Suppose you receive an email from a lawyer from South Africa who is preparing a case for which a Dutch document, namely a 'Notice of separation in connection with division of old-age pension' urgently needs to be translated into English.

This happened to us recently. This was because a relation of ours living in South Africa had recommended us to the lawyer in question. The request came in on 23 April and the certified translation had to be physically with the lawyer by 2 May.

This meant that not only would we have to work under pressure -which we are used to-, but we would also have to find out which courier would be able to get the document to South Africa in no time. After some searching, DHL turned out to be the right partner for the job. The document would be collected on 29 April and delivered to the lawyer by noon on 2 May.

After the client's agreement, we got to work. I did the translation, and my colleague did the swearing-in; after all, a butcher does not inspect his own meat. Doing a sworn translation like this also makes it a party, because it always results in great discussions about terminology. An example of this in this case was the term 'prenuptial agreement'. Most people know prenuptial agreements from the conclusion of the marriage: you marry in community of property or under prenuptial agreements. This means that these conditions are drawn up before the marriage. But it is also possible to draw up prenuptial agreements during the marriage. As a result, it was not sufficient to simply translate ‘huwelijkse voorwaarden’ as Prenuptial agreement, and we translated the term as Prenuptial and/or postnuptial agreement.

The translation was ready on Wednesday, and the affidavit translation on Thursday evening. On Friday morning, the colleague had the certified translation bound with the source text, and at a little past one in the afternoon, the courier was at the door to collect the document.

And then we had handed over the document and also had to hand over control, and wait and see if DHL would actually manage to deliver the parcel to South Africa on time. And they did. A little after one o’ clock on 2 May, I got the signal from the lawyer that the document had been delivered.

I love it when a plan comes together. the Customer was satisfied, and so we were satisfied. Delivering craftsmanship and delivering it when it's needed.

Kind linguistic regards,

Willem Ezerman

Director / English translator