Dates, numbers and currency in translations

Dates

Turkish documents write dates as day.month.year: 05.03.2019. British usage is the same order, so the risk of confusion is small, and we keep the numeric form where the document uses it, changing the separators to the British slash or writing the date out (5 March 2019) where the layout allows. We never convert to the American month-first order. Turkish month names are translated; abbreviated forms on stamps (Oca, Şub, Mar…) are expanded.

Where a Turkish record gives only a year, or “1 July” as a default birth date (common on older records for people whose birth date was not registered precisely), we translate exactly what the record says and add a translator's note if the recipient may misread it.

Old calendars

Records from the early Republic and Ottoman-era entries may carry Rumi (Ottoman fiscal) or Hijri dates. We reproduce the date as written and give the Gregorian equivalent in a translator's note, stating which calendar the source uses. Where the conversion is uncertain (a Rumi date without a clear year, or a Hijri month without a day) the note says so rather than presenting a guess as fact.

Numbers

Turkish uses a comma as the decimal mark and a full stop as the thousands separator; British English does the reverse. We convert:

Grades and marks keep their scale: a Turkish 4.00-scale GPA or 100-point average is reported as written, with the scale stated, and is never converted to a UK classification; that is UK ENIC's job, not ours. Roman numerals, article numbers and paragraph references in legal texts are kept as in the source.

Currency

• Amounts are stated in the source currency, never converted. A bank statement in Turkish lira is translated as Turkish lira. Conversion is for the receiving body to do at the rate it chooses; the Home Office, for instance, uses the OANDA rate on the date of the application for financial requirement evidence.
• The currency code TRY is used in tables and ₺ or “TL” where the document uses the symbol; we state the convention in a note on the first page.
• Old lira. Türkiye removed six zeros on 1 January 2005 (1,000,000 TL became 1 YTL, later TL again). Documents from before 2005 show amounts in old lira; we translate them as written, marked “(pre-2005 Turkish lira)”, with no conversion.
• Foreign-currency amounts on Turkish documents (a euro-denominated contract) stay in that currency.

Units and formats

• Metric units stay metric. Land areas on a tapu are in square metres; we do not convert to acres.
• Turkish ID numbers (T.C. kimlik no), IBANs, tax numbers and registry numbers are copied digit by digit and checked twice; a transposed digit is the kind of error that has real consequences.
• Times are given in the 24-hour clock as Turkish documents use it.
• Percentages and rates keep their precision.

Why this matters for financial evidence

Spouse and partner visa applications, mortgage applications and probate all rely on figures in Turkish documents. A translation that leaves 15.000 as 15.000 will be read by a British caseworker as fifteen; one that turns 15,50 into 15,50 will be read as fifteen thousand five hundred. Conversion is a required step, not a stylistic choice, and it is one of the things the second-linguist revision checks line by line. See Turkish bank statement translation and financial translation. The rules for legal terminology are in how we render Turkish legal terms in English.