All I know is that I know something

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

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

Putting all of your terms in one basket

Unlike the popular saying, "don't put all your eggs in one basket", I find it imperative to keep all of my legal terminology in one place. At the moment, I find myself flipping through paper dictionaries, visiting websites and consulting electronic dictionaries on my hard drive. When I have a small workload, this can be a pleasant adventure because I can compare different sources (and I have an excuse to get up from my seat and wander over to the bookshelf).


However, when I have a deadline to meet or personal engagement to attend to, my terminological priorities change tack. This is when I wish that I had that magical electronic glossary that has every legal term that I need and none that I do not. Unfortunately, there is no such dictionary. I suppose that a translator with a little time on his or her hands could haphazardly collect online glossaries and put together an impressive collection numbering in the thousands.

Yet this is not the point. A random list of pairs of terms, however good they may be, will not help a translator because he or she has to know what they mean from context and that they are from a reliable source. My partial solution to this matter is a slow but effective one. I make a point of adding all of my terminology to a single source: Lingo. That way, I know that my legal terminology comes from a reliable source and that I never have to look up the same word twice.