Following last Friday’s post on the release of the EU translation memories, here is another very useful resource for you.

The Directorate-General for Translation at the European Commission has just released an updated version (eighth edition) of its English
 Style Guide.

This handbook, drafted for authors and translators in the European Commission, but useful for a far wider audience, is divided into two parts. The first – “Writing English”, covers punctuation, abbreviations, grammatical points, and so on. I would point you in particular to pages 50-51 “Legal Language” which gives a clear guide to use of references to legal provisions, and pp. 46-48 on verb usage in legal texts – particularly “shall”.

The second part, “About the European Union” is a great condensed source explaining how legislation works, giving an overview of the EU institutions, and more, with direct links and explanations of terms.

You can download the guide free of charge here.

.

Hat tip to John Evans for the heads-up. 🙂