Brazilian official documents related to Family Law are among the most frequent kinds of documents I translate into German: birth certificates for the purpose of marrying in Germany, Brazilian court rulings on the recognition of German divorce decrees, international adoption papers, prenuptial agreements, declarations of parental consent for Brazilian children travelling to Germany, Brazilian divorce decrees with custody arrangements, and many more. Even though I’ve attended a seminar on translating for the German Civil Registry (Ludwigshafen, 2018) and a revision course on German Civil Law (Düsseldorf, 2012), the learning never ends.
That’s why, on 15-16 February 2020, I refreshed my knowledge of Brazilian Family Law by attending a workshop on that topic for court translators in Frankfurt. This is a workshop for legal Portuguese translators that has taken place once a year since 2007 as part of a translator network and is organised by the translators’ association ATICOM. I’ve been a member of this network since 2012, which has given me access to top-class legal presentations and interesting discussions on German-Brazilian legal terminology with fellow specialised linguists.
For this year, we’ve invited Dr. Carl Friedrich Nordmeier, a judge at the Regional Court of Frankfurt, and Ms Laís Brandão M. Malkmus, LL.M., a lawyer in Darmstadt and São Paulo, to give legal lectures. Dr. Nordmeier talked about “New developments in Portuguese Family Law – including a discussion of relevant legal norms and excerpts of jurisprudence“. Ms. Malkmus presented on “Comparing German and Brazilian Family Law“.
As always, a discussion on specialised terms from the year’s chosen legal subarea took place after the presentations – with the valuable help of our presenters. This increased the benefits of such an event for me as a legal German-to-Portuguese translator, as participants’ specific questions for the presenters about terms that appear in documents such as divorce decrees, marriage certificates, adoption papers or prenuptial agreements help us learn more and consolidate our own legal language skills, so that, in the end, our clients will benefit from our expertise.
Here is some key information about the event:
Event details
| Type of event | two-day workshop held in German and Portuguese |
| Title | “Familienrecht in Portugal, Brasilien und Deutschland: Neuerungen und vergleichende Perspektiven” [German, Portuguese and Brazilian Family Law: New developments and comparative approaches] |
| Event organiser | ATICOM – German Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters |
| Facilitators / Presenters | Prof. Dr. Tinka Reichmann, Susanna Lips, Dr. Carl Friedrich Nordmeier, Laís Brandão M. Malkmus |
| Date | 15-16 February 2020 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. |
| Place | mainhaus Stadthotel • Lange Str. 26 • 60311 Frankfurt • Germany |
| Main topics | • New developments in Portuguese Family Law: presentation and terminology discussions • Comparing German and Brazilian Family Law: presentation and terminology discussions • Joint creation of a bilingual glossary in Portuguese and German with Family Law terms, with the help of both presenters as legal experts |
