By Carlos de Paula, who has translated over 100,000 documents from over 50 countries and territories.
1. The translator says he is an ATA member. What does that mean?
First, you should know that ATA (American Translators Association) does not license translators. Membership is voluntary, and not required for most uses (for instance, for USCIS use). ATA membership, both corporate and personal, is a comfort zone: there is information you can check on ATA’s website (atanet.org) concerning the member’s specialties, address, phone number, email, etc. However, there are many companies and individual translators who claim to be ATA members, even place ATA logos on websites and letterheads, when they are not. If ATA membership is important to you, ask for the membership number. You will be surprised how many will not even answer back. Please note that ATA does not enforce against improper use of its logo or bogus membership claims.
2. I have a 2-page PDF document, which I translated directly on the Acrobat site, and the translation looks great. Now I have a long PDF. Should I use Adobe’s translation engine?
The first thing you should know is that the longer a PDF, the more likely the translation will be flawed. Short PDFs, saved directly from the software in which the original was prepared, often result in good conversion and translation, let’s say, a 2-page PowerPoint with no imported graphics. However, even a 2-page PowerPoint with imported graphics will not be fully translated. PDFs made with scanned documents or photos will provide mostly or entirely uneditable output, and the Adobe translation engine will not work on these, in any shape or from. Same with documents with handwriting. Even long documents with a PDF saved in the original software will likely miss entire pages/slides/sections, create confusing tables, and may not convert or translate at all.
3. I saw an online advertisement for a translator (not a company) that does certified translations. Yet, the advertisement does not mention their name. Should I trust it?
No, don’t trust it. Name omission is a red flag. Translators that do not identify themselves by name are obviously hiding something. They may have a criminal record that may include fraud, they may exaggerate their credentials (claiming to be a sworn translator in the USA, for instance) and professional history or may have a bad reputation in the translation industry.
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