Slovak Translation

A language that must not be confused with its neighbour

The largest translation risk with this language is the degree to which it is mutually intelligible with its neighbour. A translator who treats the two as one and the same begins, without noticing, to work inside the neighbour’s spelling and terminology. The text that results reads well, and may even look natural, yet it will not pass in an official procedure, because the institution expects a document drawn up in its own official language.

The differences gather in spelling, in inflectional endings and above all in legal terminology. One concept may go under similar-looking names in the two languages while the statutory definitions stay separate; carrying a term from one into a text written in the other leaves the provision cited with nothing behind it.

Another distinctive feature is the harmony rule governing long syllables: two long syllables cannot follow one another, and the ending shortens accordingly. An inflected form that breaks this rule gives away in the opening line that the text came from a foreign pen.

Registering events that took place abroad

Births, marriages and deaths of citizens occurring abroad are entered in a central special register. A marriage or a birth that took place in Türkiye leaves many procedures blocked until it has been recorded there, and registration calls for a complete translation of the documents.

Event	Documents required	Point to watch
Birth	Birth record, identity documents of both parents	The place of birth is written at district level
Marriage	Marriage record, certificate of no impediment	The maiden name is kept as a separate field
Divorce	Court judgment and the annotation of finality	The date on which it became final is stated separately
Death	Death record, certificate of inheritance	The heirs’ names are given in the passport spelling

The sectors the demand comes from

Vehicle manufacturing and its supply industry form the largest item. Assembly line instructions, quality inspection reports, supplier agreements and occupational safety procedures are translated as a matter of routine. The second item is labour supply and work permits: employment contracts, vocational certificates, medical reports and criminal record certificates.

The third item is education; undergraduate and postgraduate applications call for diplomas and course descriptions. The fourth is family law: marriage files, custody arrangements and maintenance judgments have become a constant as mixed marriages between the two countries have grown more common. Energy and infrastructure projects bring tender documents and progress payment papers.

Most of these files consist not of one document but of clusters of documents that cross-refer to each other. The same term has to hold at every link of a chain running from an annex named in the contract, to a standard named in the annex, to a date named in the standard; translations pieced together from different sources break that chain, and corrections are demanded at the approval stage.

Figures, measurements and abbreviations

The decimal separator is the comma and the thousands separator a space. The version written with full stops turns up often in documents that have passed through an English intermediate stage, and it is an error capable of shifting an amount a thousandfold. The percentage sign is separated from the figure by a space.

Units of measurement are not converted; the unit in the source document is kept and, where needed, the equivalent is added in brackets. In technical files, standard numbers and model codes are never rewritten in any form.

Abbreviations of Turkish institutions are spelled out where they first appear, with the original abbreviation kept in brackets. Leaving the abbreviation as it is leads the official reviewing the file to treat the document as incomplete, while translating it away entirely and dropping the original form severs the link with the source document.

Name, date and address formats

Writing women’s surnames with a particular ending is established in this country as well; an official translation does not add that ending, and the name is carried across in its passport form. The suffixed form arises only within the administration’s own records.

In dates, a full stop follows the day and month figures and a space is left between them. When the month is written in words it goes into the genitive. In an address the street name and number stand together and the postcode precedes the name of the town; leaving a Turkish address in its source order blocks delivery.

Once you tell us the institution the document is going to, the term set is built to match it. For the timing and the amount, upload your document and get a quotation; the detailed rate list can be viewed here.

The prices on this page are read from the current tariff and vary with the type of document and the speed of delivery. We suggest following the rules in force through official announcements.