"Certified translator"?! Warsaw Embassy question....🔥

[ZRomper 42]

Greetings,

 

I have a burning question regarding the type of translation we need for my wife and daughter's IR1/IR2 visa interview...

This is becoming VERY confusing, any help from people who went through this would be appreciated.

 

I have done translations for the USCIS and NVC stages myself, certifying at the bottom that i'm competent to translate from Russian/Belarusian into English.

This has worked just fine, both the USCIS and NVC accepted and approved all of my translations.

 

However on the Warsaw Embassy's website on the Family-based immigrant visa page it says:
 

Quote

Translations
Documents in Polish, except for court records, do not have to be translated.  All documents that are not written in English or Polish must be translated into English by a certified translator.

 

Here they're mentioning a certified translator, this means the translator has to have certification?! How would they even check this?

 

Has anyone had experience with this? 

 

Why is it ok to submit own "certified" translations for USCIS and NVC, but not ok for the embassy?!

 

 

Please advise. Thank you!

[Vickys_Mom 223]

Write out, on a piece of paper, a "Certificate of Translation".  State your name and that you are competent in translating Russian/Belarussian to English and vice versa.  Give them a point of contact in case someone wants to ask you about it.  Sign it.

 

You are now a "certified translator".  I can see your "Certificate of Translation" right there.

 

Regards,

Vicky's Mom

[ZRomper 42]

18 minutes ago, Vickys_Mom said:

Write out, on a piece of paper, a "Certificate of Translation".  State your name and that you are competent in translating Russian/Belarussian to English and vice versa.  Give them a point of contact in case someone wants to ask you about it.  Sign it.

 

You are now a "certified translator".  I can see your "Certificate of Translation" right there.

 

Regards,

Vicky's Mom

Thanks for response,

 

However, this is exactly what I did for my USCIS and NVC document stages.

 

What set me off here is the wording. There is a difference between a "certified translation" and a "certified translator". A certified translation is indeed any statement a person swears over and puts their signature on. However a "certified translator" would mean a person somehow certified (documentarily?) to know the languages they're translating to/from. 😕 

 

Also, each national embassy has its own little "quirks". What gets me is that they obviously cannot check the certification of a translator. It's not like you can only have a Polish certified translator do this. People from Ukraine, Belarus, Russia all do it within their respective countries. How can a CO in Warsaw possibly know on what level a Ukrainian translator is "certified"?

But that wording above is what set me off, including Warsaw specific posts on some Russian-language forums which state that Warsaw requires a certified translator to do this, meaning it has to be a private firm, etc.

[Vickys_Mom 223]

I would suggest you're reading too much into it.

 

But I will happily be corrected by someone else if they have better information.  I don't know enough about the Warsaw Embassy.  (And I can't translate Russian/Belarussian to save my life...smile.)

 

Regards,

Vicky's Mom

 

[ZRomper 42]

14 hours ago, Vickys_Mom said:

I would suggest you're reading too much into it.

 

But I will happily be corrected by someone else if they have better information.  I don't know enough about the Warsaw Embassy.  (And I can't translate Russian/Belarussian to save my life...smile.)

 

Regards,

Vicky's Mom

 

I hope that I am.

 

Just called the support line in Warsaw of ustraveldocs, the person that answered first said, "Of course, the translations need to be translated by a professional". When I asked what defines a "professional" since they do not check their diplomas and have no way to verify if any of the stamps are even real or whether a stamp is even required, he told me to wait for 5 min, came back and said "Sir, we do not have specific requirements, it just says it must be translated into English, please ask the question in the feedback section of the ustraveldocs account". Which I just did. So, they're giving me the run around so far.

Just posted a question in their "feedback" section. We'll see what they say...

[Evan757 37]

If I recall correctly, certified translators are accredited by the Embassy and have to pass specific certification exams. There should be services in Warsaw that provide this. You might be able to "certify it" yourself but personally I err on the side of caution in this process.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Evan757

[ZRomper 42]

11 minutes ago, Evan757 said:

If I recall correctly, certified translators are accredited by the Embassy and have to pass specific certification exams. There should be services in Warsaw that provide this. You might be able to "certify it" yourself but personally I err on the side of caution in this process.

He man on the phone specifically said that it can be any "professional" translator and that notarization is not required.  I'm familiar with state certified translators. For instance, in Belarus just like in Poland there's a special list of "state certified translators" in every major city who are the only ones allowed to have their translations certified by a notary. But this is not a requirement here. They do not recommend any particular one and just say "It should be a professional service". Which is saying nothing.

My wife and I went to a translation bureau in Belarus and had most of the documents translated before she left. However, it has no stamps on it. This is why I'd like to know if a stamp is required (it certainly isn't, I'm 99.9% sure) and if it is, how do they verify a private firm's stamp as being valid? Any small company here can buy a rubber stamp of business, it doesn't mean anything though.

 

Let's see what they say, I'll go by that. 

[BenNomad 88]

I sent all my Russian-language documents to a translation service in the U.S. and they do a very professional job, and very quickly if you pay a little extra. I'm attaching the certification page that they sent with one of the translations. I think that's what the Embassy is looking for. 

 

You can see their contact on the image I'm uploading. They specialize in Russian, Belorussian, Ukranian, etc. 

[ZRomper 42]

9 hours ago, BenNomad said:

I sent all my Russian-language documents to a translation service in the U.S. and they do a very professional job, and very quickly if you pay a little extra. I'm attaching the certification page that they sent with one of the translations. I think that's what the Embassy is looking for. 

 

You can see their contact on the image I'm uploading. They specialize in Russian, Belorussian, Ukranian, etc. 

Thanks. I'm not in the US but in Warsaw with my family at the moment. I'll get a translator here. However, there's no requirement for any stamps of any sort. And the above, while looking pleasing to the eye, doesn't mean a whole lot. Just about any business can get a stamp and place it on a document. 

 

I have about 85% of documents translated by a Belarusian translation firm, but without the stamps. Which should be fine, the rest I'll do here.

 

Btw, how much does the above company charge for a page of translation?

[BenNomad 88]

The service is ordered online and they email a PDF of the translated document that includes a copy of the original and the "certification" page. I uploaded those PDFs to the NVC just as I received them and they were accepted. I think for the State Department people it probably means a lot that the translations are "pleasing to the eye." I paid $20 for most of the documents like birth certificate and marriage liecense. For a one-day rush job it's $5 more. It can get expensive if the document isn't one of the standard ones from Russia/Belarus/USSR. 

[ZRomper 42]

10 hours ago, ZRomper said:

Thanks. I'm not in the US but in Warsaw with my family at the moment. I'll get a translator here. However, there's no requirement for any stamps of any sort. And the above, while looking pleasing to the eye, doesn't mean a whole lot. Just about any business can get a stamp and place it on a document. 

 

I have about 85% of documents translated by a Belarusian translation firm, but without the stamps. Which should be fine, the rest I'll do here.

 

Btw, how much does the above company charge for a page of translation?

 

Got it, thanks! This is what gets me. The NVC accepted and approved all of my translations as did USCIS. The only requirement for a translation is that it has a clause at the bottom that states you're proficient in the languages translated and that you swear you did a true job. But it's ONLY the Warsaw embassy that invents this "certified translator" thing and then can't even answer for 3 days. 

I have a LOT of documents b/c it's for my wife and my adopted daughter. So, I'd be looking at 1000-1500$ easy. Thankfully the prices in Poland are a lot less for translations. You can get away with 5-10$ per page.

[ZRomper 42]

So I finally got an answer from the Warsaw Embassy, they managed to include an answer meant for a different person right below mine, but never mind. Here's what they say:

 

Quote

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your correspondence. Every document that has been issued in languages different than Polish or English needs to be translated into English by a certified translator. Certified means that the person needs to hold the official state document stating his proficiency in translation (a stamp/signature of the translator is on the translated document then). No translations done by family members/petitioners are accepted at post.

The information on our webpage is accurate and please kindly follow this instruction.

 

So, it's kinda what I expected. They still haven't answered what the heck is a state document and how they check it, unless it's a notarized translation which it's not.

 

Also, not clear about "a stamp/signature", it the `/` supposed to be an OR or an AND. In any case I'll do an "official" translation.

Another question then is a wet signature required?

I see a lot of people here using electronic services, meaning they only get a PDF like @BenNomad mentions.

 

Does anyone have experience with that?

Edited July 10, 2023 by ZRomper

[Geraldin 22]

On 7/10/2023 at 4:05 PM, ZRomper said:

electronic services

did you find anything in poland? we need to translate a large document from polish into english for uscis.

[ZRomper 42]

On 7/28/2023 at 9:45 AM, Geraldin said:

did you find anything in poland? we need to translate a large document from polish into english for uscis.

I went with Ekvitas, a large translation company in Belarus. You can order translations and perhaps someone can pass it on to a bus driver to Poland. That's what we did and got all translations for like $50.

Was accepted with no issue by the Embassy.