Medical Documents
Medical documents contain highly sensitive and critical data, and the cost of any mistakes made during the translation of such texts can be disastrous for all parties involved. Of course, the vital information contained is exactly why careful translation is so important, and translators must not allow the risks to prevent them from helping those in need.
Due to context cues and synonym use in various languages, medical documents lend themselves to a greater probability of being misunderstood; only translators with a qualified medical background should attempt these kinds of translations, to allow for greater understanding of common terms and shorthands that general translators may be unfamiliar with. It should be noted that in a study by the American College of Emergency Physicians, ad hoc interpreters have an error rate of 22% in medical documents, which drops to 12% for professionals (in turn, this drops again to a mere 2% for translators with over 100 hours of experience).
Legal Documents
Like medical documents, legal papers are full of jargon and specialised language which may be unfamiliar or even completely nonsensical to those without adequate training and background knowledge of the legal field. And again, the consequences of incorrectly translating these documents can have devastating consequences for an entire case and the people involved.
Legal translations also have the added difficulty of cultural barriers, in that legal systems differ from country to country, and what may be standard legal practice in one place may be an alien concept to the recipient of the translated documents. This obviously requires that translators be knowledgeable not only in the legal system of their own country, but that where they are translating the documents from!
They may be difficult documents, but we have team members with vast experience in the medical and legal fields able to offer highly accurate translation services for you here at Surrey Translation Bureau. Talk to us today to explain your translation needs in greater detail by contacting us on 01252 733 999 or hello@surreytranslation.co.uk.
