Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 63 – Machine translations
Machine translations
Transcript:
Hello!
We live in exciting times where we can find excellent machine translators on the web that can translate huge (enorme) amounts of texts for us in a very short time and are doing quite a good job.
Although we are at a much better point than: “The Italian fan club was ready for the last match of the World Cup” to “La clava di ventilatore italiano era pronto per l’ultimo fiammifero della tazza di mondo”, it would be wise to have your machine translations checked by professionals if you want accuracy.
There are many documents that have been translated from Italian and are circulating on the web. Translating machines that source (attingono) from the web do tend to pick up (raccogliere) words from these documents. One such example is “co-optation”. Most of the documents that are circulating on the web which contain this expression were translated from Italian. Although “co-optation” may be found in some English dictionaries, the meaning is however generally negative. It gives the idea that a new member was elected in a shady (losco), suspicious, dishonest, dubious, or untrustworthy (non affidabile) way. A better translation would be “the remaining board members appointed Mary Smith in substitution of John Brown.”
Other common examples of bad machine translation include expressions which are based on incorrect collocation of words which do actually exist in English. We say:
to appoint a new director of a company – NOT nominate;
a director of a company – NOT administrator;
a general meeting of shareholders – NOT a plenary meeting;
the approval of the resolution was taken collectively – NOT in a collegial way.
Finally, when a company is in crisis, machine translations will translate “piano di concordato con creditori” as “composition with creditors”. Although this term is used in a very small number of English speaking jurisdictions, and is highly popular in documents on the web which were translated from Italian, not everyone will understand it. It might be better to use expressions like “debt restructuring”, “creditor negotiation”, “debt workout”, “debt settlement”, or “agreement with creditors”.
Thank you very much, and see you next time for more Peter’s Pills to improve your legal English.
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See a collection of Google Translate epic fails here: “Italian to English: a collection of Google Translate epic fails“.
Legal English – Sommario delle Lezioni
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 63 – Machine translations
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 62 – Legal Timelines
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 61 – Liens
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 60 – Test your Legal English
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 59 – Appurtenent vs In gross
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 58 – Building societies and Banks
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 57 – Valid, void and voidable contracts
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 56 – Rescission
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 55 – Golden expressions
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 54 – Pre-emption right vs Right of first refusal
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 53 – What do we mean by “agent” of a company?
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 52 – Voting at a meeting
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 51 – Contracts vs Deeds
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 50 – Executive and Non-Executive Directors
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 49 – Transfer of shares vs transmission of shares
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 48 – They, them, their for singular nouns
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 47 – Jointly and severally
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 46 – Invoice words
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 45 – Quotation
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 44 – Gazumping and Gazundering
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 43 – English words that the English do not understand
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 42 – Easement vs Profit à prendre
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 41 -er, -or and -ee names
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 40 – The Objects Clause
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 39 – When is Latin hot, and when is it not?
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 38 – Default
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 37 – Company Agent
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 36 – Injunction (false freind)
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 35 – Mortgage
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 34 – Freehold, Leasehold and Commonhold estates
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 33 – Transferor, Transferee and Transmittee
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 32 – Tax evasion, tax mitigation and tax avoidance
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 31 – Numbers
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 30 – Ordinary resolutions vs special resolutions
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 29 – AGM vs EGM
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 28 – A going concern
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 27 – Collocations: Violate, breach, break, disobey and infringe
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 26 – Company meeting words
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 25 – Mortgagor vs Mortgagee
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 24 – Fixed charges vs Floating charges
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 23 – Doctrine
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 22 – Construe
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 21 – Sign vs Execute
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 20 – The closing statement
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 19 – Writing Business Emails
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 18 – Limited companies
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 17 – Annual Accounts
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 16 – Meetings
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 15 – Attorney-at-law vs Attorney-in-fact
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 14 – Here and there compounds
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 13 – Subject Matter
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 12 – The clear days rule
Legal English – Peter’s Pills – Lesson 11 – Shareholder, Member or Holder of shares?
Legal English: Peter’s Pills – Lesson 10 – Competition Law
Legal English: Peter’s Pills – Lesson 9 – Lasting Power of Attorney
Legal English: Peter’s Pills – Lesson 8 – Guardianship
Legal English: Peter’s Pills – Lesson 7 – Damage vs Damages
Legal English: Peter’s Pills – Lesson 6 – Legal Doublets
Legal English: Peter’s Pills – Lesson 5 – Escrow
Legal English: Peter’s Pills – Lesson 4 – Memorandum of Association vs Articles of Association
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