Sworn Translation in İzmir

What generates İzmir’s need for translation is not one sector but the city’s quality of being a place where people meet. Trade fairs, international congresses, health tourism and the commerce running along the Mediterranean all bring people and documents from different countries together in the same place. This page sets out the traffic in paperwork that those crossings produce.

Another thing that stands out in the requests coming from İzmir is that most of the work clusters around a calendar. Fair dates are known months ahead, and congress programmes likewise. That means a workload which can be planned for. The great advantage of a predictable peak is that it can remove the need for urgent delivery almost entirely – provided the calendar is shared at the outset.

The paperwork the fair economy carries

For an exhibitor, an international fair calls for a great deal more than a sales brochure. Stand contracts, participation undertakings, temporary import paperwork, product certificates and the preliminary agreements signed at the fair itself all have to be carried across into the other party’s language. And once the fair is over the real work begins: letters of intent turn into binding contracts, and distributorship and authorisation documents are drawn up.

The commonest mistake in this cycle is to have a contract translated on the principle that it need only be understood. When a dispute arises, which language version is to be taken as the basis is settled by a clause in the contract itself, and the smallest divergence between the two texts becomes a matter for argument. On commercial contracts we check that clause separately.

The patient file in health tourism

The file of a patient who comes for treatment is made up of an epicrisis, imaging reports, laboratory results, operation notes and a discharge summary. In texts of this kind a translation error is a medical risk, not an administrative inconvenience. Abbreviations and the names of medicines call for a separate kind of care: international generic names are kept as they stand, while trade names are explained. For the patient who returns home after treatment, the same file is translated in the opposite direction.

Source	Document	Language most in evidence
Fairs and congresses	Participation contract, letter of invitation	English, Italian
Exports	Distributorship, authorisation document, product certificate	English, German
Health tourism	Epicrisis, test results, operation report	English, German
Trade along the Aegean	Commercial contract, ship and agency papers	Greek, Italian
Free zone	Company formation and operating licence papers	English
Culture and academia	Letter of invitation, programme protocol, accommodation correspondence	Italian, Greek

Why Italian and Greek in this province

In İzmir these two languages are a consequence of geography. Greek comes from the sea traffic and the trade that continue with the opposite shore; Italian from the direct dealings of the machinery, textile and design sectors along the Mediterranean. When either is translated directly rather than routed through English, the terms proper to the other side’s legal system are preserved. The per-page fee for these languages sits in the same list as all the rest: the pricing page.

Which text speaks when a dispute arises

Some of the commercial files that come from İzmir do not end happily: the deal breaks down, payment is late, goods go back. The documents that come into play at that stage are altogether different – formal notices, arbitration applications, expert reports, printouts of correspondence and court judgments. In a dispute file, translation is no longer done to convey information but to stand as evidence.

With texts that serve as evidence the rule is plain: nothing is put right. A spelling mistake or an unfinished sentence in the other party’s correspondence stays exactly as it is in the translation, noted in a footnote where that is needed. Tidying the text up weakens the document’s value as evidence. This is the most concrete difference there is between commercial and legal translation.

The second point of detail is the governing language clause. The parties usually state in the contract which language version is to be taken as the basis, and in a dispute it is that text which speaks. Reading the clause before the contract is signed comes far cheaper than arguing afterwards over the difference between two versions.

Keeping up with the fair calendar

We have no branch in İzmir; the work runs at the office in Ankara. In the fair season that is an advantage rather than a constraint: the catalogue and the contract set have to be ready weeks before the fair opens, so delivery runs digitally in any case. Where a contract translation is genuinely urgent, the electronically signed copy is in your hands the same day. Which documents call for a wet signature is something we can settle together when you send us the file.

The account below is a general framework; what changes from province to province is not the tariff but only the logistics of delivery. Ask the competent authority for confirmation before you apply.