"Reliable'' standard Eng. translations of Japanese Laws

[Taro Toporific]

YOUR RIGHTS IN ENGLISH: Don't know the law? Help is on the way
Asahi Shimbun, Japan - June 10... Calls for a "reliable'' standard English translation have come from business lobby Nippon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) and the ruling Liberal Dem Party...
... For example, there are no established rules for what English equivalent to use in translating such basic legal terms as saiken, which could mean "debt,'' "claim,'' "receivables'' or "contractual right,'' according to legal experts.

<taro rant on>I ain't gonna hold my breath on this since I have GRAVE doubts that there is any human on this planet who does "reliable'' English legal translation. In my 20+ years here, I have NOT ever read a Japanese patent that was close to being correctly translated into English, and I review/edit several patents every month.<taro rant off>

[Socratesabroad]

Taro, I feel your pain. I used to work at one of the Tokyo translation agencies that does a lot of the sci/tech patent translation. I would often hit the patent 'translators' up for advice or explanations because they were all specialists: a former electronics engineer for Panasonic, a microbiolist whose husband worked in glycotechnology at a uni in Tokyo, a guy who worked in the clean room of a semiconductor manufacturer, etc. All top-notch experts in their respective fields , but nary a one of them could speak English.

I still have some of the 'patent translations' that I keep as a reference only for the Japanese wording.

I'm sure you know that the Tokyo Patent Office used to (and may still) offer 'translations' of patents via their website - all machine translations, though.

[Caustic Saint]

Technical patent translation (J->E) is one of the things my sister specializes in. I'm not sure how much of it she's doing these days, since she went back to school and started working on an engineering degree. She got plenty of work while she was only doing translations, so she must've been doing something right.

[kamome]

[Taro Toporific]

[Socratesabroad]

Technical patent translation (J->E) is one of the things my sister specializes in. I'm not sure how much of it she's doing these days, since she went back to school and started working on an engineering degree. She got plenty of work while she was only doing translations, so she must've been doing something right.

Yep, and I'll take the inconcievablely wild, flying leap to guess - your sister's not Japanese, born and bred in Japan with no exposure to foreign influences like, say, a foreign language.

Nah, seriously, I know there's decent coin to be made in technical patent translation, but there is a drawback - the people who wrote the patent are usually lawyers, not technical experts, so they come up with patent-speak to justify their outrageous fees.

Best of luck to you sis, CS.

[Taro Toporific]

I know there's decent coin to be made in technical patent translation

That's the understatement of the year.
The 'tards that do my patent translation make a NO-STRESS 1 and 2 million yen/month. No telling what they would make if they could do the work right.

[kamome]

[Cubed]

<taro rant on>I ain't gonna hold my breath .... several patents every month.<taro rant off>

<petty nitpick>You haven't terminated your rant correctly.</petty nitpick>