For the sale of my house I’ve been asked for a French translation of my birth certificate. Any recommendations?
After all the kind recommendations and responses it turns out I don’t need a translator as they are happy with the English version.
Does it have to be a traducteur assermenté?
If not can’t you do it yourself? A bit of fiddling around with a template to make it look similar, but easy enough to do.
I did this one when asked for my father’s death certificate, and then put text into a table so it looked more like the certificate
Translated death certificate.docx (7.6 KB)
1 Like
Never heard of that being demanded to sell a property before. I certainly didn’t have to produce one
4 Likes
? Seems to be in English?
I did the same with our marriage and birth certificates for our cartes de sejour. All very easy to translate using deepl and made it look professional and signed and dated at the bottom - accepted without a murmur.
I used a woman in Nice - she’s excellent. I’ve used her for all my translations even now that I live in Saumur. DON’T do it yourself and cheat. Not worth it. Natasha is an American living in France for many years and is certified
Natasha Azarian Ceccato, PhD
Traducteur/Interprète
Près la Cour d’Appel d’Aix-en-Provence
I find it astonishing that a translation of a birth certificate is required. I get the need for some documents to be translated but a birth certificate is kinda simplistic and speaks for itself in any language, no? Still whatever. One has to jump through hoops sometimes.
I was married in Mauritius so my wedding certificate is in French. Incredible foresight on my part.
Who has asked you?. . Certainly the French system ..indeed any system needs to to have full official documentation so they know without any doubt that the person purporting to buy it sell is legitimate and real. For a Foreign National this will always be their Passport. English is still an official language of the EU, as Ireland is a member and therefore documents provided in English suffice. However if you have non EU birth , you should contact the consulate of your birth and they will arrange translate service.. if you are dealing with the type of officialdom which requires translation that’s the way to go . In many cases they will have a register of accredited ( by them) of commercial translators . Bluntly the other answers of getting Google Translate or equivalent could be seen as fraud .
For a number of years after retirement I served on a Chartered Engineering Membership Board and we were vetting candidates from around the world for potential admission and we required all their documentation in both the original script and in an Embassy certified English translation.
Which is why I asked the question of whether needs to be assermenté. If it does the I agree, that’s what you have to use. But if one is just asked for a translation then fine ro do it yourself. Over 20+ years ours have been accepted for all sorts of things, although I recognise things are tighter now.
If the document is for France then best to use one of the the translators recommended by the cours de cassation, not a foreign embassy.
Have you ever had a consulate translate something for you? As far as I’m aware translation is not one of the consulate services.
2 Likes
Indeed. There’s one or two on here who may have so much money they can unnecessarily waste it perhaps, but for most of us why pay for something to be done that isn’t actually necessary. If someone asks for a translation, give them a translation. If they come back and say they need something else, do it, but using words like fraud to describe giving someone the document they’ve asked for, unless you’re specifically stating that the document is an original from a public body or such, is just a nonsense. They wanted a translation, they got a translation. I absolutely can’t abide people giving answers when it’s just what they’ve decided is correct rather than what is correct, it’s exasperating.
3 Likes
Careful here ..I said .." could be seen as fraud " . Context matters here as everywhere. .Which is why my very first question was Who wants it … abd the implications is WHY . . I know I did not need anything translated in French when we purchased our property 26 years ago .. Yes the Notaire needed Birth certificates , Marriage Certificates , Copies of Passports and these are in official EU language ..English and in Irish
And in response to Jane ..
“Have you ever had a consulate translate something for you? As far as I’m aware translation is not one of the consulate services.” … . Again I refer to the actions I had done while on the Membership Board . We were getting applications in Urdu, Chinese, Hindi and in each case we would contact the appropriate Embassy / consulate for them to recommend their CERTIFIED translators ..which they would and we would direct the applicant to send the documents to them ..only after they were translated would an application be considered .. we would be adjudging on 40+ of these a month during my tenure. Jane , Please note also on the final paragraph of the French Cours de Cessation that they describe a similar process of contacting Consulates if required.
Quite. If there was a polite and gentle way of saying ‘sometimes you seem to like talking because you like the sound of your own voice’, I’d be using it. But it wouldn’t make much sense anyway since this is text. But I was very careful, both here and there.
1 Like
It would be interesting to know why a translation is needed. I/we have never been asked for a translation of anything.
3 Likes
I must admit my first assumption was the classic ‘fonctionnaire going rogue and asking for an unnecessary amount of paper’ situation that happens here too often in my experience, but you’re absolutely right @Mark, it would be interesting to get a definitive reason!
1 Like
Probably because all other documents had been provided correctly, and yet they had to find something to ask.
And anecdotally it does appear that public bodies in a number of locations in France are forgettimg that any document in English is actually valid in France because Ireland, who have English as an official language, is a member of the EU.
A sneaky part of me is wondering whether if presented with a perfect application with all documents they just don’t lnow how to cope as they’re not used to it.
And an even more mischievous part of me remembers working in a factory making fire alarms in university holidays. I was asked a number of times to slow down by colleagues and as the foreman put it, it was disruptive that whichever work station they put me on I created a bottleneck due to work output. It was felt that this could lead to expected throughput being adjusted I think.
1 Like
Thanks for this!
“Arranging” is a rather different verb from “recommending”
Arrange as in giving a letter or email of introduction if necessary and confirming that these people are kosher .. .Now if it were in reference to a Trade deal or something like that ..yes they will do all the paperwork. as well. They are not a Secretarial service but their job is to ease the wheels of commerce ,and assist their citizens abroad… Now That is enough nitpicking
I can tell you one country whose consulate/embassy will neither arrange nor recommend a translation service.
2 Likes
What kind of translation? Legally sworn by a court appointed translator, or just a standard translation? We still don’t have the answer to that question, unless I missed it.
2 Likes
It was not specified.