Due to the release of new data, the translation memories made available by the Directorate-General for Translation at the European Commission Joint Research Centre have tripled in size.
Conference update – Portsmouth
The Portsmouth Translation Conference in the UK – “Those Who Can, Teach’: Translation, Interpreting and Training” – has been moved ahead by one week to November 10 2012 due to events beyond the organizers’ control.
You can see my post on the Portsmouth conference here.
Compendium of legal translation degrees offered by universities
In this post, I hope to give you some examples of the legal translation and interpreting degrees available. Please do write in if you know of others that I haven’t included here.
Most are on-site courses, but a number involve distance learning to varying extents.
The information below has been taken from the relevant university websites and direct correspondence. If any details are incorrect, I would be happy to change them upon request from the institution concerned.
I have listed the courses in alphabetical order of their location.
Translation of national legislation
In connection with a recent Law Library of Congress event which I hope to report on more fully soon, the Library has released an excellent new publication in PDF form, 
Translation of National Legislation into English (click on the title to download). This guide, prepared by the staff of the Law Library’s Global Legal Research Center, is a reference tool for locating translated materials from thirteen nations: Afghanistan, Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, and the Russian Federation; international organizations; and international courts and tribunals .
Chief Justice cannot believe his ears
This almost qualifies as a ‘Monday smiles‘ post, but sadly for Italians or anyone involved with or affected by the Italian legal system, it isn’t a joke.
Here are a few quotes from a Reuters news feed a few days ago. There is a link to the full article at the end of this post if you want to find out more. The bold emphasis is mine.
Extensive collection of resources on international trade
Today I would like to share with you a great resource on international trade (only available in English, Spanish and French at present – sorry to the rest of you) called Juris International.
It is the result of a partnership between the International Trade Centre, the Center for Research in Public Law at the University of Montreal, Canada, and Juripole from the University of Nancy, France.
Easter Monday smiles – English beaches are grassy green
A High Court ruling has confirmed that some beaches can be registered as ‘village greens’. No, this isn’t a late April Fool. Great, isn’t it!!
Mr Justice Ouseley, in a judgment of 21 March last, stated “I can see no answer to the contention that the ordinary meaning of the words used by Parliament to define “town or village green” are broad enough to permit the registration of a tidal beach, provided that the nature, quality and duration of the recreational user satisfies the statutory test.”
Britain’s ancient statute book
This week a report produced jointly by the Law Commission for England & Wales (LCEW) and the Scottish Law Commission recommends repealing more than 800 pieces of legislation dating from the 14th century onwards in order, according to LCEW chairman Sir James Munby, “to simplify and modernise our law, making it more intelligible. It saves time and costs for lawyers and others who need to know what the law actually is, and makes it easier for citizens to access justice. We are committed to ridding the statute book of meaningless provisions from days gone by and making sure our laws are relevant to the modern world.”
Here’s where the fun starts, though – some of those laws include:
WordstoDeeds update
This post is just to let you know about a few small changes around here.
First of all, the blog’s banner name has switched around – as you can see at the top of the page. It seems to fit in better with how people refer to the blog and with the URL (thanks Ken). I hope you agree!
Second, I have now created a Scoop.it topic for articles that might be of interest to readers of this blog, relating to legal translation. You can find it here: http://www.scoop.it/t/legal-translation. It won’t be updated every day, just when I find news items that I think are relevant.
For those who might not have discovered it yet, Scoop.it enables anyone to quickly and easily create a sort of personalized magazine.
The articles will not overlap with blog posts, but hopefully be a complement to the blog for those who are interested.
Lastly, I’m sure most people know about the Twitter feed, but just in case: http://twitter.com/#!/wordstodeeds. I tend to tweet small useful bits of information I come across, and new posts from this blog are automatically tweeted too.
Monday smiles – The sky is blue
Well, for those of us in the northern hemisphere, Spring certainly seems to have sprung.
In keeping with these lovely weather conditions, I offer you this classic text by Daniel R. White, from his book Trials and Tribulations, Appealing Legal Humor. I just love it.
Click here to access a PDF on the publisher’s website. You may like the ‘Principles of Legal Writing’ on the third page too.
Enjoy!
From Words to Deeds: translation & the law 
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