Equivalence Of IFRS Across Languages: Translation Issues From English To German

Convergence has been supported by the notion that a single set of high-quality global accounting standards is an important means of enhancing comparability of financial statements. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize translation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as an impediment for a consistent application and interpretation across countries. Specifically, the authors critically analyse literature that combines the fields of linguistics and accounting and examine the quality of IFRS translation. Using Germany as a case study, they provide evidence that the translation of selected IFRS from English to German is not equivalent to the original version.