European union law in translation: core principles and useful tools for undergraduate translation courses

The translation of European Union (EU) law can be seen as a specific case of international law translation and thus relevant only to legal translators. The author argues that concepts related to EU law and tools developed by the EU to support translators should be taught as early as possible to all undergraduate students of translation. This is due to two specificities of European law: it covers a great range of different areas, many of them of a technical nature, thus being useful to many (if not all) translators outside the legal field; and it is mentioned in many non-legal texts, from catalogues to journalistic texts. Therefore, professional translators are bound to find references to EU law throughout their careers and should know how to deal with them and how to avoid common pitfalls. Furthermore, tools created by the European Union - terminology tools, publicly available translation memories, and provision of legislation in multilingual format - are very useful to any translator and knowing how to use them is a skill essential to translation professionals. This study will make suggestions for teaching principles, tools and common sources of translation errors related to EU law to students who do not have any form of legal training.