Inevitably, establishing business relationships with a company involves the preparation of agreements, contracts and other legal documentation. However, if this procedure is normal and acquired when dealing with companies located in one's own country, things inevitably get complicated, and the intervention of a translator becomes necessary, when dealing with a different country. At this point, however, a doubt arises: should the ideal choice aim at a lingua franca, such as English, or at the native language of the country where the company in question is located?
It has been said several times that the translation of any document has correctness as its first necessary characteristic: the meaning of the original document must always be faithfully transferred into the target language. However, this axiom acquires a completely different weight and importance when dealing with the translation of commercial contracts and agreements; the reason for this difference lies in the required precision threshold and in the weight of the possible nuances in the original text.
As far as accuracy is concerned, in fact, legal terminology is as precise as any other technical terminology, but in some ways it is even more specific and selective: there are often no actual synonyms for a particular legal concept, and any similar term actually indicates a different concept, in a way that is rarely found in other types of content. In addition to this, the choice of particular terminologies and languages within a legal document configures a series of specific nuances which, in the particular field of contracts, often acquire a significant weight.
The circumstances we have just described mean that translation mistakes in legal documents are always lurking - and unfortunately these are among the most costly errors possible. A mistake in a contract as trivial as the simple choice of a term that has a slightly different meaning can generate very serious economic consequences, and require equally expensive lawsuits to remedy them; and what is more serious, an incorrectly translated detail can invalidate an entire document, frustrating the efforts made to reach the agreement it represented and seriously damaging the credibility of a company.
Obviously, the first line of defense from this risk is represented by the choice to work only with specialized professional legal translators, who have a thorough knowledge of both the language and the legal system of the country of destination of the contract and can therefore avoid making the errors mentioned above. we talked. But even so, one risk remains: the subtle one linked to the choice of a lingua franca.
The propensity of companies to choose a lingua franca for legal translations, such as English can be, is in itself understandable: it is a widespread language, understandable in all probability by both parties, and which has translation costs lower than preparing a different translation into the language of each company with which an agreement is entered into.
However, this is not a wise choice, and the reason lies in the inherent differences in legal systems between one country and another.
The legal systems of the different nations, in fact, are not exactly aligned with each other. In addition to legislative differences, in fact, there are concepts that exist in some legal systems but not in others; using a lingua franca can force the use of paraphrases or potentially imprecise expressions, which generate not only confusion, but also the risk of a serious error. A professional translator who deals with legal translations into the language of the country concerned will be fully familiar with its legal system, and will know how to render exactly the concept present in the original document without fear of misunderstanding.
Choosing to always carry out legal translations in English, as a lingua franca, may therefore prove to be cheaper, but it brings with it undesirable risks and complications. In the long term, the decision to translate into the specific language of the country concerned always proves preferable.
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