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Translations – general information

Owing to the international orientation of both companies and private persons communication and thus the use of language is increasingly gaining in importance. With communication which crosses language borders translators perform an important task as language mediators. Translators transmit written texts and interpreters transmit the spoken word into a target language if a contact is not possible or very difficult owing to different languages.

Companies with contacts overseas require translations as, for example, they require business correspondence, business documents, contracts or presentations in another language.

Private persons have contacts overseas as e.g. from originally came from an overseas country, lived in an overseas country for a longer period of time or would like to go to an overseas country in order to live and work there. These persons require translations of correspondence or documents such as for example birth or marriage certificates, certificates of no impediment to a marriage, education and examination certificates and work references, curriculum vitaes or other application documents. These are often also required in a certified form for presentation to authorities.

A translation is required if documents from companies, authorities, courts or private persons have to be transmitted into another language.

I principally translate according to the native language principle for the following reason: it must be possible to read a good translation as if it was a text in the original language. This can only be guaranteed with a translation from the foreign language into the native language as you really only feel at home in your own language and have the necessary feeling for the language that is absolutely essential for a good translation.

A translator should not translate the original text word for word into his own language, but he must move away from the original text in the foreign language in order to achieve an idiomatic equivalent in his language. The whole contents and meaning - or sometimes also lack of meaning – of an original text must be exactly and completely transmitted into the own language.