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and with“wahrscheinlich” by WPs. This result argues for translation of IAS into the foreign language rather than asking non-English speaking accountants to interpret the English expressions.

The magnitudes of the mean ranges suggests that the expressions“probable” and“not probable” convey less precise concepts of probability than do expressions such as“reasonable assurance” and“remote.” The same is true for the German translations of these expressions. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

This study has finds that nationality alone(at least among German-speaking countries) does not result in significant differences in probabilities assıgned to uncertainty expressions used in International Accounting Standards. However, significant differences exist between English­speaking U.S. CPAs and German-speaking WPs for a large number of the uncertainty expressions included in the study. The results indicate that for some expressions, the difference in mean probability assiıgnments can be attributed to a difference in the language-culture of the respondent groups. The greatest difference is for the expression“assurance,” which connotes a much higher level of probability to the German speakers than to the U.S. CPAs.

Results also indicate that for extreme probability expressions(highest and lowest), the translation from English to German results in significant differences in interpretation. This raises the question whether this effect is a result of poor translation or whether the English expression has no direct counterpart in German. For example, is“sehr zweifelhaft” not the best translation of“seriously in question” or is there no direct linguistic mapping of“seriously in question” into German? Results related to the varıous German translations of the phrase“no longer probable”

indicate that, at least for this uncertainty expression, some translations are better than others. The