@ Daryo 14:12 Dec 15, 2018
You asked, "who in his right mind would want such a person involved in any serious business involving real estate in France, what would then be an appropriate translation?"
In France you would want a notaire, and actually I think that's who you have to use for real estate -- no one else is qualified. But yes, you would never ever want a US notary anywhere near a real estate transaction, except if you needed someone's signature to be notarized (authenticated -- i.e. the notary checked the person's ID to confirm who they were, and then watched them sign).
So if the original text is talking about a notaire in a French real estate transaction, I would either translate it as "French real estate transaction attorney" (or real estate counsel, or something like that), or leave it in French, italicized, with the explanatory translation in parentheses.
If it's talking about notaires more generally, as Elizabeth's text may be, I would definitely use the italicized French word + explanation in parentheses approach for the first instance of the word, and then just italicized "notaires" for all later instances. |