Translations of official documents may need to be notarized or certified or both. Many notarized translation services may offer a certified translation service as well. If you have a document that has some official character and it is written in any other language apart from English, you will soon be told whether it should be notarized after it has been translated. Certifying a translated document and notarizing it both give the document more official status, but the two processes are slightly different.
The sorts of documents that may need a notarized translation service
All sorts of documents that have a legal component to them may at some time be taken for notarizing after being translated. Notarization is not confined to translations of documents. They are usually used whenever a document has been copied and the copy is presented for some reason or another. The notarization is performed by a person who is called a notary public and has a special license to stamp the copy after inspecting it.
Basically any sort of document that has a legal quality to it, whether it is intended to be used in a court case, an application for citizenship, a visa, marriage or divorce.
Translators who provide a Notarized Translation Service are not qualified to do the actual notarizing themselves. They will first translate he document as accurately as possible, then take it to a notary public, who is the person who notarizes it. The notary public cannot by themselves tell whether the translated version of the original document is actually an accurate copy. They are simply going on the honesty of the translator. That’s why a notarized translation does not necessarily have the same authenticity as a certified translation.
If you need a translation for any official purposes, you should find out if it needs notarizing or certifying. It all depends on who it is being made available for. You may find that there is no particular need for any type of certification or notarization. But don’t ask for a notarized translation if you have been asked to get it certified because it may be rejected if incorrectly processed and you won’t be able to blame the translator if it is returned to you!
The difference between certifying and notarizing
As has already been mentioned, a notary public, not the translator is used to notarize a translation that has already been translated. The notary public basically trusts the translator when he or she says that the document has been translated accurately.
A Certified Translation is something that a translator can do. It is a translation that is accompanied by a certificate issued by the translator to say that it s a true and accurate translated copy of the original.
Whether a document is notarized, certified or neither is in many ways less important than making sure that you have chosen a professional translator or translation agency to deal with your documents. Any kind of legal documents depend on rigorous translation to be acceptable by many government agencies. If you choose Cinch Translations you have the advantage of knowing that you have chosen a professional team of translators that can provide a certified or notarized translation service in up to 90 different languages.
