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Translation Tools

Posted By Simon Fodden On In Miscellaneous | Comments Disabled

We talk a fair bit on Slaw about translation between French and English, as befits a blog on law in Canada. See, e.g.:

I’ve recently been introduced to a pair of translation tools that I ought to have known about but that for some reason I didn’t. Just in case you aren’t aware of them, let me briefly describe them.

First, and most obvious, I suppose, is Quebec’s Grand dictionnaire terminologique [5], a clear upside to the Office québécois de la langue française [6]. Here you’ll find terms for pretty much anything, no matter how technological or up-to-date. So, for example, blog / blogue [7] is here — as are something like 40 other blog- terms, many of which I’m unfamiliar with in English. All this expert terminology is a function of the fact that the office of the French language establishes committees to “dentify terminological deficiencies and problematical terms and expressions in their designated field.”As authorized under Title II of the Charter of the French Language, “Linguistic officialization, toponymy and francization [8].” Something with a name like that let’s you know it is serious.

Then there’s the federal government’s Termium [9]. This is a pay-for-use online dictionary which boasts more than 3,500,000 terms — more than I’ll ever be able to use. (And at $225 for a year’s subscription, it’s not unreasonably pricey.) As with the Quebec dictionary, this provides context for various terms, so you know that a particular word is a term of art in, for example, accounting or engineering practice. Here, too, you’ll find blog / blogue — and also blog / cybercarnet and the obsolete (already!) carnet Web and chronique Web.

These are great tools, and given that lawyers need to ply between the two versions of legislation much of the time, they should be links on everyone’s bookmarks bar.