Certified Translations: A Quick Reference Guide
A quick reference guide to official documents translation.
Whoever you are, chances are that at some point in your life you will require a certified translation, specially considering the demand of official documents’ translation is increasing at an unrecorded rate.
This reference guide is also aimed for professional linguists who wish to reflect on their practice of translating official documents.
An official document is usually a legal instrument that states some contractual relationship or contains some sort of sensitive data, the most common ones being certificates (birth, marriage, ownership, etc…), contracts and government issued documents (or any form of ID).
A guide for whom?
For individuals who require translation services as well as for translation service providers.
This quick guide, developed throughout my experience working with a diverse team of linguists all over the world, aims to provide a quick reference guide for both individuals — so they know what to look out for — and professionals who render official document translations in hopes of improving the industry’s quality, resulting in providing a better service to our communities. This may sound like a trivial thing to say, but given the increase in demand, the industry has also seen an increase in supply, and truth is, conventions are generally — and widely — ignored. This has led to an inevitable decrease in quality, which amongst many other things, also leads to document rejection, or long waits between submissions. Yeah, nobody likes to wait — and even less to wander in the uncertainty of bureaucracy’s hallways.
Let’s face it: who thinks about translation but until the moment they find out they need one? And let’s add something else: how can anyone be certain that the translation that is received complies, indeed, with the requirements of a certified translation? How can anyone be sure that their documents won’t be rejected by the dependency or the respective authenticator reviewing them? This is a fear shared by many who require official document translation for the first time.
Most of my clients thought they would never need an official document translation.
Most of my clients who at some point required a certified translation were nationals from countries different than the United States, and these were usually requested by the United States Customs and Immigration Services — the reasons are incredibly diverse and vast in context.
Just in the past 6 years, I have translated over 1,000 birth and marriage certificates. I have been working in the industry long enough to notice that only in the last few years the demand for certified translations has skyrocketed. This, added to the confidence that my record of 100% acceptance rate by USCIS, has impulsed me, as a certified translator, to develop a quick reference guide that comprehends, what for me, are the most important considerations that any translation of official documents should address.
The number one reason I have seen people get their translations rejected is what most of translators fail to do: they put interpretation over convention. Even though many allege being able to write consistently in two languages, that doesn’t make anyone a translator. Experience and knowledge on the industry’s standards and conventions are strictly necessary to render successful official documents translations. For instance, translating “appearing before me”, has a standard way of being written it Spanish, and such translation does not translate from the original source expression. If this was translated in a literal way, the translation would be wrong, and most likely rejected by any Spanish speaking country’s government. The same happens the other way around, so being bicultural is much more of an accurate skill than being just bilingual.
If you have used these services in the past with a negative outcome, you also know that when dealing with certified translation, mistakes are quite common; not to mention these mistakes are incredibly palpable with irreversible and costly consequences.
Certified Translation — Reference Guide
To start off, the translator should always consider the format and style portrayed in the original — or source — document. To exemplify, even if a birth certificate contains unnecessary white space, ineffective accommodation, typos or just an unusual format, the translator should not attempt to fix it — or fit it — in the document being rendered. There are some tools that address these issues — which are explained in the following guide — instead, the translator should follow a simple golden rule:
The format and overall layout of the rendered document should mirror, to the best of the translator’s capacity, the format and layout of the source document.
Why are these so important?
A wrong format can cost much more than money. As a matter of fact, when dealing with this kind of translations, time becomes the most important thing and money goes to second term. I have seen people offer insane amounts of money to have their translations done yesterday.
Having put that out there, the following are basic rules that should be looked out for by individuals requiring certified translations, professionals who wish to reflect on their practice, and for any translator who deals with the production of translations involving sensitive and confidential data or information.
*Items on this list do not follow any particular order.
Considerations
— Tags
All the comments, notes or information deemed pertinent to be included by the translator in the target language must be inside bracketed tags such as: [illegible]. In many cases, parenthesis may lead to the translation’s rejection.
— Source language statement
A tag stating the source language must be clearly visible on the document’s header as follows: “[Translation from « source language »]”; This statement must be written in the target language.
— Mirror Layout
The translation being rendered must attempt to mirror the source document’s layout. This means the overall document’s layout should mimic, to the best of the translator’s capacity, that of the source document. This includes margins, bleeding, line height, font style and size, and the use of white space. Many software can help the translator achieve this without compromising the translation’s quality.
— Translator Notes
Frequently, the translator will want to add notes that will help the reader understand why is something translated as it is. Any notes a translator finds pertinent to include must be inserted in the footnote of the paper marked as “[Translator Notes]”.
— Typographical Conventions
The translator should add any typographical typesetting as it appears on the original (or source) document. If the source document shows an evident use of capitals wherein the target language would be written otherwise, the translator should not attempt to adapt or modify the format. Instead, the translator should always aim to preserve the typographical conventions in the target document as they appear in the source’s.
— No entries
Empty spaces, columns, or boxes should be omitted. If there is blank space due to missing strings of text, signatures, seals, or paragraphs, the translator may add the tag “[No entry]” to justify the empty space. Failing to do so, where evident, may lead to the idea of an inaccurate or incomplete translation.
— Signatures
The translator should not attempt to translate or replicate any signatures appearing in the source document. Instead, these will be replaced by a “[signature]” tag, wether the signature is legible or illegible.
— Numbers and dates
Numbers and dates should be copied without change.
— Illegible Content
Whenever there is illegible content, the translator should never attempt to interpret or decipher what is illegible. Instead, an “[illegible]” tag must be included. A note may be added in the translator’s notes on the footer of the same page where the illegible content appears.
— Marks and Crossings
Anything that is crossed out or marked on the original document should be marked as is, if legible.
— Places, Names and Properties
Any names of official courts, attorneys, names of people, cities, countries and addresses should be kept in the original language and should not be translated.
— Seals or Stamps
If there is any seal, stamp or logo, these should be placed in brackets to look like this: “[Seal]”. In many cases, parentheses will not be acceptable when translating the seal or logo of the source document. That also applies to any notes of certification, attestation and/or authentication.
— Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be written out in full in the target language, and if there is not enough information available to do so, then these must be commented in the translator’s notes.
— Existing Typos or Errors
Any typos or errors they should not be changed or corrected. Instead, a comment should be added in the translator’s notes. Translator notes are very important to help the authenticator or validating dependency determine accuracy and consistency, which can be tampered if left to translator’s interpretation.
— Numbering
If there is more than one sheet to translate, these should be numbered in the same way as in the original (or source) document. Additionally, these must be stapled or clipped together.
Translators are responsible for conveying the meaning of the document and not just translating words in a literal way. Most of the times, when dealing with official documents, the translator’s interpretation may not be sufficient for the rendered translation to be effective. An experienced and talented linguist must know by heart the specific legal conventions that make up any particular document considered official, which of course, varies from one country to another.
There is a big difference between accurate — whilst sometimes ineffective — and effective translations. Writing skills that match those of a native speaker are essential to achieve accuracy.
Examples of industry standards and conventions in certified translations:
