RE: (Un)Official Translations of Japanese Laws (but site provided by Ministry of Justice)
Eleanor Goldsmith, Kinsho Language Services
Benjamin wrote:
Ø I'm not sure what "definitive" means exactly, but it should be noted that no translation of a Japanese law is official. Japanese law is written in Japanese and only the source Japanese is official.
Sorry, evidently my use of the term “official” was incorrect. However, this is what I’ve been advised that the various Japanese ministries for which I’ve translated expect to be used in translations of documents that they publish, which would seem to be closer to any meaning of definitive than any other translations that might be floating around the web, surely?
Best wishes,
Eleanor Goldsmith
Auckland, NZ
Susan Murata
From: hon...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Eleanor Goldsmith, Kinsho Language Services
Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2012 7:19 AM
To: hon...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: (Un)Official Translations of Japanese Laws (but site provided by Ministry of Justice)
Eleanor says:
>Sorry, evidently my use of the term “official” was incorrect. However, this is what I’ve been advised that the various Japanese ministries for which I’ve translated expect to be used in >translations of documents that they publish, which would seem to be closer to any meaning of definitive than any other translations that might be floating around the web, surely?
I often go to http://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/dict/download?re=02 to search for the names of specific laws, but if you read through some of the translations, I think you will agree that they are by no means “definitive”.
A recent example I had to deal with is the 公益通報者保護法 or Whistleblower Protection Act, which to me reads like a lot of pseudo-judicial garbage!
I consider these translations to be references only. My policy is to use what seems reasonable but to provide my own translation when necessary.
Susan Murata
Eleanor Goldsmith, Kinsho Language Services
Susan Murata wrote:
> A recent example I had to deal with is the 公益通報者保護法 or Whistleblower Protection Act, which to me reads like a lot of pseudo-judicial garbage!
> I consider these translations to be references only. My policy is to use what seems reasonable but to provide my own translation when necessary.
I hadn’t previously found any particularly poor translations on there, but would agree that that one is fairly dreadful. My own approach would be to use the translation as requested by the client, while adding a comment to point out errors/offer an alternative, more coherent translation. Then it’s up to the client what to do. It depends on who the end client it, though – my experience with working for Japanese governmental bodies is that they’ll go with what has already been established as “official”, irrespective of what a native speaker of English might think.
Anyway, was just trying to be helpful. Evidently I’ve opened a can of worms. Sorry for that. I’ll just shovel the worms back into the can and get rid of them….
Have a good weekend, all!
Eleanor Goldsmith
Auckland, NZ
Benjamin Barrett
Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA
Chris Poole
Well, they are laws, not novels. “Official” means the version that an “officer” of a Japanese court refers to when they find that X is or isn’t the case. That would be Japanese.
Otherwise a very helpful resource Eleanor.
Chris
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