Part 2—Derecho de obligaciones By Rebecca Jowers A lawyer friend from the US once asked me, “Derecho de obligaciones, that’s the same as Derecho de contratos, right?” Well, although closely related, no, Derecho de obligaciones is a specific and rather extensive area of civil law, and Spanish law school students must generally complete the course […]
Civil law
Things Legal Translators Need to Know: What’s in the Código Civil? (Part 1)
Part I—Derecho de la persona and Derecho de familia By Rebecca Jowers I’m a firm believer that legal translators and interpreters need to learn loads of law to be able to do our jobs properly. And if we have a firm grasp of the core concepts and terminology of the Civil Code, that’s half the […]
Tricky Translations between most Latin American countries and the U.S.
By David Bustamante Segovia As a professional translator, a law student in Latin America, and a legal English student in the U.S., I tend to see many errors that arise from literal translations between Spanish and English that do not take into account judicial structure differences, among other types of differences (e.g., view of the […]