Considerations when translating your birth certificate in the USA

 

In many countries birth certificates are standard documents. In some countries, however, they come in multiple forms:

 a) Birth certificates from Venezuela come in multiple forms, from a single handwritten document, to a form, to a document spanning multiple pages (with SAREN payment receipt, legalization, handwritten and typed document text, legalizations and apostil. Therefore, a quote request is always required.

 b) Brazilian birth certificates have evolved over the years. Older documents are simple, and latter documents have been issued in a form. These forms seem to be changed every couple of years. Additionally, Brazilian law also allows a civil registry in one state to issue a paper (or digital) document from another. This may result in refusal of document in the U.S.A. Additionally, for USCIS cases a CERTIDÃO DE NASCIMENTO DE INTEIRO TEOR (FULL TEXT BIRTH CERTIFICATE) may be requested. This is a narrative document, which differs from the form based documents usually issued by most civil registries.

 c) Cuban birth certificates come in two formats. One is a short form, front and back, the other one comes in a regular size page, with information printed in one side only. The presented information is the same. If you have the shorter version, both front and back must be translated.

 d) Older Soviet era birth certificates usually come in a shorth form presented as a simple booklet. These documents were issued in all former Republics, the documents being issued in both Russian and the Republic’s language.  The documents are handwritten and often impossible to read, requiring assistance from the client.

 e) Documents written in an alphabet other than the  Latin alphabet require transliteration. As words can be transliterated in different forms, it is necessary for the client to provide the correct transliteration used, to ensure consistency. This does not apply only to Cyrillic, Greek names can also be transliterated in different versions.   

 f) Mexican birth certificates also come in different formats, depending in the State where issued.

 g) European Union birth certificates are also issued for all countries who are member of the EU, written in French and the country’s official language.

 h) American birth certificates usually come in short and long forms. Before submitting the document  for a quote, check whether the long form is required. U.S. birth certificates are state, rather than Federal documents, so they vary from State to State.

 i) Argentine birth certificates tend to be handwritten. Some handwriting can be difficult to read, so client assistance is required.

 j) Birth certificates often come with incorrect data, such as misspellings of parents, grandparents and place names. We have also seen mistaken genders and dates. We cannot make any corrections: authorities check the information in originals and may reject the translation if it does not match the original.

k) Birth certificates from Haiti may also come in different formats. Some are handwritten in hard-to-read cursive, more modern ones are typewritten. Clarification from the client is often required.

 l) Birth certificates from several other countries often come in handwritten format, including Peru, Uruguay, Italy, Portugal, Colombia

 m) Birth certificates from Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria come in both Arabic and French. We do the translation (and certify) from French.

Should I hire a company that uses standard templates for birth certificate translations?

 In a nutshell, no.

 Usually, a standard template (a one size-fits-all table template, if you may) is used by people who are not qualified translators, such as multiservice companies. They simply create a table with name of person, date of birth, place of birth, names of parents, and other data they seem important, and fill it in. Such templates often miss out important information which is checked by the receiving authority (mainly USCIS) and results in the rejection of the cheap translation. You have simply wasted money.

 Additionally, these translations are often self-certified by a notary who “prepared” the translation. This is also improper. A  notary cannot certify their own signature,  resulting in the rejection of the cheap translation. You have simply wasted money.

 Rejection of a translation usually slows down processes, resulting in more costs and wait-time. Additionally, they may raise an unwanted and unnecessary red flag for the case.

 #USCIS #certifiedtranslation #notarizedtranslation #officialtranslation

 https://birthcertificatetranslated.com

Can notaries do certified translations?

 

Yes and no.

 Let me explain.

 To be sure that a translation will be accepted as certified, it should be properly certified by the translator, and his/her signature must be notarized.

 A notary cannot notarize his own signature. So, if a document has been translated by somebody who happens to be a notary and a qualified translator, his/her signature must be notarized by another notary.

 If the notary is doing the translation, signing and notarizing his/her own signature, there are a couple of options. a) The notary knows he/she cannot do it, and likely the document will be refused, so he/she is being dishonest. b) If the notary does not know he/she cannot self-notarize a document, then he/she is a bad notary, that does not know notarial law.

  Rather unfortunately we have had to correct that situation many times. Clients normally admit they did it with the notary because he/she was less expensive. Then they wasted time and money, and ended up having to do it properly with us.

 Remember, the certified translation should be notarized, and the translator and notary must be different individuals. Translations should be done by professional translators, not notaries or multiservice storefronts.

 A well- informed client is a good client.

 https://birthcertificatetranslated.com

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Certified translations for academic evaluations and licensure from Italian since 1982.

For FCCPT, WES (World Education Services), IERF, FCSA (Foreign Credentials Svc of America), ECFMG, NCLEX, ERES Educational Records Evaluation Service), NAAB, NCARB, ACREVS, CAREE (Center for Applied Research Evaluation Education), CLARB, Modio Health, Evalcompany, IFCS (Institute for Foreign Credentials Services), California Architects Board, International Accreditation Service, Academic Evaluation Svc (AES), Educational Credential Evaluators ECE, Medtrainer, SDA National, Academic Credentials Evaluation Institute (ACEI), Alianza Academic Evaluations, Evaluation Service Inc, Foreign Credentials Svc of America, Increo Evaluations, Scholaro, SDR Evaluation Consultants, Ucredo, Global Language, International Evaluation Services, Lisano International, Josef Silny & Associations (JS&A), Florida Board of Education, Open Group, Naab (National Architectural Accreditation Board), NCEES, Educational Credential Evaluators, Educational Perspectives, Foreign Academic Credentials Svc, Global Credential Evaluators, Foundation for International Services, The Evaluation Company, Transcript Research, International Education Evaluation, International Consultants of Delaware, International Academic Credential Evaluators, Bruscan, The Evaluation Credentials, TBPES (Texas), State Bar Associations.

Request a quote to legaltranslationsystemsquote@gmail.com

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#FCCPT #NAAB #NCEES #NCLEX

Certified translations for academic evaluations and licensure from French since 1982.

For FCCPT, WES (World Education Services), IERF, FCSA (Foreign Credentials Svc of America), ECFMG, NCLEX, ERES Educational Records Evaluation Service), NAAB, NCARB, ACREVS, CAREE (Center for Applied Research Evaluation Education), CLARB, Modio Health, Evalcompany, IFCS (Institute for Foreign Credentials Services), California Architects Board, International Accreditation Service, Academic Evaluation Svc (AES), Educational Credential Evaluators ECE, Medtrainer, SDA National, Academic Credentials Evaluation Institute (ACEI), Alianza Academic Evaluations, Evaluation Service Inc, Foreign Credentials Svc of America, Increo Evaluations, Scholaro, SDR Evaluation Consultants, Ucredo, Global Language, International Evaluation Services, Lisano International, Josef Silny & Associations (JS&A), Florida Board of Education, Open Group, Naab (National Architectural Accreditation Board), NCEES, Educational Credential Evaluators, Educational Perspectives, Foreign Academic Credentials Svc, Global Credential Evaluators, Foundation for International Services, The Evaluation Company, Transcript Research, International Education Evaluation, International Consultants of Delaware, International Academic Credential Evaluators, Bruscan, The Evaluation Credentials, TBPES (Texas), State Bar Associations.

Request a quote to legaltranslationsystemsquote@gmail.com

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PRONOUN MIXUPS: ANOTHER AI TRANSLATION SPECIALTY

 

By Carlos de Paula

 

It does not take much to realize that not all languages are similar. Sounds, alphabets, intonations are just some of the obvious differences between Russian and Chinese, for instance. But there is much more than that, much feared grammar. Some languages have articles, others don’t, some have declensions, many do not, several have tons of verb tenses, others have simple verb structures, so on, so forth. One area where AI translation often messes up is personal pronouns.

 

Take for instance Portuguese and Spanish, two languages where AI wreaks real havoc in the pronoun area.   

 

I have handled many AI edits to and from these languages, and AI makes a real mess of things, which can be troublesome in litigation documents, for instance. AI does have a problem reading context and seems to regard the use of gender in Romance languages a futile nuisance. This can even cause legal issues, when pronouns are wrongly translated and seem to identify the incorrect party. The longer the text, the worst the problem.

 

That is why a professional, experienced and thorough editor should be retained to edit any text translated by AI.

 

Carlos de Paula is one of the top Brazilian Portuguese translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top Portuguese and Spanish AI Translation editor as well. 

For information on translations of Prenuptial agreements visit http://prenuptranslations.com

 

TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION ARE NOT THE SAME THING

By Carlos de Paula

 

Most translation done in the United States involves European languages whose alphabets closely resembles ours, the Latin alphabet, with a few differences here and there, mostly letters with accents.  However, everybody knows that many languages globally are written in different alphabets. Some, like Greek and Russian, share a few characters and look a bit like ours, while others, like Chinese and Hindi, are written in script that does not at all resemble our English alphabet.

 

Translating most texts between languages with different alphabets is a linguistic issue, however, translating names of persons, locations and places can be a peculiar challenge.

 

That is because a lot of transliteration has changed in the last few decades. Case in point, Mao Tse Tung became Mao Zedong, Bombay became Mumbai, Alma Ata, Almaty, etc. There has been little change in Japanese transliteration: Nakamura is still Nakamura, Nagoya, Nagoya, so on, so forth. That is because Japanese is a syllabic language.

 

Transliterating a simple person’s name in alphabets that resemble ours can be a nightmare. For instance, when I was writing a book on car racing in the 70s, the last name of a Greek driver appeared spelled in four different ways in non-Greek literature, so it was up to me to choose a transliteration.

 

In immigration cases this can have devastating outcomes. Whenever I receive a document written in a different alphabet I ask the client to provide the spelling appearing in US visas, passports and the like. Believe it or not, a simple “iy”, “ye” or “ii” ending can cause all types of trouble for a client.

For more information http://birthcertificatetranslated.com