I am often asked for guidelines to translate documents to submit to the courts. Rather than write my own explanation, I will provide resources to two authoritative sources: Guide to Translation of Legal Materials, prepared by the Professional Issues Committee of the Consortium for Language Access in the Courts in 2011. This document lists details [...]

Airplane pilots have checklists and follow them carefully. One of them reads items off the list, according to popular belief, and the other one says “check”. This way, both pilot and copilot verify that everything is in order. What happens when there is a “check” that isn’t said? “We would like to inform our passengers [...]

Translators and interpreters face a common problem: lack of clarity in the source message. Interpreters have a standard formula for addressing this: “the interpreter requests clarification”. Although translators deal with the same issue, a standard formula is missing. We deal with acronyms that are company-specific, missing terms, etc. and clarify them with clients over email. In the [...]