a match or even better go to the website where you suspect or know it could be found.

These seem like small tasks, but the more precise you are, the more attention you pay to detail, the higher you will be regarded by your clients.

H for him M for her: mystery solved!

2010-07-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

For quite some time now, I have been perplexed by Mexican Voter ID cards and how "Sexo:" is unmistakeably followed by "M" even when the person in the photograph on the card is unmistakeably FEMALE, or "F" as would be listed on the equivalent document in other Latin American countries.

Of course, I never put "M" for a woman in the English translation, and this custom was never an obstacle in translating that section properly, but nonetheless I was anxious to find out what the M stood for...Until it dawned on me. "M" is for "mujer" and "H" is for "hombre".

Do you align?

2010-06-29T06:13:00.000-07:00

Do you align your documents? It is a good exercise for the sole reason that you can see how documents were translated by other translators. You can learn from the good ones as well as the bad ones. The main reason I recommend aligning is to have all your bilingual resources in one place. If you see a Spanish and English version of a treaty or convention on the United Nations website, it is better to have the documents aligned and ready to go in your translation memories. That way, when you are translating a legal document that refers to this treaty or convention or other aligned document, you can run a concordance (Ctrl + K in MemoQ) on a particular term or phrase and you're all set!

Many CAT Tools offer aligners, some complete and others not so complete. ABBYY has a standalone aligner that I find to be quite good. It offers you the option of exporting the aligned document either as a two-column RTF file or a TMX file you can later import into your CAT Tool. There is also an online service called NoBabel. The good part about NoBabel is its uncanny knack for aligning almost all segments in your files, depending on how close of a translation the target text is. (Sometimes the target language version can veer from the original with additions and/or modifications).

However, there is no fast way to align if you want to do it right. Sometimes the source text needs to be spell-checked. Other times, the target text needs work. If you don't supervise the alignment yourself, how are you going to know it was done correctly? No matter how long it takes you to align, you will pick up gems along the way that will save you time and improve your translation quality in the future.

Legal terms at TermWiki

2010-06-15T15:40:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have already clicked on the banner at ProZ.com advertising TermWiki. I browsed it today and even added a few words. It has a nice look and feel to it with the possibility of uploading images, which is always a good way to explain terminology.

The lexicon is divided into languages (there are several including English and Spanish) as well as industries (?). I would choose a term more on the order of domain, but perhaps an industry forces TermWiki users to be industrious about adding terminology. Who knows?

At any rate, the legal "industry" is awaiting new terms, and the site is giving away an IPad to the person who uploads the most terms.

Sexo (en letras)

2010-06-04T14:17:00.000-07:00

I saw this on a Colombian birth certificate the other day. Of course, I translated it as Sex (in letters). Nevertheless my naturally inquisitive translator's mind asked the question "Can you have Sex (in numbers)?" Would you put 1 for male and 2 for female? Maybe sex in symbols? Morse code?

Ya, ¡pero no sean malpensados pues!

Do over!

2010-05-27T06:34:00.000-07:00

If you were a kid in the U.S. or have one, you know all about do over. When something goes wrong in a game on the playground, kids can say "do over", and it is as if the wrong move never happened. I found something similar in a Venezuelan divorce decree. There was incorrect information given in the initial divorce suit, and the counterclaimant is asking to change the case's status to the way it was at the second conciliation hearing.

Archivarius

2010-05-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

If you use a full-featured CAT Tool to translate your documents, you probably already know that you can search for all instances of a term or phrase such as patria potestad via the concordance function. That way, you do not always have to rely on your memory to know how you have consistently translated a term.

This is not that easy if you have to wade through dozens of Word and PDF documents. If you use Translation Office 3000, and you assign each job a fitting description, with the aid of your memory, you could probably locate most documents and perform a search within each of those documents. But how long would that take? How motivated would you be to do all of that?

There are several desktop search engines such as Copernic Desktop Search and Google Desktop. They include sound, video and image files in addition to text. I have found them to be a bit bloated at times, especially because as a translator, I am mainly interested in searching through text. Then there is dtSearch, which is good if you create your own specialized indexes. I know that several translators use dtSearch. I for one have been testing Archivarius and like it so far. It does not take up an inordinate amount of RAM, and you can define your indexes. Many times I have come across documents that I wasn't looking for, but that are nonetheless useful!

Tables to text

2010-05-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

Do you ever get the impression that the person who formatted the source document has some magical way of fitting all those tiny words onto one page? I often have to use a bigger font in the target text so that clients can read the page without a microscope! In fact, I never go below size 8 (which I find to be small all the same).

All too often I am instructed to "keep the original formatting". Instead of constantly fiddling with tabs and the space bar, what I like to do is enter information such as names and dates into a table and then use Word's "Table to Text" feature to convert the table into perfectly spaced text.

Another possibility, if the converted text doesn't come out right, is to format the table so that it has no borders and thus the table is invisible, but all the text is fixed smartly in place.

Equatorial Guinea

2010-05-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

When you think of Spanish colonies, you think of the New World. However, Spain colonized the Philippines, Guam, Western Sahara, Ceuta, Melilla and Equatorial Guinea.

Equatorial Guinea is a slice of land wedged between Cameroon to the north and Gabon to the south. The capital, Malabo is on an island several hundred miles to the north of the mainland part of Equatorial Guinea.

I have translated 2 documents from Equatorial Guinea during my career as a legal translator. One was an oil-related document and the other was a birth certificate. I don't think that all of the inhabitants speak Spanish fluently, but those who do speak what sounds like Castillian Spanish to my ear. They in fact pronounce the "z" like Spaniards, which I found to be surprising given that the norm is for this feature to disappear when the Spanish language is spoken far from the Iberian Peninsula.

Proofreading tips

2010-04-26T08:31:00.000-07:00

Though no translation is perfect, there are ways to make yours better than others that are out there. One obvious way is to do your homework and use all the right terms. This will take you a long way in your career as a legal translator. However, unless you thoroughly proofread your work, you are prone to sending less-than-polished work to the client. If the client notices and complains about the mistakes, you are going to have to correct them and apologize and hope they continue to regard you as their favorite translator.

Here are some proofreading steps that work for me:

Any time you decide to use the plural in the TL text when it is singular in the SL text, make a note of it. You can use the highlighter in Word or make a note if you are using a CAT tool, or you can use a sticky notes program like NoteZilla. You should do this because you always run the risk of reading "El cliente tiene que conocer nuestros productos" and then if you decide it sounds better in the plural in English because it's not a specific customer but rather any client who walks in the shop, you run the risk of typing "Customers has to get to know our products". You could slip up and forget that you had decided to use customers in the plural and then translate the Spanish verb in the singular.

Also look for instances of "su" and "sus". As some legal sentences are somewhat long and winding in nature, you might be busy tidying them up and sorting them out and forget if the subject is male, female or an it. Companies are "its", but the people representing them are either a he or a she.

When doing a find and replace, remember that if you are translating from Spanish into English, you cannot assume that you are replacing a mere word or phrase. The word or phrase that was there before the replacement was firmly rooted there much like a plant or tree. If you uproot a term, you must make sure that the context is not disturbed when you replace it with another. An example would be replacing "contract" with agreement. Since you would say "a contract" and "an agreement", if you perform a cursory find and replace, then you will see "a agreement". Someone could quibble about a sentence like that and rightfully so! Likewise, if you change a noun from the singular to the plural or vice versa, you must change the verbs that follow it in all applicable instances. Also, if you are translating from Spanish to English, and the plural is irregular, as in party/parties and you want to replace all instances of "spouse and/or spouses" with "party and/or parties", you have to watch out, because if you type "party" in the replace field, you are going to end up with "partys".

I see proofreading as a sort of insurance. Many times, I spot only a few errors and sometimes none at all. However, the mere fact that I have carefully gone over my work reassures me and lends me extra confidence so I can go on with my day. Now I am going to proofread this post!

Certified translations/Traducciones juradas

2010-04-15T14:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes translators are required to certify their translations, especially legal ones that may also be notarized. In some countries (Argentina comes to mind), there is a special protocol for certifying translations, and many translators have an official government "sworn" translator number.

In other countries, like the United States, all a translator needs an ATA number, or, as has been the case for me on occasion, a simple signed statement indicating that the translator knows both Spanish and English and that he or she rendered a translation that was faithful to the original. If you work for agencies, many times they take care of the certification process and the translator doesn't have to furnish any certification him or herself.

Please refer to the image above for the legal wording. You might want to check with other sources too, as this is one variant, and is in no way definitive.

res judicata

2010-04-07T16:28:00.001-07:00

If you listen to this phrase with a Spanish ear, you might think it is some sort of "judged cow". In fact this is the term used in English legal parlance, and it simply Latin for "the thing has been decided". In other words, the judgment for a case is final and cannot be raised again.

The Spanish equivalent is cosa juzgada (surprisingly un-Latin). I have come across the term several times in divorce proceedings, especially Mexican ones. Here is what the 'Lectric Law Library has to say about it:

"The principle that a final judgment of a competent court is conclusive upon the parties in any subsequent litigation involving the same cause of action.

The general rule is that a plaintiff who has prosecuted one action against a defendant and obtained a valid final judgment is barred by res judicata from prosecuting another action against the same defendant where (a) the claim in the second action is one which is based on the same factual transaction that was at issue in the first; (b) the plaintiff seeks a remedy additional or alternative to the one sought earlier; and (c) the claim is of such a nature as could have been joined in the first action. Underlying this standard is the need to strike a delicate balance between the interests of the defendant and of the courts in bringing litigation to a close and the interest of the plaintiff in the vindication of a just claim.

The Full Faith and Credit Act, 28 U.S.C. S 1738, requires that federal courts "give a state-court judgment the same preclusive effect as would be given that judgment under the law of the State in which the judgment was rendered. " Migra v. Warren City School Dist. Bd. of Educ., 465 U.S. 75, 81 (1984). Oregon courts adhere to standard principles of claim and issue preclusion. See Rennie v. Freeway Transp., 294 Or. 319 (1982).

The difference between the two concepts has been succinctly described by Justice Potter Stewart: The federal courts have traditionally adhered to the related doctrines of res judicata [claim preclusion] and collateral estoppel [issue preclusion]. Under res judicata, a final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the parties or their privies from relitigating issues that were or could have been raised in that action. Under collateral estoppel, once a court has decided an issue of fact or law ncessary to its judgment, that decision may preclude relitigation of the issue in a suit on a different cause of action involving a party to the first case. As this Court and other courts have often recognized, res judicata and collateral estoppel relieve parties of the costs and vexation of multiple lawsuits, conserve judicial resources, and, by preventing inconsistent decisions, encourage reliance on adjudication. Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. at 94. The collateral estoppel bar is inapplicable when the claimant did not have a "full and fair opportunity to litigate" the issue decided by the state court. Id. at 101. Thus, a claimant can file a federal suit to challenge the adequacy of state procedures.

RECOGNIZED EXCEPTIONS

First, consent or tacit agreement is clear justification for splitting a claim. Restatement (Second) of Judgments S 26(1)(a), and comment a (1982). Because a primary purpose of claim preclusion is to protect defendants from being harassed by repetitive actions based on the same claim, the rule need not be enforced where the State and County have implicitly consented to the splitting of claim under state and federal laws. See Rennie, 294 Or. at 329 n. 9 (citing 18 Charles A. Wright, Arthur C. Miller & Edward H. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure S 4415 at 124-125; and Annot., 40 A.L.R.3d 108 (1971)).

Second, it may appear in the course of an action that the plaintiff is splitting a claim, but that there are special reasons that justify his doing so, and accordingly that the judgment in the action ought not to have the usual consequences of extinguishing the entire claim; rather the plaintiff should be left with an opportunity to litigate in a second action that part of the claim which he justifiably omitted from the first action. Restatement (Second) of Judgments S 26(1)(b).

The so called England reservation is available to litigants that are in state court "involuntarily" as a result of Pullman absention by the federal court. See England v. Louisiana State Bd. of Medical Examiners, 375 U.S. 411 (1964); see also Railroad Comm'n of Texas v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S.496 (1941). England reservation applies when a litigant files a suit in federal court and the federal court stays proceedings to allow the state courts to consider state law questions. In such a situation, the litigant can inform the state court that she reserves federal issues for federal court. Id. at 421. By doing so, the litigant avoids the bar of res judicata upon return to federal court.

Res judicata bars a party from bringing a claim if a court of competent jurisdiction has rendered final judgment on the merits in a previous action involving the same parties and claims. In re Intl Nutronics, Inc., 28 F.3d 965, 969 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 115 S. Ct. 577 (1994).

Once a bankruptcy plan is confirmed, it is binding on all parties and all questions that could have been raised pertaining to the plan are entitled to res judicata effect. See 11 U.S.C. section 1141(a).

The decision of a legal or equitable issue, by a court of competent jurisdiction.

It is a general principle that such decision is binding and conclusive upon all other courts of concurrent power. This principle pervades not only our own, but all other systems of jurisprudence, and has become a rule of universal law, founded on the soundest policy. If, therefore, Paul sue Peter to recover the amount due to him upon a bond and on the trial the plaintiff fails to prove the due execution of the bond by Peter, in consequence of which a verdict is rendered for the defendant, and judgment is entered thereupon, this judgment, till reversed on error, is conclusive upon the parties, and Paul cannot recover in a subsequent suit, although he may then be able to prove the due execution of the bond by Peter, and that the money is due to him.

The Constitution of the United States and the amendments to it declare, that no fact, once tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexaminable in any court of the United States than according to the rules of the common law.

But in order to make a matter res judicata there must be a concurrence of the four conditions following, namely: 1. Identity in the thing sued for. 2. Identity of the cause of action; if, for example, I have claimed a right of way over Blackacre, and a final judgment has been rendered against me, and afterwards I purchase Blackacre, this first decision shall not be a bar to my recovery, when I sue as owner of the land, and not for an easement over it, which I claimed as a right appurtenant to My land Whiteacre. 3. Identity of persons and of parties to the action; this rule is a necessary consequence of the rule of natural justice: ne inauditus condemnetur. 4. Identity of the quality in the persons for or against whom the claim is made; for example, an action by Peter to recover a horse, and a final judgment against him, is no bar to an action by Peter, administrator of Paul, to recover the same horse."

In defense of Babylon

2010-04-01T08:02:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post, I had already written about the merits of Babylon. After reading some disparaging forum posts on translator sites, I feel the need to defend it.

A handful of translators have complained about licensing problems in which they have been unable to license their copies of Babylon after reinstalling the software. They also say that they have had difficulty communicating with Babylon's support department. This may be true in some cases, but I have never had a problem myself. I have installed and reinstalled Babylon a few times without a hitch.

Other translators find the use of Babylon to be unprofessional. They have the impression that Babylon is an unprofessional jumble of words that anonymous users have compiled willy-nilly with no regard to their actual meanings. I must say that there is a "crowdsourcing" factor to Babylon, but it is entirely up to the user what dictionaries he/she wishes to download and install. What I do know is that for the price of a small translation job that would take a professional translator a morning to do, you can purchase Babylon with an electronic version of a respectable professionally-compiled dictionary such as the Vox Spanish-English English-Spanish dictionary with an accurate, albeit incomplete collection of legal terminology. (Although suffice it to say that no one dictionary is complete in its own right). As for the community-compiled glossaries, I can vouch for the Universidad de Granada Spanish-English-Spanish dictionary. It contains good translations of terms and phrases that I have not managed to find elsewhere.

I would be remiss if I did not mention how handy it is to highlight a word or phrase and then bring up Babylon with the definition with a simple hotkey. Or what about conversions? I use this feature at the end of every month when I am preparing invoices.

As a closing remark, I would just like to say that the dictionary or glossary user is the ultimate judge. As a dictionary cannot yield the correct translation on its own, but rather point you in the right direction, you must always rely on your knowledge, experience and intuition as a professional translator to ensure that the job is done properly.

Acrolex Giveaway

2010-03-22T04:35:00.000-07:00

Post a link to Spanish Legal Translation on one or more sites (a forum, website or blog) and send it/them to me for verification. The first person to do so receives a license to Acrolex. Acrolex is a user-friendly program with over 70,000 acronyms and their meanings. The application will even let you add your own acronyms to its database. Rest assured, it is a legitimate copy. This is a blog on legal matters, after all!

All others will receive my own personal Spanish-English English-Spanish law glossary. Hand-picked terms. Groomed over the course of many years with terms that come up in dictionaries and in the actual documents you are assigned to translate. A tab-delimited text file ready to import into any terminology database. An invaluable addition to your legal terminology collection!

Keeping your PDFs online

2010-03-17T11:52:00.000-07:00

In a previous post, I mentioned the advantages of using Foxit Reader instead of Adobe Reader. Since then, I have gotten into the habit of uploading them to Google Docs. Why? You might ask. For the simple reason that it takes up less RAM which means you can use your computer to run more programs. The other reason for doing so is to set up fewer windows, as having your PDF document in an open tab in Internet Explorer or Firefox means that that file is located in your browser and thus you do not have to alt+Tab through different programs to get to it.

As an added bonus, you have an online backup copy of your PDFs in the event of damage or accidental erasure of the ones on your hard drive.

Mexican All Caps Revisited

2010-03-16T18:30:00.001-07:00

If you, like me, have decided to honor the MEXICAN LEGAL TRADITION OF WRITING DOCUMENTS WITH ALL-CAPS, AND WITH PLENTY OF BOLDFACE, you should know that Microsoft Word, at least in my case, ignores the spelling of words in all caps when a spell check is run. This means that if you are not a perfect typist (or speller), you could unwittingly let unsightly and offending all caps-gaffes reach your clients' computer screens.

Even if you have opted not to follow the Mexican legal all caps tradition, there are always company names and people's names in all caps whose typos could go unnoticed.

Not that you as skilled legal translators would do such a thing. Nevertheless, I am warning you on the off chance that this could happen.

Mexican Migration: South to North

2010-03-10T09:53:00.000-08:00

Lately, I have come across quite a few birth certificates from northern Mexican States such as Baja California Sur and Sinaloa where the parents are originally from Southern states such as Oaxaca and Veracruz. There is a space for the parents' home state and the year they arrived in their new state on these birth certificates. I am still curious as to what use this migratory information is to government officials, but it has nevertheless given me a reason to do some research.

The reason that these birth certificates have reached my computer screen in the first place is that one and/or several of the parties listed on them has emigrated to the United States. Like Mexicans from other parts of Mexico, Oaxacans are looking for better opportunities -whether in northern Mexican states or in the United States. I found an interesting website on the Oaxacan migration here. As it so happens, many of these Oaxacan migrants are Zapotec, a Mexican indigenous group.

A thought on translating official documents

2010-03-10T05:08:00.000-08:00

I regularly read Corinne McKay's blog, Thoughts on Translation to gain new insight on how to conduct business in the translation world. In a follow-up to a post on translating official documents, Corinne corrected her earlier stance on including images from the original source document (stamps, seals, signatures, photographs). Her new advice is taken from Thomas West, a renowned attorney and author of Spanish-English Dictionary of Law and Business""I know of an instance where an American judge asked that translators stop scanning in the seals and logos on official documents (birth certificates, marriage certificates) because it could appear as though they were “counterfeit” – in the judge’s view, it should be clear that the translation is a translation and NOT an original document, and the more fancy logos/scans you add, the more it can appear that the English-language document was issued by the officials in the foreign country. My conclusion is that all this fancy scanning is (1) not necessary and (2) dangerous, because it can make the document look forged and (3) therefore should not be done.""

I can't uphold this advice 100% because some agencies send templates of birth certificates with these official seals and stamps pasted into them. I have been congratulated for adding stamps, seals and signatures to my official document translations, and the end clients for these projects have been no less than district attorneys for US states bordering Mexico.

On the other hand, I have another client who was bothered by all of the extra logos and such. He said "keep it simple."

In conclusion, instead of prescribing a general rule for this practice, I would ask the client first whether adding these images is desirable. "It never hurts to ask." as the saying goes.

Introducing Tabbles

2010-02-24T15:46:00.001-08:00

As a translator, I value being able to find information almost as much as I do the information itself. What good is information if you do not know where to find it or how much of it and what kind you have? Although there are many software applications that are good at categorizing information and files, I have not found any that fill Tabbles' niche.

Though you can easily group files and folders with Microsoft Windows, you can only really place them in one spot a time. Tabbles (a portmanteau of tag bubbles) gives you a visual perspective of your files, and allows you to put them in several "baskets" at the same time.

I've come to the conclusion that this means two things for users: we can assign different tags to the same file according to our needs, and each tabble has a different color for quick and easy recognition. We can tag a Mexican legal translation as a document, a translation, law, Mexican, assigned in the year 2010, a translation over 1000 words, and the list goes on. We can also put different file types that encompass different categories yet share common theme into one tabble. This means that you can group a translation website with a legal glossary with a client's e-mail address with an image of an official seal... Whatever makes sense to you!

Puerto Rican Law

2010-02-05T04:21:00.000-08:00

I translate a fair number of divorce decrees from Puerto Rico. I find it easy to relate to Puerto Rican law for two reasons: One is that it is based on precedents, just like U.S. law (Figueroa Ferrer vs Morales Morales comes up again and again). The other is that the wording is quite similar to U.S. English. You will see "orden" for "order" as in "income withholding order", "moción" for "motion" and "bajo juramento" for "under oath". Sentences are short, like English and are mostly subject, verb, object, without the more complex structures seen in similar documents from Mexico.

All of these factors combined make for swift and happy translating! ¡Viva Puerto Rico!

Inquiring minds want to know!

2010-02-01T09:06:00.000-08:00

I have a penchant for using Inquiry by Metaproducts which I was lucky enough to come across at Giveaway of the Day. I would probably use it even if I were not a translator. It just happens to be fun to use and useful to anyone who cares to browse the web. What the application does is save webpages in folders that you create with it in the program. You can then edit the pages, thus getting rid of the annoying ads and other images that are not pertinent. When you're done doing that, you can search all downloaded webpages.

I like to save KudoZ terminology searches and Wikipedia pages. I like the concept of narrowing down what is available (versus searching the entire Internet) and being able to search what I have. I also think that making notes on the webpages themselves is very handy. You can consider this process as an intermediate one. It is something between the raw search performed when using Google or another search engine and what you have compiled in your own terminology database. I am often too busy to properly catalog information that I want to access later, and if I leave it up to my memory, I may lose track of what I wanted to look up if I come back later when I have more time. In addition, you have the original link of the same webpage in Inquiry in case there is something else you want to search later.

Another way to say housework: Oficios Domésticos

2010-01-26T10:41:00.000-08:00

I preferred QQ.DD. just because of the mystery behind it. However, Ecuador is a long way from El Salvador, and the authorities prefer Oficios Domésticos to QQ.DD, apparently. The good part about this term, is that it leaves no room for conjecture as to what it means. The word "domésticos" gives it away.

The odd part about both terms is that they do not describe an occupation but rather what the housewife (or more politically correct, homemaker) does. Why not put "ama de casa" instead?

Now back to my "oficios traduccionales".

QQ.DD.

2010-01-22T12:49:00.000-08:00

Context means so much to us translators. I can't think of anything that makes me scratch my head (or perhaps tear my hair out) more is an abbreviation or acronym without any context! I might as well be translating with my eyes closed.

The other day, I came across QQ.DD. on an Ecuadorian marriage certificate under the heading of occupation. I looked high and low, long and hard on Google and Kudoz and came up with nothing but the initials QQ.DD. on an Ecuadorian website. I knew two things from the outset: It was an occupation because it was under that heading, and whatever the initials stood for, it was a plural word (how inventive of Spanish to double initials for the plural!).

And bingo! I thought of quehaceres domésticos(homemaker or housewife in English), because the person was a woman, and I couldn't think of any kind of a pharmacist's title in Spanish that would fit the bill (they are called químico farmaceútico in Chile). I immediately went to Google and entered: QQ.DD. Quehaceres Domésticos, and this is what I got: http://www.google.cl/search?q=qq.dd.+quehaceres+domesticos.

It's wonderful when those gears in my head churn and I am able to pounce on an answer like this. I am sure I will remember this term for the rest of my life!

Leases

2009-12-16T11:42:00.000-08:00

Leases (Contratos de Arrendamiento) are a boon to translators. They are long (high word count) and they are predictable. After you have translated a half a dozen of them, the rest come naturally, or should at least. They almost invariably consist of several pages of clauses with:

The parties, in other words, the Lessor (Arrendador) and the Lessee (Arrendatario) and the names and addresses of their representatives. Note: when reviewing a translation of a lease, make sure that you have not put Lessor instead of Lessee or vice versa. Not that you would consciously do so, but fingers have a way of slipping from time to time.

The property being leased (local arrendado): its location and dimensions.

Things the lessor can do: visit and check up on his (its) property.

Things the lessee can do: make improvements, conduct his (its) business stated in the lease and the necessary permission required to do so. Sometimes the lessor gets to keep these improvements if they are part of the structure.

The amount or price of the lease, defined in monthly payments or rent.

The duration of the lease and renewals.

Termination of the lease, the reasons for doing so and the consequences.

Date and signatures.

Sometimes there will be attachments. I particularly like translating this part of leases because it talks about the building's different rooms and furnishings. Sometimes there will be a detailed drawing of the building or office.

Most of the leases I translate originate from Mexico and Argentina. Can anyone compare terms and features of leases from these countries with other countries according to your experience? Is there anything I have left out you would like to comment on? The floor is yours!

ALL CAPS IN MEXICAN LEGAL DOCUMENTS

2009-12-09T06:52:00.001-08:00

I have just read this interesting discussion thread at ProZ. The posters make a good point: all upper case letters can appear offensive to the reader. I, for one say that it is a good idea to mirror the source document when translating legal texts. I feel that it makes them look more "authentic" albeit "annoying" to some.

The Yndigo blog has a post on typography that talks about where to draw the line when it comes to copying the original formatting of the source document. (The all caps debate would fall into this category).

Do the children really receive this?

2009-10-13T09:56:00.000-07:00

I have come across this wording in several Mexican divorce decrees where the family property goes to the children. I wonder if the children become the legal owners of the house or if this is just a way to phrase that the children are guaranteed that this property will be kept for their benefit so that they will always have a place to live.

Take a look and let me know what you think. Meanwhile, I'll do some research of my own.

Take one...or two for the road while you're at it

2009-10-05T12:05:00.000-07:00

Do you ever get the feeling that legal translations revolve around a single term or phrase, or several variations thereof? Take the word Tribunal. I regularly come across Juzgado de Primera Instancia, " de Letras. Or how about types of agreements, or types of tax?

What I like to do when I look up a dictionary entry that has several sub-entries with the same noun, such as the ones I gave as examples, is enter the whole list into my terminology database. Yes, I know it can be tedious, as there can be long (and I mean long) lists for certain key terms, but believe me, it will be worth the effort. A time will come when you can consult the terminology database on your computer and rarely have to go to your bookshelf or an online search.

I wish that I were twins

2009-09-29T15:49:00.000-07:00

So goes the title of a jazzy and carefree tune. I was just translating a Honduran birth certificate, and it has a spot for the registrant's order in a multiple birth. Not to split hairs here, but if you are a twin, are you not born in a certain order without being a party to a multiple birth? I take multiple to mean three or more. I guess I was born to contemplate these issues.

CAT meets PDF

2009-09-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

MemoQ is one CAT that makes a tasty meal out of PDF files. It is the only CAT that I know and trust that will successfully import PDF files* without a hitch. You may have to do some post-processing once you export the translated file, but you save yourself the hassle of doing any conversion before translation.

*Any document that was converted to PDF, not as scanned images.

If you can teach it, then you must know it.

2009-09-17T12:30:00.000-07:00

Are any of you teachers as well as translators? If you have done any language teaching to any extent, you will know that in order to teach a concept, however complex or simple, you must "know what you are talking about". Otherwise, how can you expect some one else to learn what you are teaching?

This reminds me of a college German course I took several years ago. The professor made groups of students teach grammar points to the rest of the class. I then realized how much I needed to know in order to teach.

An ideal situation for a budding legal translator would be to teach or perhaps coach an attorney in the translator's target language. By correcting the student's mistakes and helping him or her to express him or herself with legal terminology, the translator would get closer to his or her role as a legal specialist.

No es descabellada

2009-09-16T17:55:00.000-07:00

¿Están cansados de descifrar esos documentos escaneados y en estado regular y tener que preocuparse de no saltar ninguna línea? ¿Preferirían el ronroneo de una aplicación CAT a sus gruñidos y quizás otros ruidos de insatisfacción?

¿Alguna vez han intentado tipear un documento PDF en un archivo Word (al no ser posible pasarlo por una aplicación OCR) para luego ingresar el documento a una herramienta CAT? Yo, al principio de mi vida de traductor lo hacía a modo de ejercicio.

Sin embargo, siento que tipear el documento origen entero antes de traducirlo en una aplicación CAT es como hacer el trabajo dos veces. Seguramente hay una mejor forma de lograrlo.

Y bueno, la hay... Supe hace poco que hay servicios de secretariado en distintos rincones del planeta que ofrecen tipear tus documentos, ya sean en español o inglés. Esto obiveamente significa gastar parte de sus ganancias en este servicio. Pero por otro lado, tendrán más tiempo para estar con la familia o para esas queridas tareas administrativas que, por alguna razón, siempre se postergan.

Si deciden contratar este servicio, procuren borrar cualquier número de fax del cliente y averiguar los términos de confidencialidad con la empresa que recibe este tipo de trabajos.

U.S. citizens living in Mexico

2009-09-14T17:40:00.000-07:00

When speaking of U.S.-Mexican immigration, the migratory direction is predominantly from South to North. I for one, have always heard of and talked to Mexican immigrants in the United States. I had never heard of or even thought about U.S. citizens emigrating to Mexico. But it does happen!

I translated a DIF (Desarrollo Integral de la Familia)document in which an American woman and her child were living in Tijuana and the mother wanted to take her child back to San Diego. However, as her American husband in San Diego was abusive, it was necessary for DIF to step in and visit her and write a report (which is what I translated).

Some years back, I was talking to a Mormon who said that there are Mexican Mormons - English speaking U.S. citizens who lived in Mexico many years ago and are allowed to move freely across the border. Upon further reading, I learned that they moved there to escape prosecution for being polygamists.

Of course in Northern Mexico there are people of Mexican parentage who were born in the United States and therefore have dual citizenship, as there are many Mexican citizens living in the Southwestern United States.

Proofreading the work of others

2009-08-28T12:13:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know that proofreading and editing (two different kinds of work but often grouped together) legal texts is tedious and many times not worth the effort. It is much harder to know how long it will take you to proofread a document than to translate. It all depends on how many mistakes there are and whether or not you have to check it against the original source language document. It can also be boring when you have to check for properly formatted numbers, and it can grate on your nerves when you see horrendous mistranslations that make you want to scream like sentence for sentencia or Secretary for Secretario (del Juzgado).

Though I deny none of this, I think that if you are not too busy with translation work, it is good to squeeze in some proofreading from time to time. Even if the translation is terrible, you will find out how much you really know. You will always see terms and phrases you would have translated differently. On occasion, you will learn new strategies for translating a certain concept or expression. That is when you should immediately copy both source and target snippets into your terminology database.

As for the business angle, though it is good to specialize, it is also of great use to develop as many skills as you can so that you will be ready for almost any task sent your way.

Off Topic: I had a good laugh!

2009-08-27T12:52:00.001-07:00

The other day I was working away, thinking about finishing the task at hand so I could relax. It was a document with lots of numbers and accounting. All of a sudden, I came across the heading ORGASMOS PUBLICOS. I stared at the words for a minute and then just started laughing. These are things that make translating priceless!

Legal Fiction

2009-08-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

I am always skeptical about terms whose English translation looks too obvious. From experience, I have learned that a translator can never be too careful about double checking a translation against a reliable source.

So I was surprised to learn that the term ficción legal is indeed legal fiction. Indeed, there is nothing fictional at all about this concept, except of course the fabrication that gives legal fiction its name. The Oxford Concise Dictionary defines it as: an assumption of the truth of something, though unproven or unfounded, for legal purposes.

A few weeks later after I came across this term in a translation, I heard a lecture on it by Professor David Liebermann at UC Berkley by way of a podcast. Professor Lieberman gave the institution of adoption as an example of legal fiction. The law says that a person is the child of a couple, when biologically this is not so. Nevertheless, the adopted child is legally kin, hence the use of the word fiction.

Testing BlogJet

2009-07-30T17:01:00.001-07:00

I have installed an interesting application - BlogJet. It's a cool Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools). Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com

"Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination." -- Albert Einstein

Universal Class

2009-07-24T08:03:00.000-07:00

Taking an online class is one way to increase your knowledge of a particular subject without leaving the comforts of your own home. You can study at your own pace according to your schedule. I just finished my last test for my Legal Terminology 101 class at Universal Class. The course covered areas such as family law, corporations, bankruptcy, contracts and wills, each within the context of the U.S. legal system. Despite having dealt with some of these terms for many years in translations, I learned nuances that had never occurred to me before. I feel that the course has helped me to understand what is behind the meaning of the terms I translate, which is my ultimate goal. In addition, I am going to continue to review these terms and use them as a springboard for further studies in the years to come.

Please click here if you would like to see the certificate I was awarded.

Legal Size It

2009-07-23T14:26:00.000-07:00

Don't you hate it when you have to fiddle with font sizes so that the target text will fit on one page so that it matches the source text layout? I have been translating long enough to be able to gauge what font size to use in order to accomplish this task. One trick I use is to make the page a little longer. In Microsoft Word, go to File, Page Setup and click on the Paper tab. In my version of Word it says Oficio which, of course is Spanish for legal size. You can even set up a template that is already legal size so that you won't have to click through the menus every time you want to make this choice.

View your files side by side

2009-07-20T16:24:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, I had downloaded Accelman by Flexigensoft as a Giveaway of the Day. Besides being a handy file manager and audio and video player, it also has a built-in image/PDF viewer and text editor. Believe it or not, you can have an image viewer in one pane and edit an .rtf or .txt file in the other. This means that you can view image files and type the translation on the same screen without having to fiddle with two different windows. When I returned to the Flexigensoft website, I was surprised to learn that all Flexigensoft software is free. All you have to do is download the license key.

¡Te lo doy firmado!

2009-07-13T15:55:00.000-07:00

Después de traducir cientos de documentos legales, vale decir documentos notariales y judiciales uno empieza a fijarse en todo. Algo curioso que se repite en todos aquellos documentos es la forma de las firmas. Yo, por ejemplo cuando firmo un documento, firmo mi nombre más o menos como lo escribo en letra imprenta, solo que resulta algo más ilegible. Se pueden distinguir mi nombre y apellido por separado. En España y en Latinoamérica, sin embargo, la firma de uno se convierte en un símbolo, y como tal guarda quizás una semejanza simbólica al nombre y apellido del dueño de la firma. Lo otro que salta a la vista es que las firmas generalmente tapan parcialmente o el texto o algún sello o timbre, seguramente para hacer el documento aún mas "oficial".

Quick and easy templates

2009-07-08T17:33:00.000-07:00

I know that you can set up templates in Word, but I find the process somewhat complicated and unnecessary. What I like to do is create a Templates folder and fill it with translated files that have repetitive text (CAT tools are out of the question because the source texts are scanned image files). I also create blank Word files with just the formatting in them. Examples of these are: Arial 11 letter size, Courier New 12 legal size. Then I make them read only files so that they are not accidentally modified or deleted.

To do this, right click on the file in Windows Explorer and then select Properties. Then check the Read Only box. Now your template is ready to go! When you want to use a template, go through the same steps you took to make it read only, except this time, uncheck the read only box.

Lien II

2009-07-07T15:17:00.001-07:00

No, I did not mean for this post title to be a pun. I am too sheltered to do that. I guess it comes from working with so many words.

I just wanted to warn translators of another lien situation that may arise with agencies if you are not careful. Let's say you had a bad day and you did not translate a document the way you should have or you ventured into unfamiliar territory; or perhaps the agency's client just didn't like the way you used a certain word. Under certain circumstances, an agency can use the amount of outstanding invoices as a nonconsensual lien as compensation for your unsatisfactory work (whether real or perceived). The agency may withhold part or all of the money due to you. Whether or not this is a good business practice is definitely a matter to be debated. However, if you the translator are at fault in any way, it is difficult, often not worth the time and effort, to dispute this lien.

There are three ways of minimizing this risk. 1) Always do your best work. Check and double check. 2) Choose reputable agencies to work for. The ProZ Blue Board is a good place to check agencies' reputations. 3) Do not accept lengthy payment terms. Try to shoot for 45 days after issuing the invoice at the latest.

Lien on me!

2009-07-07T05:54:00.000-07:00

No legal term is clearer to me than those that describe situations that I have been in. I had always heard the word lien mentioned here and there. I knew from an early age that it was pronounced like the word lean but spelled differently. I had a foreboding ring to it, but I was never able to pinpoint its definition. Now, I am more than certain about what a lien is.

The Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary defines a lien as "A charge upon real or personal property for the satisfaction of some debt or duty ordinarily arising by operation of law." The Spanish word for lien is gravamen or derecho de retención.

And now for my own lien experience: When my wife and I bought a house a little over a year ago in Santiago, the former owner assured us that there were no debts, liens and no encumbrances on the property. He did mention that he had previously hooked up piped natural gas to the house and had subsequently disconnected it. Now there is a tank outside that needs to be filled by a truck every so often. There was mention of an outstanding debt to the gas company, but that this matter was in litigation.

Not so. The gas company called us and sent us notices. The current owner of the property was, unfortunately, the current debtor. So instead of letting the interest accumulate, we paid off the debt. End of story. There is nothing better than reality to learn about the law.

Translation Source on Twitter

2009-07-06T15:34:00.001-07:00

Translation Source is a solid, professional translation agency based in Houston, Texas. The Spanish<>English pair is one of its specializations. I recommend the Translator Source tweets on Twitter as they include legal and cultural issues that will be of interest to Spanish legal translators. You can sign up for them here.

RSS now available for Legal Spanish Translation

2009-07-02T14:59:00.001-07:00

Some of this blog's readers were asking how to subscribe to an RSS feed. Now this is possible by simply clicking on the orange button near the top of the page.

Word games

2009-07-02T14:31:00.001-07:00

Is it just me, or do all translators enjoy playing with words? I used to know someone back in college who would start a conversation with: "Let's talk about ____ " It could be any word, like trees, for instance. Then I would say something like "Trees have green leaves." and this person would add: "The leaves fall off in the fall", and the game would go on like that until there was nothing left to say.

Not too long ago, I started a similar game, only it is work-related, and I use dictionaries. Take a legal word like encumbrance. The dictionary says: "Any claim or restriction on a property's title." Now I find a word in the definition I either don't know or am drawn to. Let's look up claim: "A demand for money or other relief." And then I might look up demand or relief, and so on.

Has anyone else done this? Are there any variations you would like to suggest?

¡El que pestañea no pierde!

2009-06-25T13:14:00.001-07:00

...De hecho gana a mi modo de ver las cosas con respecto a los archivos PDF (¿Dónde estaríamos nosotros los traductores jurídicos sin este archiconocido formato informático?). Me explico: Adobe Acrobat Reader está en todas partes, y desde luego tiene su brillo, pero encuentro que ocupa mucha memoria RAM y que esta eternamente actualizándose. Por eso es que yo he optado por desinstalarlo e instalar Foxit Reader. Foxit Reader tiene todas las funcionalidades de Adobe Reader más pestañas. Así no tienes todos tus PDFs abiertos en un solo lugar.

The semicolon; a great invention

2009-06-08T16:21:00.000-07:00

What I am about to write is a generalization. From years of observation, I can say that simply put, Spanish uses long sentences and English uses short sentences. Of course, I could give you concrete examples to prove the contrary. Jorge Luis Borges writes in short sentences, and Charles Dickens writes in long sentences.

Now that I have given you the long and the short of it, I want to introduce my friend the semicolon to you. It is not a period, yet it is not a comma. It is a marker placed in the middle of the road that says we are taking a different course, but we are not stopping. A slight change of plans, but nevertheless loosely tied to what we were doing before.

Getting back to long Spanish sentences and short English ones, in a marketing text, I have programmed my brain to chop up the translated English sentences at the right junctures; otherwise I would have a word salad on my hands.

Legal Spanish is a different story; it has long, indivisible sentences which, if chopped up by periods, will change the meaning and flow of the text. Many times, the original Spanish document has semicolons that coincide with where a semicolon would be placed in English.

Cómo realizar una búsqueda con dedos flojos

2009-06-04T18:30:00.000-07:00

Es tarde, y tengo bastante que hacer. Sin embargo, quisiera aprovechar este ratito y compartir un descubrimiento con Uds. No es que yo tenga los dedos flojos. Muy al contrario, los tengo veloces y precisos cuando estoy escribiendo, mejor dicho traduciendo. Sin embargo, cuando uno busca un término o frase en, digamos, las respuestas de KudoZ una vez que hayan hecho la búsqueda inicial en el cuadrado del buscador, no es necesario escribir la palabra o frase completa. Si quieren buscar crédito hipotecario, por ejemplo, basta con ingresar Control + F seguido por crédito h o quizás crédito hip.

Lo que me gusta de buscar así, ademas de descansar los dedos un poco, es que suele aparecer otros términos además del término preciso que estoy buscando. Si quiero ver una mayor cantidad de otros términos, uso menos letras en la búsqueda (por ejemplo crédito h o créd).

Y ahora mis dedos van a volver a su tarea de traducir.

Do you align?

2009-06-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

Alignment has always been one of those rainy day activities that I always plan on doing but seldom find the time to. Alignment, for those who are not familiar with it, is the process of taking two texts, one in the source language and the other in the target language, and making a bilingual document out of them. Aligned texts can be useful to translators provided they are high-quality texts and each source segment properly matches its corresponding target segment.

If you use a CAT tool, you probably already own an alignment tool of some sort. I have used the MemoQ and SDLX aligners with some success. What I am not keen on is having to manually match segments as this is time consuming and boring. Logiterm will align texts for you automatically and give you "bitexts" in seconds - all within the Microsoft Word environment. It also comes with a nice little search tool that will quickly and efficiently lead you to the terms and/or phrases you are seeking. Another option is NoBabel. Here, you upload your source and target files and let the site do the aligning for you. The great advantage to this option is that it will convert the aligned text to a downloadable .tmw or .tmx file that you can seamlessly add to your CAT tool. In other words, it is as if you had translated the file yourself in your own translation environment. Each translation unit costs USD 0.02, and new subscribers receive USD 100 free credit.

Legal translators are capable of building voluminous files of aligned text. There are many official documents, in Europe and elsewhere, that are of comparable quality in both languages. Before plunging into the alignment process, it is important to examine both files. Which one was translated into the other language? Is it a good translation? If you find yourself correcting the translation provided, then there isn't much point in using it as a future reference. Are the two documents similar in length and content or are they two distinct versions? If they are not close matches, then they won't be good candidates for alignment. You might extract a few good TM entries, but not much else.

Legalese: A mayor abundamiento

2009-05-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

Today, I'm going to tell you all about a mayor abundamiento. Furthermore, I am going to tell you how I came across it. A mayor abundamiento, les voy a dar una definición de esta frase. As you may already know or have guessed from my bilingual antics, it's just a fancy way of saying furthermore. It seems trivial to me now, but when I first came across it in a document for the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris, France, many years ago, I had no idea what to make of it. Usually I can deduce something from a term or phrase's context or etymology. Most terms are related to something. But this one stumped me for several hours until I took the trouble of looking it up in the right source.

According to Diccionario de la Real Academia Española, abundamiento means: abundancia followed by "desuso". So a literal translation might be Toward/for greater abundance.That sounds delightfully pompous!

I sometimes feel like using these pharses in everyday speech like Don Quijote using archaic, chivalrous Spanish with the girls he came across in the inn. That reminds me of what some people say in Chile, completely from a different register, for comic effect: Me es inverosímil! A mayor abundamiento...

La notario

2009-05-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

Any language you speak, read, write, translate from or into is at a crossroads. There is always the old way (be it spelling or pronunciation) and the new way. Even during the time that I have been speaking Spanish, the letter ch was eliminated. Now words beginning with ch are alphabetized under the letter c. Unlike English, these rules are governed by the Real Academia de la Lengua Española.

What do you think about names of professions and positions ending with an o even though the person in question is a woman? I came across "la notario" on a Mexican legal document. Although it is gramatically correct, and sounds "official", I can't help thinking it should be "la notaria". However, I believe you can rightfully say la abogada but not la jueza, although I hear it often in spoken Spanish.

My role here is not to be the definitive authority on the topic or provide you with an exhaustive list of examples. Rather I wanted to bring this phenomenon to your attention and ask you how you deal with it. If you write your translation according to the official rules, you are being correct on one level and making a statement on another. If you write your translation the way people usually say these words, you are being officially incorrect, and you will also be making a statement. Who is to say that legal documents won't say "la notaria" twenty or thirty years hence?

On a different note, I was in Viña del Mar over the long (Navy Day) weekend. I saw an ex-president, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle walking past me near the casino plaza. It is amazing to see famous people in person. Frei was a lawmaker when he was president some years ago. Now he is running for president again.

Legal separation: one step toward divorce

2009-05-18T16:22:00.000-07:00

I learned about this term in an online legal terminology class I am taking (the jury is still out on the course, so I will let you know how I liked it once I've completed it). It doesn't mean that the spouses are divorced, and it doesn't mean that the spouses are entirely married. Why on earth would anyone seek that status?

Well, as it turns out, there are a few good reasons:

* It is a step toward divorce, so when the parties finally wish to divorce, certain agreements are already in place.

* There are certain benefits like military benefits and healthcare benefits that one spouse would lose if divorced but would not if legally separated. See Sick Around America and you will see what I mean.

* Religions where divorce is not accepted and spouses prefer to stay married albeit on paper.

I have only come across legal separation on Peruvian divorce papers. Up until recently, Chile had no divorce law, but rather a loophole where if one of the parties declared that his or her address was not the correct one when the marriage took place, then that marriage was void. Today, Chileans get divorced the regular way just like people do in most countries.

¿Y cuánto te vas a demorar?

2009-05-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

¿Cuántas veces hemos escuchado esta pregunta ya sea de nuestros seres queridos o de los mismos clientes? Hasta nosotros, los traductores queremos saber cuánto tiempo nos vamos a demorar en terminar una traducción. ¿No sería maravilloso poder decir "Yo me demoro una hora en traducir 500 palabras, sea cual sea el tema, dificultad, formato, hora del día, estado de ánimo...".

Lamentablemente, esto no va a ser posible hasta que no nos convertamos en robots o los textos que traducimos sean completamente predecibles. Sin embargo, opino que es sumamente legítimo el deseo de medir el tiempo que nos demoramos en traducir cierto tipo de textos bajo condiciones normales ya que el tiempo es dinero y es bueno y a veces necesario saber cuánto vamos a ganar durante un período dado.

Por ello, recomiendo un cronómetro en línea que, además de ser gratis, no le quita memoria RAM al PC. sites. Se llama Online Stopwatch. Yo lo utilizo para dos propósitos: cuando estoy realizando una revisión por la cual cobro por hora y cuando quiero saber cuánto me voy a demorar en traducir un texto. Me gusta su sencillo diseño tipo "equipo de música" con un botón para pausar el cronómetro si por algún motivo queremos interrumpir nuestra tarea para hacer otra cosa.

COCA: an addictive corpus without the negative effects

2009-05-12T12:38:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite components of translating are corpora and sifting through thousands of words. It is a kind of linguistic voyeurism. I get to see how things were written or said by countless people in myriad settings. In one of my Delicious forays, I chanced upon COCA, short for Corpus of Contemporary American English. No, it has nothing to do with coca leaves or Coca Cola, though I am addicted to it, I confess. Is there perchance a concordance 12 step program out there?

It is a huge body of texts with over 385 million words. The sources are varied: the spoken word, magazines, newspapers and academic texts. Look up almost any legal term, and you will get a very long list of phrases where that word appears. Sometimes it is fun just to browse and see what pops up. Other times, you may like to know what the most common collocates are for a word. Take the word custody. I looked it up in COCA, to see what verbs precede it. Here is a sample of the results:

... attempts to resolve custody
Dotson was taken into custody
We share custody
... by those who are held in custody
... their efforts to get custody

Do any of you readers out there use corpora? If so, how?

Online translation memory

2009-05-08T14:48:00.000-07:00

I have read in several forum posts on translator sites that translators generally do not like using translation memories given to them by the client. They say, and I tend to agree with them, that the quality of the translations is not very good. However, assuming that this is true, there is a lot to learn from a bad translation. It confirms that what you know is "right" or perhaps "righter".

Nevertheless, I have picked up some translations and ways of handling the source test from translation memories that I would not have thought of on my own. So I welcome translation memories from clients. I use what I like and discard what I do not.

I recently found an online translation memory, Linear B, that I rather enjoy. I consult it to get a second opinion and sometimes come across pleasant surprises.

Here are two results for the Spanish term anexo:

"... la forma y el lugar del signo distintivo de matriculación se especifican en el anexo, aunque esta disposición figura ahora en la segunda parte de la enmienda nº ...
... size , shape and location of the distinguishing registration sign are specified in the annex, although that provision is now also covered by the second part of amendment ..."

"el anexo, en virtud del cual los donantes pueden recibir una compensación que se limita ...
the addendum , whereby donors may receive compensation which is severely restricted to compensating the expenses ..."

Easements

2009-05-04T14:50:00.000-07:00

I was reminded by this term when translating a technical document. In fact, it was about setting up solar farms in Italy. Nevertheless, the law came into play when discussing easements or servidumbres in Spanish. I find the term in both languages to be quite odd.

The Duhaime online law dictionary gives the following definition:

"... a right which one landowner has with respect to the lands of another - either the right to do something on the other's land, or the right to prevent the other owner from using their land in a particular way."

In this particular document, the easement had to do with laying cable across property that did not belong to the solar farm.

Código de Procedimiento Civil

2009-04-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

I have seen this term so many times it seems that it has been burned into my eyeballs. Whenever I come across terms that appear time and again in the documents I translate, legal or otherwise, I look them up and study the context they appear in. After that, I feel much better when I type them.

Civil procedure is nothing more and nothing less than a set of rules followed by the court in civil trials. Mexican divorce decrees always mention them, usually several times in the same document. Specific articles are referred to as a basis for certain actions and decisions.

Here is a good starting point for learning about the U.S. Code of Civil Procedure.

You can learn more about the Mexican Code of Civil Procedure here.

Legal links and more on Delicious

2009-04-30T10:44:00.000-07:00

I had used Delicious some time ago and just recently signed up again. Unlike a links page on a web site, it is easy to update. As for my own use, it is better than a browser Favorites menu, because I can access it from anywhere and add my own comments.

Please feel free to visit my Delicious links page for links to legal, language, translation and software sites.

Legalese: para que tenga verificativo

2009-04-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

I love it when I come across words or phrases that sound so important and arcane when they really just mean something simple and mundane. Para que tenga verificativo just means so that it may take place. In other words, tener verificativo means to take place. The first time I ever came across this phrase was in a Mexican divorce decree, and I even asked a KudoZ question about it. The exact phrase was something like "para que la audiencia tenga verificativo".

As a side note: I am definitely not picking on Mexico when quoting this bit of legalese. All countries and languages do it. It is part of being legal. Mexico needs all of our support now with the swine flu outbreak.

¿y?

2009-04-27T12:46:00.001-07:00

Such a short word, and yet so vital to communication. I bring it to your attention because it can sometimes go unnoticed and thus untranslated.

¿y? o quizás ¿y qué? o incluso ¿y cuál es el problema? you say...

Well, say you are translating a legal documents from Spain. You come across the inevitable and ubiquitous list of R.D. (Real Decreto). It may say something like "R.D. 1359 del 5 de noviembre de 1983, R.D. 7259 del 4 de mayo de 1974 y R.D. 5867 del 27 de agosto del 1979".

One thing you can do is train your eyes to scan for this type of situation. Another "y" spotting technique is to include a search when you proofread the document. It should be space "y" space. If you put plain "y", Word or the equivalent application will look for every word ending in y.

Dime con quién andas y...

2009-04-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

¡Te diré quien eres!

Yesterday, when translating some DIF (Desarrollo Integral de la Familia, Mexican Child Welfare Department) papers, I was struck at how important another person's word is when it comes to legal proceedings. As in the everyday world, we rely on other people's opinions about people. All of the service providers we engage for household repairs come from word of mouth. Otherwise, how do you know if someone is trustworthy or good at what he or she does?

I am assigned many DIF documents for adoption purposes. They usually deal with grandparents who want to adopt their grandchildren who live in the United States. In order to bring them to Mexico, DIF must be sure that the grandparents are good people. One way of finding out is through letters of recommendation.

These letters are usually written by important members of the town (these grandparents usually live in a town, not a city) like town council members or doctors. They usually say the same things like such and such a person is honest, hardworking and an upstanding member of the community. They also state how long the letter writer has known this person.

I'll make a note of it!

2009-04-23T09:58:00.000-07:00

I am a firm believer of note-taking while translating. It gives me a chance to write about what I am translating without actually including it in the translation itself. This process encourages me to think before typing my final translation in whatever application I may be using.

In the case of MemoQ, there is a handy notes window included in the program. All you have to do is press Control+M and you can write whatever questions or instructions that come to mind. Word also has a notes function, though I am not that pleased with it. First of all, you have to remember to delete your notes before sending the final version to the client. Second of all, it is quite bland in appearance.

That is why I use NoteZilla by Conceptworld. Not only are your notes not restricted to a certain application, you can also choose skins and colors, change the font type and color, and "stick" a note to a particular application. Now, when I do my legal translations in Word, I just create a new note and type all my questions and instructions in it.

Mexican divorce: a woman cannot remarry if she is pregnant.

2009-04-22T08:14:00.000-07:00

When I tell Americans that I translate divorce decrees from Mexico and other Latin American countries, they act surprised and say: "But isn't Mexico a Catholic country?" It is indeed, and so is Chile, where I live. Nevertheless, a person's religion alone is sometimes not enough to keep a family together. Even during the time I have lived in Chile, the Church has receded from people's lives, and I suspect that the same has happened in other Latin American countries.

I come across this rule in Mexican divorce decrees almost every week: "Quedan los promoventes en aptitud legal para contraer nuevas nupcias, a excepción de la mujer quien podrá hacerlos hasta que transcurran trescientos días a partir de que cause ejecutoria la presente resolución o mediare examen médico el cual acredite que ésta no se encuentra embarazada, conforme a lo dispuesto por los artículos 146 y 257."

Proof of non-pregnancy is established either by remarrying 300 days (10 months) after the judgment becomes final or by submitting medical test results showing that the ex-wife is not pregnant.

This measure is clearly in order to establish the child's paternity. If the divorced woman remarried while pregnant, there could be serious confusion as to who the child's biological father is.

Commit those terms to memory.

2009-04-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

With all the CAT tools and other helpful computer aids in existence, I still rely heavily on my own, human memory for terms and how best to put them together. When I have a free moment, I sometimes use VTrain to commit some important legal terms to memory. It is like virtual flashcards, but customizable and has more steps to it. You create your own deck of cards. Each card has a pair on it. You could decide to have source and target words or an English word and English definition or Spanish word and Spanish definition. Then you feed your stack of cards into different boxes. You have the option of playing a slideshow of your terms so you can learn passively. Then you can set the program up so you are shown the front of the card and you have to type what you think is on the back or vice versa.

I should also mention that VTrain allows you to add audio and images to your cards. All in all, it is a rich and thorough learning experience.

Managing your online legal resources part 2

2009-04-17T10:14:00.001-07:00

As I said in part 1, we are bombarded with useful links to glossaries and other reference sites of interest. It is often difficult to keep track of some of them when we most need to access the information. Besides the solution given in part 1,I also like to have websites launch automatically.

This is part of the way I have set up my work environment. I determine which websites I want to view and what time of day and how many days a week I want to view them. That way, I do not make a conscious effort to launch them, they simply appear.

There are two different applications that I like for performing this task. One is called Schedule Wizard and the other is System Scheduler Professional. In addition to launching web pages, there are a number of other tasks that these applications can be scheduled to perform such as launching files and reminding you of appointments.

The Merl Bilingual Law Dictionary

2009-04-16T13:44:00.001-07:00

I recently received the Merl Bilingual Law Dictionary in the mail. I find it good to use with Mexican legal documents. It tends to give the shortest and most concise translation, which I like. I also find terms in it that are not in the Varó and Hughes Legal Dictionary or Glosario Internacional.

Another salient feature worth mentioning is that the entries come with detailed explanations of the terms defined. This contributes toward translating ideas and concepts and not just words.

My only misgiving is that some English translations are more like explanations than words or phrases. This could make it hard to use them as is in a translation.

Entidad Federativa a.k.a. State

2009-04-16T13:36:00.000-07:00

One thing I love about translating legal documents is that I learn things about countries, people and institutions that I could never have by merely reading newspapers or watching TV.

On Mexican birth and marriage certificates, it is common to see Entidad Federativa which is just an official way of saying State. Now that I am on the subject, I learned that these Entidades Federativas often come with a "first and last name". What I mean is that Michoacán is officially Michoacán de Ocampo. Coahuila is Coahuila de Zaragoza and Veracruz is Veracruz Llave.

Believe it or not, thanks to a birth certificate, I even learned of the existence of an Entidad Federativa that I had never heard of until then: Tlaxcala!

Numbers, leave them as is or adapt them?

2009-04-06T05:14:00.000-07:00

Anyone who translates between European Spanish (and some varieties of New World Spanish but not all) knows that a dot is used to separate thousands and a comma to mark a decimal point. This is the opposite of how speakers of U.S. or British English would write these numbers. In other words, the European or Continental way would be: 1.537, whereas the British or U.S. way would be 1,537.

This is clear to me and has become an automatic habit. In fact, MemoQ, with regular expressions, can add this feature to its workflow with a little help from its users. Nevertheless, when it comes to how different languages express the same numbers, things can get tricky. What to me, an American, is one billion Euros is a thousand million Euros to a European.

Because of my uncertainty, I decided to post a question on a ProZ forum.

Off topic - translating tweets on Twitter

2009-04-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

I have seen so many references to Twitter on Internet, that I decided to visit the site and get an account. I will be mainly "tweeting" about my translations and translation-related activities. Should you feel like tweeting to (at?) me, my Twitter name is ReedJames.

Poll: Type of legal documents you translate the most.

2009-03-30T07:32:00.000-07:00

And now for this blog's first poll. Please share your views in the comments section.

The McWane Way

2009-03-27T17:04:00.000-07:00

I find watching Internet video with any educational content highly rewarding. I would specifically direct your attention to PBS video. At this site, you will find free full-length videos on an array of topics. If your target language is English, you will be reminded of terms you already knew and perhaps pick up a few you did not know before. If your target language is Spanish and your source language is U.S. English, then you will gain insight to the U.S. legal system.

I just got done watching a Frontline video entitled: A Dangerous Business Revisited. I did not know that there were factories in the U.S. with such vile safety and management practices!

That aside, toward the end of the video, there is an interesting legal section where lawyers and government officials delve into the legal implications of what the McWane company did. Fortunately for workers and the environment, the company made a complete turnaround in its management and environmental policies.

Glossary of Mexican Acronyms

2009-03-23T13:12:00.000-07:00

I am sure that many of you work with documents from Mexico. After all, it is a large country with a big population and many immigrants who cross the border into the United States. As many of these documents are legal, there are government organizations involved. These organizations tend to use acronyms or abbreviations.

Since the greatest battle is one when a translator grasps the meaning of the source text, even though he or she may not know the exact word in the target language, I have compiled a monolingual glossary of Mexican acronyms with over 400 entries. Some of these acronyms have links to their respective web sites.

Feel free to explore the glossary and let me know if there are any acronyms you feel should be added to the list.

Managing your online legal resources Part 1

2009-03-13T19:02:00.001-07:00

Have you ever visited a forum on a translators' site where there is a post choc full of links? What do you do with them all? Where do you put them? The Internet Explorer Favorites folder is a quick and easy answer, but what if you collect thousands of links? What if you want to add e-mail and postal addresses, make your own comments on them and search all information in these records at will?

I have found that Primasoft dB Organizer Deluxe does a superior job of organizing my legal web resources. I can define the fields I think are appropriate and view the results in the built-in browser or click on the button next to the URL and launch the web site in Internet Explorer.

There is also an advanced search tool as well as a filter tool that will easily sort thousands of entries.

Off Topic - MemoQ spellcheck add in

2009-03-08T08:00:00.001-07:00

Before saying anything, I know that there are those of you who swear by CAT tools and have your favorite one or ones. Others are averse to them and prefer to work with Microsoft Word. Whatever your translating conveyance, I wanted to share my acquisition of the MemoQ spellcheck add in.

After finishing a job, especially a long one, it is nice to have some electronic help in checking the target text against the source text. There is always a nuance (a glaring error you say? ¡Nunca!) that MemoQ picks up that I might have overseen or that might have taken me longer to pinpoint. By nuances I mean extra white spaces, missing target terms, missing or mismatched numbers. I found it easy to add this tool to my MemoQ workflow.

If you are already a MemoQ user, you might consider adding on this add on for a mere 100 Euros. It is a veritable safety net.

That's what false friends are for!!??!

2009-03-04T17:49:00.000-08:00

I ordered this book for my reference bookshelf, and it came in the mail the other day. Though I wouldn't call it a must have, I find that it clarifies several hard to translate terms. If you use both Spanish and English on a daily bases, you probably already know that it is easy to confuse terms, and that since English and Spanish have many terms that are seemingly identical, it is easy to allow interference to meddle with your output.

How do you as a legal translator translate correspondiente, constancia, establecer and colaborar? If you are not sure about the right translation or would like a thorough, academic explanation, with real live examples, then you should pick up a copy of this book.

All I know is that I know something

2009-02-23T13:24:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have read Plato's dialogues, you are familiar with Socrates' oft wielded phrase "All I know is that I know nothing." I, for one, would give myself a little more credit than Socrates did himself and say that I know something, but never everything.

Or that is why I have categorized the words and phrases I know into three categories: 1. Words I am sure of, 2. Words that I use but cannot explain adequately and 3. Words whose meaning I am unfamiliar with and would be hard-pressed to translate. I will give you a first-hand example of a category 1 situation: take the pair notario/notary public. I have used the services of both, and I know that they do not serve the same purpose. A notario here in Chile is an attorney and you have to go to a special office to notarize your documents. In the United States, a notary public can be almost anyone who has been sworn as a notary.

We will never know all the words, not even as category 3. However, if we are going to translate a document, the more words and phrases we can confidently say we know as a "category 1", the better we can translate that document.

When you get some free time (as long as it does not disrupt your personal life), take a minute to examine words you're not quite sure about. Maybe you could update your terminology databases and delve into those deep dark meanings you've always wanted to know...

Some legal publications to follow

2009-02-09T14:50:00.000-08:00

Specializing in legal translations is not just about translating legal documents. True, there are always new translating techniques, new terms or phrases that we stumble upon or devise ourselves. Nevertheless, it is important to immerse ourselves in things legal. Some readers of this blog are lucky enough to be attorneys themselves. Those who are not, in order to do accurate translations, need to approach legal publications from the outside, but at the same time attempt to understand the language and concepts of the law from an insider's point of view.

This can only be done if the reader a) reads the same publications regularly and b) knows what he or she wants to get out of the material, as it is not enough to just read without any objectives in mind.

Here are a few links to get you started. I have chosen publications from countries whose documents are frequently assigned to me to translate.

The Harvard Law Review
Revista Lex Juris
Mexican Law Review
Revista de Derecho del Mercado Financiero