Spanish Translation

Two surnames on the record, one on the Turkish document

The record systems of Spanish-speaking countries know a person by two surnames: the first from the father, the second from the mother. Because the Turkish civil register holds a single surname, one of the form fields is left empty, and filled in carelessly that gap breaks the identity match. The correct practice is not to invent a second surname but to show plainly, within the translation itself, that the source document carries only one. The mother’s name is kept as a field in its own right; it does not stand in for a surname.

On the grammatical side it is the subjunctive that causes the most trouble. Conditions and requirements that Turkish builds with suffixed patterns of the “in the event that…” or “provided that…” kind call for a mood of their own in Spanish. Without it the provision stops being a binding obligation and turns into a sentence expressing a possibility. In contracts and powers of attorney this is the most expensive mistake there is.

Text length grows predictably as well. Since the links Turkish makes with a single suffix are carried here by a chain of prepositions and articles, the same content takes up visibly more room. In documents whose layout has to be preserved, identity papers and diplomas among them, that growth affects column width rather than the number of lines, and so it is planned for separately at the typesetting stage.

Regional variants and the choice of terms

One and the same legal concept goes by different names in European and Latin American usage. If it is not known from the outset which country’s authority will read the document, the terminology becomes mixed and the text takes on a hybrid look.

Concept	What to watch for
Company types	The names of capital companies vary from country to country; the abbreviation is left as it stands and explained
Criminal record	The scope of the document differs by country; the scope of the source document is stated
Higher education degrees	Equivalents for first and second cycle degrees are not uniform; duration and credits are written out
Notarial acts	A notary’s powers are wider than in Türkiye; the name of the act is left untranslated and explained

Where the demand comes from

Student mobility comes first; exchange programmes and postgraduate applications call for academic transcripts, course descriptions and language certificates. Residence and settlement formalities come second: declarations of income, health insurance, tenancy agreements and criminal record certificates. Family law is third, where marriage files and inheritance matters generate steady work in the coastal areas in which property ownership is widespread. On the commercial side it is food, marble, automotive components and renewable energy contracts that stand out.

Demand running towards Latin America has a different shape. Files from there arise mostly in trade and customs: certificates of origin, certificates of analysis, letter-of-credit correspondence and agency agreements. A translation prepared without knowing which country the authority reading it sits in will miss the local names of procedures, however well its words are chosen, and will draw a request for further explanation.

The level of address matters in contract language too. Official formulations built impersonally in Turkish are carried into this language either by the polite second person or by an impersonal reflexive construction. The choice between the two decides whether the text places an obligation directly on the parties, and it cannot be left to whim.

How place names are carried across

Turkish province, district and neighbourhood names are not translated; they are carried across in their original spelling, with the administrative level given in brackets where that is needed. Rendering a place name that happens to have a meaning by that meaning is an error that makes matching the record impossible. Country names and internationally recognised regional names, by contrast, are written in the established form of the target language. Writing only the province in the place-of-birth field is another common omission; if the source document names the district it must be carried across, because the record is searched at district level.

Dates and figures

Dates run day, month name, year, with the month beginning in lower case and a linking word between the month and the year. In dates given in figures the day comes first. In monetary amounts the decimal separator is the comma, but since the full stop is used in some Latin American countries, the format of an amount should not be fixed before the destination country is known. Send your file stating the destination country; see your quote and delivery date at once, and look at the detailed fee table here.

The account below summarises typical practice; the format the institution accepts should be confirmed at the outset. Confirming the current requirement before you apply saves time.