I’m all for technology. I use it all day, every day. But every technology has its limits (and its limitations).

Don’t we all wish that legal language was simple and straightforward and that you could just click a button and you’d have a clear understanding of what a foreign legal text actually says?

Then you’d know what your rights or obligations are.

You’d be able to converse intelligently with your legal counsel or your lawyer could explain things to you in terms you understand.

You’d be able to plan your next steps.

You’d know where you stand.

Nonetheless, 9 years after NMT went mainstream, and 2+ years after genAI was launched, legal language continues to confound technology.

By way of illustration, let’s take a sentence that would be straightforward for any Greek lawyer or experienced professional legal translator working in the Greek-English combination:

The sentence may be straightforward. But behind it is someone who needs to show they have not been accused of something serious. The words may look innocent on the screen but the real-life implications are huge.

It’s vital to get the translation right.

You don’t want just any old translation.

You want an impeccable translation you can rely on.

How the tech performed

Google Translate gives us this piece of incomprehensible garbage. Remember Google Translate has been working on fine-tuning its neural machine translation engines for 9 years now.

– This is neither fluent nor accurate.

– Is employee even correct here? Is the text not actually referring to a “civil servant”?

– What does “occupied the service” even mean?

– The employee occupied the service “due to disciplinary or criminal offences”. What does that even mean?

– Holiday? αργία can mean public/official holiday yes, but in a completely different context. This is a bit like opening a dictionary, seeing 10 different meanings of a word, and picking the first. It might be correct in some context. Not this one.

In law, context is king.

DeepL gives us this rendering:

– Again this is neither fluent nor accurate.

– Again we have to ask whether employee is the right choice of term here.

– Why is the “suspended from duty” idea now in the first part of the sentence when the Greek is referring to the fact that the department/unit the person works for has not had to handle any disciplinary/criminal complaints against that person?

– “Placed on leave”. Does that fully convey the concept of αργία? Or is it only covering part of the concept? αργία/argia means you are (i) stripped of the right to perform your duties + (ii) you only receive half your salary. “Placed on leave” really doesn’t cut it.

– Placed on “suspension from duty”. Grammatically does that stand in English? It’s beyond awkward and definitely doesn’t flow. Let’s say αναστολή here does mean that the person is suspended from duty. Is that with pay or without pay? How is this concept related to the previous one (αργία)? How does the “translation” differentiate between the two so that the reader actually understands what is going on?

Chatgpt 4.0gives us this:

– This is again not fluent English. Nor is it accurate.

– As with the other versions we have to ask whether “employee” is the correct term.

– The first half of the sentence sort of conveys the meaning but omits quite an important bit of information (that the place where this person works has not had to handle complaints against them). Let’s say you get some general idea. In legal settings, do you really only want to walk away with “some general idea”?

– The second half of the sentence doesn’t fluently link to the second half.

– If αναστολή is the concept of “suspended” why does Chatgpt render αργία as “placed on suspension”? Does it draw an adequate distinction between the terms? From the viewpoint of Greek law, the two terms are quite distinct (related yes, but distinct). Let’s say there is an element of “suspension” in αργία, does the English rendering this tool offers accurately and fully convey what the Greek concept is saying? Or does it not omit a huge part of the meaning? What of the point we highlighted above concerning reduction in pay? How does that get conveyed by the wording chosen here?

Reality check

If you’re an ordinary individual using these tools to get some idea of what the Greek text is saying, can you hand-on-heart say you really understand the Greek after reading these “English” renderings?

If you’re a Greek lawyer who has to explain what is going on to a foreign client, can you hand-on-heart say these various “English” renderings adequately convey what the Greek text says?

Would you feel comfortable relying on them in a professional context?

With tools like these you may gain speed.

“Translations” may be available at the click of a button.

But are the “translations” actually useable?

If you need a translation to understand a legal text or you’re a lawyer who needs one in their legal work, use a specialist legal translator.

Reach out to us at Jurtrans Translations for impeccably accurate Greek-English legal translations.