Non-English editions of IFRSs and Education Publications 

Why translate IFRSs?

Although the official working language of the International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation (IASC Foundation) and the IASB is English, it is crucial that users, preparers, legislators, lawyers, educators, students and all other interested groups in non-English speaking countries should have access to the IASB's standards in their native language. To ensure high-quality translations of the standards, the IASC Foundation created an official translation process in 1997, which has been used consistently in most languages ever since.

Who gets involved in an official translation?

The IASCF coordinates the translation of the standards, which, for each language concerned, involves:

• one or more translators
• a review committee coordinator
• a review committee of experts.

The coordinator and committee members are appointed by the IASC Foundation, after inviting interest when the process is about to begin; the translators are selected by the IASC Foundation, in cooperation with the coordinator for each language.
 
The review committee coordinator can be a representative of a professional body or of a private corporation, with a good record of involvement in IFRSs.  The coordinator is responsible for the smooth running of the process, the exchange of files and comments between the committee members and the translator.  He or she also chairs the review committee meetings.
 
The review committee members need to be native speakers of the language in question with a good knowledge of English and are usually eminent experts in IFRSs.  The final composition of a review committee will typically include representatives of the big accounting firms, one or two academics, a representative from a bank or financial institution and an actuary with pensions expertise.
 
The translators are experienced professionals; they are asked to use special software that makes the checks for consistency and re-use of existing IFRS translation texts (both during the original project and in the future) easier.

How does the process work?

The review committee discusses and agrees on the translation of a list of key terms (individual terms and repetitive sentences) from the IFRS text.  This terminology list is then given to the translator, who is supposed to use it consistently during the translation of the IFRS, or make sure that the terminology in existing translations is adapted accordingly.
 
The next step is the review of the translation by the committee of experts for accuracy and consistency.  Their comments are sent to the coordinator, who either forwards them directly to the translator, or decides that further discussion is needed on a specific point.  The coordinator has the overview of the process.

EU adoption - consequences for process & content

The European Union's decision to require listed public companies to prepare their consolidated financial statements using IFRSs from 2005 created an urgent legal requirement for the numbered, bare text of the standards to be available in all the languages of the EU Member States.  To help meet this requirement without delay, the IASC Foundation agreed with the European Commission to use the IASC Foundation official translation process, with the help of the review committees, to provide the Commission with translations of the numbered, bare standards into the ten languages concerned (Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish).  The translations were then reviewed by the national representatives in the EU Accounting Regulatory Committee, and with any comments inserted, were given to the Commission.
 
For the purposes of this project, government representatives and representatives from the Translation Services of the European Union were added to the existing members of the ten review committees.  For some of these languages this was the first-ever translation of IFRSs, while for the others there were older versions that had to be updated and reviewed.
 
The final reviewed version of the translations of the numbered, bare standards extant at 1 September 2002 was first published in the Official Journal of the European Commission in September 2003. The IASC Foundation continued translating updates and newly issued standards in all EU languages until October 2005.  This included the nine new languages resulting from the expansion of the European Union in May 2005 (Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Slovak and Slovene). 

Although the translation process changed at the end of October 2005, the IASC Foundation remains committed to supporting the European Commission with quality translations of the standards in all European Union languages.

Future of IFRS translations

IFRSs are already translated and published in print into most European languages, as well as in Arabic, Chinese and Japanese.  The IASC Foundation is also making the IFRSs available in electronic format in most languages, either on its Website or on CD-ROM.
 
To see what translations are currently available click here .
 
For more information please contact the IASC Foundation's Senior Manager – Publications and Electronic Materials, Kenneth Creighton or Ioanna Tzivani Translation Project Manager .

Frequently Asked Questions