All categories/Translation and localisation
Translation practice · Level Advanced · Translation Legal Translation
Legal text: accuracy over fluency
Translating contract clauses with liability at stake.
Prompt
First decide what the text does: inform, persuade or process. The same sentence translates differently. You translate function, not words.
Task: Translating contract clauses with liability at stake.
[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
- text type and jurisdiction
- which language prevails
- glossary
- bilingual format
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- keep every qualifier and condition
- consistent modals
- flag ambiguity between versions
- add a translator's note disclaiming legal advice
[Process]
1. Confirm purpose, audience, venue
2. Fix terminology and proper nouns
3. Restructure per target-language habit
4. Flag what cannot be translated literally and needs the author
5. Check numbers, units, names
[Output]
Translation, glossary, list of uncertainties.
[Do not]
- No word-for-word rendering
- Never smooth away facts or qualifiers
- No inconsistent invented terminology
- Never present guesses as factWhat to state before it starts
Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.
- text type and jurisdiction
- which language prevails
- glossary
- bilingual format
Go through each of these
Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.
- keep every qualifier and condition
- consistent modals
- flag ambiguity between versions
- add a translator's note disclaiming legal advice