Does A Legal Translation Cost More Than A General Translation?
There are few questions in life whose answers we know but can’t explain. For instance, you know that two plus two is four but do you know why? No, right? Unless you are a mathematician with a PhD, you won’t have a lengthy explanation for why two plus two is four. Maybe even a mathematician with a PhD might not be able to give us a definite answer because they know it for a fact that two plus two is four but why is something beyond human understanding. In life, there are plenty of things we know for sure. We are as certain about those things as we are about the fact that the answer of two plus two will always be four. But none of us can sit down and explain the whys of such things. We don’t know why an egg will definitely have a yolk, neither do we know why earth is round. But thankfully, we do know these facts and we can count on them to stay the same forever.
There are other kinds of questions in life too. The ones we can explain the answers of and the ones we don’t know the answers of. There are a few questions whose answers are so simple that when we finally find them out, they make complete sense, unlike mathematical questions. You might not know the color one gets after mixing purple and red. But when you find out that the answer is magenta, you will go, ‘ah, of course’. Because it makes prefect sense for red and purple to turn into a color that looks like magenta. They can’t possibly combine to make the color blue or even orange. There are just too many differences between those colors and red and purple. But magenta is something that makes sense to us even when we didn’t know it.
We come across such questions far more frequently than we notice. They are there in every walk of life. There are few problems even on your computer with obvious solutions but you may fail to notice them. Once you do or someone points them out to you, you will realize how simple and obvious the answer was. Every field of study has plenty of such questions. Every business also faces several such queries every day. Sometimes, they might even get angry at their clients for asking about such simple things. But good companies understand that it is okay for people to not know the answer of something, even when it is pretty simple. Red and purple making magenta may be the obvious answer, but someone who has never worked with colors cannot possibly know this fact. They have no way of being certain about an answer that is out of their field of expertise.
A doctor may think a medicine is the obvious solution for the common cold, but someone who hasn’t studied medicine cannot share their view. In a way, it is better that people reach out to experts to find out the answer of a question, no matter how simple it is, instead of trying to come up with a solution themselves.
Does a Legal Translation Cost More Than a General Translation?
If you have never needed something before in your life, you will have no idea about it. If you have never needed a computer repair before, you won’t know which mistakes to avoid when contacting a repairman or what is the right amount to pay for their services. The same way, someone who has never needed a general translation in their life, won’t know how it works, where to get one, how much to pay for it etc.
If the first time you need a general translation is the time you require a specialized service, the situation can be a bit confusing. For instance, if you need a legal translation, you will have many questions like whether to go to any translator or are their experts for each type of interpretation. You will also wonder whether certain agencies are better at legal translation and if so, what do they charge for each task. You can easily ask an agency for a quote but in order to figure out whether they are charging you a fair amount or not, you will need to know some basics about the field.
You should know if a legal translation cost more than a general translation. The answer is yes, it does. Simply because it involves complex terminologies and require the attention of an expert legal translator. The answer now seems pretty obvious that a specialized service will cost more than a regular one. But before you knew it, it was a confusing question. Knowing the answer will help you figure out if you are being charged fairly for a service. It is important to remember that all the good agencies have affordable rates. So, if they are charging you a bit more for a certain task, there is a reason behind that. Once you get an accurate legal translation carried out by an expert in your hands, you will realize why it costs more than a regular interpretation. It is not easy to translate legal terms accurately in different languages. They have to be in the legal language of the country where they will be presented. All of this requires a high level of skills which a good legal translator possess.
