{"id":819,"date":"2023-11-01T14:53:33","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T18:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/?p=819"},"modified":"2025-02-11T13:10:41","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T18:10:41","slug":"tricky-translations-between-most-latin-american-countries-and-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/tricky-translations-between-most-latin-american-countries-and-the-u-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Tricky Translations between most Latin American countries and the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By David Bustamante Segovia<\/p>\n<p>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 law). Employing my background of studies in comparative law, I would like to go over some of the most common errors and propose solutions.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Civil Law and Common Law<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I\u2019ve often seen ENG-SPA translators translate Civil Law as \u201cDerecho civil.\u201d Although it is a valid translation in specific contexts, it almost always refers to Roman-influenced countries regarding their legal system, in which case it is to be translated as \u201cDerecho continental\u201d or \u201cpa\u00edses de influencia romana.\u201d I also tend to see Hispanic translators translate \u201cCommon Law\u201d into Spanish as \u201cDerecho com\u00fan\u201d when it refers to not-Roman influenced legal systems, that is, \u201cDerecho anglosaj\u00f3n\u201d (law of English-speaking countries).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Jurisdiction and Competency\/Competencia<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The legal English term \u201cjurisdiction\u201d will almost always mean the legal Spanish \u201ccompetencia.\u201d Hence \u201ccompetencia de\u201d or \u201csobre asuntos civiles\u201d (\u201cjurisdiction over civil matters,\u201d not \u201ccompetency on or over\u2026\u201d). The English term \u201ccompetency\u201d will almost always have the common meaning, not equivalent to the legal Spanish \u201ccompetencia,\u201d that is, an aptitude or skill in a particular field. Hence: \u201cAre you competent to\u2026?\u201d In legal Spanish, however, \u201ccompetencia\u201d will always refer to the legal English \u201cjurisdiction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thus, the following types of jurisdiction in the U.S. ought to be translated as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>General jurisdiction \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>competencia general<\/li>\n<li><em>Limited jurisdiction \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>competencia limitada<\/li>\n<li><em>Subject-matter jurisdiction \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>competencia seg\u00fan la materia<\/li>\n<li><em>Concurrent jurisdiction <\/em>competencia conjunta o concurrente, o doble competencia<\/li>\n<li><em>Exclusive jurisdiction <\/em>competencia exclusiva<\/li>\n<li><em>Appellate jurisdiction <\/em>competencia de segunda instancia<\/li>\n<li><em>Territorial jurisdiction <\/em>competencia territorial o seg\u00fan el territorio<\/li>\n<li><em>Personal jurisdiction \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>competencia personal (o fuero, en Colombia) (o competencia concursal, Uruguay)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Long-arm jurisdiction <\/em>competencia extraterritorial<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Bankruptcy Law <\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Depending on the Civil Law country, \u201cBankruptcy Law\u201d is not known as a branch of the law or a field of law but rather simply as a particular situation within Private\/Civil\/Finance Law. In all my years, never have I heard \u201cDerecho de Bancarrota\/Insolvencia\u201d as a field of Law. I <em>have<\/em> heard \u201cderecho de bancarrota,\u201d which, without capital letters, means the right of an individual to declare himself as such. I <em>have<\/em> also heard of and read about \u201cLey de Bancarrota\u201d (Bankruptcy Act).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Presidente de la Corte Suprema de Justicia<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Simply, \u201cChief Justice\u201d or \u201cJustice Rodr\u00edguez,\u201d thereby avoiding translating \u201cPresident of the Supreme Court of&#8230;\u201d.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Derecho probatorio<\/em><\/strong> = Evidentiary Law \/ Rules of Evidence (not <em>Probatory Law<\/em>, although valid in specific contexts).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Pretensiones de la demanda o petitorio<\/em><\/strong> = Prayer for relief, not <em>lawsuit demands<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Prescripci\u00f3n de la acci\u00f3n<\/em><\/strong> = statute of limitations, not <em>expiration of the legal action<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Indemnizar<\/em><\/strong><em>. <\/em>Normally, you\u2019d want to use the verbs \u201crelief,\u201d \u201cremedy,\u201d or \u201caward,\u201d not \u201ccompensation\u201d nor \u201cindemnization\u201d (the UK tends to use this last one in certain contexts).<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Derechos adquiridos<\/em><\/strong> = vested rights (not \u201cacquired\u2026\u201d).<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Short examples of other relatively tricky translations in a criminal context could be <em>homicidio culposo<\/em>, which almost always is translated as \u201cnegligent homicide\u201d instead of its more literal version (i.e., \u201cculpable homicide\u201d), especially in the U.S. Also, \u201cvoluntary manslaughter,\u201d which in Spanish would be <em>crimen pasional <\/em>(\u201ccrime of passion\u201d) or <em>ira e intenso dolor<\/em> (\u201crage and intense pain\u201d), depending on the Civil Law country you are in.<\/p>\n<p>Although written or referred to differently, these last examples all challenge the <em>mens rea<\/em> element (criminal intent or evil mind) in that they suggest that no malice aforethought (\u201cdolo\u201d in Spanish) existed. \u201cInvoluntary manslaughter\u201d (resulting from criminal negligence or recklessness, or from dangerous or impaired driving) can as well, and Colombia and Spain know this as <em>dolo eventual<\/em> (\u201ceventual\u201d or \u201crandom\u201d <em>mens rea<\/em>, if translated literally).<\/p>\n<p>I hope to have helped some colleagues with this recommendations and will continue to collect more common errors so that we can go over them in the future.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the Author<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-820 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/David-Bustamante-photo-300x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"169\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/David-Bustamante-photo-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/David-Bustamante-photo-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/David-Bustamante-photo-100x100.png 100w, https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/David-Bustamante-photo.png 356w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 169px) 100vw, 169px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">David Bustamante Segovia (M.A.) is a Puerto Rican pedagogue and legal translator residing in Colombia. He\u2019s studied Law in both Colombia and the U.S. and has worked for the IFC (World Bank), the Ministry of Environment of Colombia, and different Universities as an academic and legal translator. In 2017 he was appointed special translator to the U.S. Navy Mission in Colombia\u2019s Department of Defense and to the U.S. Embassy\u2019s <i>Continuing Promise <\/i>(CP17) in Riohacha (Colombia). Currently, he translates books into English and Spanish, besides writing his own. He graduated Cum Laude from Psychology (USC, Puerto Rico) and with honors from his master\u2019s degree in Journalism (UR, Colombia). E-mail is: te.bustamante.z@gmail.com. Professional Facebook page: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TEBustamante.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[272,259],"tags":[210,211,209,208,56,213,50,192,212],"class_list":{"0":"post-819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lawd-expert-insights","8":"category-lawd-members-posts","9":"tag-civil-law","10":"tag-common-law","11":"tag-comparative-law","12":"tag-judicial-structure","13":"tag-legal-spanish","14":"tag-legal-terminology","15":"tag-spanish","16":"tag-spanish-translation","17":"tag-terminology","18":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Untitled-design.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":989,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819\/revisions\/989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/LawD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}