Certified Translator

Capt. Rob57

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Mar 22, 2006
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How does someone become a certified translator ? I have a female friend who is fluent in English, Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish. Is there a school she needs to attend ? Or a govt. agency that does the certification ?
 

J D Sauser

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Nov 20, 2004
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www.hispanosuizainvest.com
How does someone become a certified translator ? I have a female friend who is fluent in English, Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish. Is there a school she needs to attend ? Or a govt. agency that does the certification ?

Don't quote me on this, but from what my recent experience has been it may work somewhat like this:
Law offices may have a "traductor juridico"... a court certified translator. Interestingly it does not seem to say, what languages that translator is certified for... so they seem to use (a) translator(s) they trust for languages they can't translate themselves and seal and sign off on his translation. The "official" translation then states "translated with the help of Don xyz" in the fine print. :)

So your female friend may just need another friend, one who is a court certified translator in need for her lingual capabilities, to start getting into business (?).

... J-D.
 

Mirador

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Apr 15, 2004
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When I suddenly came down with a bad case of agoraphobia, and had to make a living from home, one of my initial sources of income was from a court certified translator (Interprete P?blico). I did the work for pittance wages, while she charged exhorbitant fees to her legal clients. That's what you call outsourcing.
 

Mirador

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Apr 15, 2004
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I started to make ends meet, when I started translating documents in specialized scientific fields, particularly patents. I still work freelance. It has never occurred to me to become a certified public translator. Not that I'm not qualified, maybe even more so, since public translators are certified by the Supreme Court, and I happen to have a close cousin in that bench. Now that you mention it, maybe I will apply.

By the way, I got over my agoraphobia, managing with the help of a therapist to exchange it for an even more exotic phobia, which for obvious reasons I will not mention in this forum. ;)
 

Alyonka

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Jun 3, 2006
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In the US I think Georgetown University has such program. Also, Department of State has its own certification/testing for translators/interpreters working for them. In this profession it is mostly education, language skills and work exp. that matter and who you have worked for in the past, references, etc.