37-32 61st Street, Woodside, NY 11377
The limits, said first
Ten sentences you will see advertised by translation companies, quoted in their own words, each followed by what is actually true and what we do instead.
Each card quotes an advertisement you can find on translation company websites, in the words they use, and answers it. The quotation is somebody else's; the answer is ours.
Translation in this country is unregulated. Anybody may translate anything and anybody may certify it, and the federal regulation immigration filings run on asks for a signed statement of competence and accuracy rather than for a qualification. That is not a scandal — it is why a signature means what it means — but it does leave this trade with no credential to over-claim and a great deal of vocabulary that sounds like one.
So these are not a disclaimer. They are the part of the sales pitch that most companies leave out, and between them they answer the question a customer at this counter is really asking, which is not what a translation costs but which of the things being sold to them they actually need.
One of them argues against this office's own commercial interest, and it is the one about machines: machine translation is often very good, we sell it with human review at about half the rate, and the honest limit is a great deal narrower than the one this trade advertises.
What you will see advertised
“Your document will be handled by one of our certified translators.”
In the United States a certified translation is a translation with a signed certificate attached to it. There is no licence to hold, no register to be on and no examination anybody is required to have passed. The word describes the document.
What you will see advertised
“Guaranteed acceptance. 100% accepted, or your money back.”
The body you send it to decides, every time, and it decides on grounds that include several things no translator controls. A guarantee of somebody else's decision is not a guarantee. It is a refund policy wearing one's clothes.
What you will see advertised
“We will apostille your documents.”
An apostille is issued by a designated government authority — for a New York notarial act, the New York Secretary of State — and by nobody else. What a translation company does is prepare the document, lodge it and bring it back.
What you will see advertised
“Notarised for accuracy.”
A notary public verifies the identity of the person signing and witnesses the signature. No notary in this country attests that a translation is correct, and none is qualified to — the notary usually cannot read the source language.
What you will see advertised
“AI translation is not accepted and is too inaccurate for official documents.”
That is not the case and this office will not argue it. Machine translation is often very good and we sell it, with human review, at about half the rate. The real limit is narrower and it is absolute: a certificate of accuracy is a statement by a person who can be named, questioned and held to it, and a model is not a person who can be any of those.
What you will see advertised
“Our sworn translations are official throughout Europe and Latin America.”
Sworn or official status is conferred on a named individual by a particular state, under that state's own procedure. Nobody in New York holds it by virtue of being here, and no American certificate is a substitute for it where a country requires one.
What you will see advertised
“Tell us your situation and we will tell you what to file.”
Which documents your case requires, what they mean and what to do next is legal advice. It is not something a translation company may give you, and it is not something anybody here is in a position to know.
What you will see advertised
“We will translate your degree and tell you what it is worth here.”
Rendering a transcript into English and saying what an American qualification it corresponds to are two different products. The second is a credential evaluation, it is bought from an evaluation service rather than from a translator, and most of them want the translation first.
What you will see advertised
“Our interpreters cover court hearings in any language.”
Courts appoint their own interpreters. Each state runs its own process for who may interpret in its courtrooms, the federal courts run another, and being available and competent is not the same as being the person the court has appointed.
What you will see advertised
“Send whatever you have and we will fill in the rest.”
A word that cannot be read is marked as unreadable, in the place where it sits, on the translation. It is not guessed from context, and a company that tells you it will reconstruct a faded stamp is telling you it will invent one.
These standing notes appear on the pages they qualify, rather than only here, because a limit that lives on one page is a limit somebody has to go looking for.
The decision is not ours to sell. Whether a body accepts a filing is that body's decision, and it turns on several things a translator has no part in. Nobody can honestly guarantee it. What we promise is our own work: anything refused because of something we did is put right at no charge.
Where our answers stop. Nothing on this site is legal or immigration advice and nobody here may give you any. We can describe what a document is and what offices have usually asked for; we cannot tell you what to file, what your case needs, or what a document means for you.
About the cheaper option. We use machine translation on some work, we say so, and we charge about half for it. What it cannot do is sign a certificate of accuracy, because that is a person taking responsibility. Which work falls on which side of that line is on its own page.
What a certificate covers. A certified translation says something about the translation and nothing whatever about the original. We do not verify that a document is genuine, and no certificate, notarial act or apostille from anybody does either — an apostille authenticates a signature and a seal.
Read the actual document, tell you what it is and what the office you named usually asks for, quote it before anybody starts, and sign the certificate ourselves.