I have a friend that needs to have a certified court document translated from Spanish to English for his divorce.
Does anyone know where I can even begin looking? All of the documents translation services I’ve found for him have you email them the documents, they translate and email it back, but he needs it translated and possibly stamped so that it is accepted by the courts.
He needs it in the Ottawa (Ontario) area and needs to have it done and back by the 12th of September.
Thanks in advance!
Doesn’t matt_mcl do translation work? Or is it some other poster I am thinking of? At any rate, he (or whoever I am thinking of) could probably point you in the right direction.
This might be my least helpful post ever.
I’m not sure, I thought he works with MP’s (NDP possibly)?
One place to start might be at a large, nearby university. Contact either the linguistics department or go to the university’s website (if it has one) and look up faculty/staff teaching that particular language.
Odds are your friend will probably be able to get a quick line on a student or native speaker with translation capabilities and experience. A friend of mine who was a teaching assistant for a professor who taught German said they got inquiries like that all the time. She’d sometimes translate written documents for a fee, although with something like a divorce document, he may want to go to a local, professional translation service. A nice, polite inquiry with a university that might be nearby could yield a referral to a reputable service.
That’s the problem, I can’t find a local one. Everywhere is in and around Toronto and Vancouver!
I’ll suggest calling the local universities. The document isn’t divorce papers per se, more supporting documentation for his divorce.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Keep 'em coming dopers!
He can check out the Ordre des traducteurs, terminologues et interprètes agréés du Québec (OTTIAQ). Here’s a link to the English part of their Web site:
http://www.ottiaq.org/index_en.php
They have members in the Ottawa region. If their online directory doesn’t give your friend what he needs, call them up and ask for advice.
He could post his requirements on proz.com or translatorscafe.com
Spanish embassy. If they don’t have a traductor jurado nobody will!
A traductor jurado does it with all the stamps and suchlike. I needed to get an “official translation” of my grades when I went to graduate school in the US (nowadays my spanish school offers to give you the grades directly in English and other foreign languages if you ask and any of the teachers knows the language)… it wasn’t the best translation at all, though, so I sent it in with a note explaining some details.
Courier it in and back and it could be ready on time. Maybe with an extra fee for “urgent.”
Why does he need it to be in the Ottawa area? All of our business is done by the Internet these days, occasionally helped along by Expresspost. I’ve done work for a hospital in Vancouver before.
Hope he found a place in time! Sorry I didn’t find this sooner.
Matt,
He needed it in the Ottawa area because he needed it done fast and stamped. Plus, he didn’t want to sent the one official document from the Peruvian court, that took him about 6 months to get, anywhere by mail for fear of losing it.
He ended up going to the Peruvian embassy, walked in and out in less than 5 minutes with a certified, stamped translated document!
Thanks anyway though.
That I understand and I’m glad he had a good outcome. I’m still confused, though – couldn’t he have sent the translator a photocopy, keeping the original to submit once he had the translation?
Probably. :smack: LOL I hadn’t even thought of that. hehe
Reported