Specialist Translation

Contracts containing specific legal terms. Medical reports. Engineering specifications or reports... In these cases knowing the language or terms is not enough. Documents of this type require specific mastery of the topic, someone who can accurately “interpret” them.

What is it?
Contracts are written by Lawyers Medical reports by Doctors Technical assessments by Engineers... Who could then best convey the meaning of these documents in another language? Specialist translation is therefore performed by an expert on the subject matter - a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, etc. - who knows the trade and hence the best  way to convey and structure the content.
It would take hours for a senior translator, with years of experience in the specific sector, possibly with a master’s degree, glossaries galore and lots of research to do what someone who not only speaks but “thinks” in legalese, medical or technical terms can do in a few minutes, and with full mastery of language.

Who can do it?
We assign these translations to people who have been trained in a specific field: we are dealing with texts whose concepts need to be fully understood before they can be translated. Handling such concepts within the final text requires full mastery of the subject matter, not just of the language and the pertaining technical terms.
For example: an internationally renowned surgeon needs a lawyer to understand the real estate contract for his new home; the lawyer needs an engineer to decipher the Court expert’s assessment; the engineer relies on the surgeon to grasp the meaning of the report issued by the hospital... For all of these “well educated” individuals, the issue is not understanding the language or individual terms, but the underlying concepts and above all the implications! In other words, each professional acts as a same-language interpreter for the other!
TheForeignFriend’s exclusive recruiting and selection system allows us to assign these translations to professionals whose background enables them to understand the concepts in the original document, asking them to replicate the same concepts in the target language. We team-up these professionals with a linguist  who has specific knowledge of the subject matter, and will help them whenever necessary as well as review the text before delivery.

When do you need it?
When you need to translate a text of extremely “technical” content. Some examples: contracts, certificates, financial statements, reports, assessment studies, patents, but also instruction manuals, technical sections of marketing brochures and, sometimes, résumés.

When do you not need it?
If you don’t mind the smirk on the expert’s lips when he reads your heartfelt, yet miserably failed attempt to speak “his language”!