About Certified Translation

Scroll down to find out what certified translation is and to read about ATII-certified legal translators.

What is Certified Translation?

A certified translation is a translation that has been stamped and signed by the translator and has a certifying statement confirming that the translation is a true, accurate and correct rendering of the document submitted for translation. A certified translation must reflect the layout of the original document.

Certified translations are generally used for legal, state, contractual or immigration purposes. Typical documents are birth certs, court transcripts, incorporation documents and academic transcripts, i.e. important official documents and documents where translation accuracy is absolutely paramount.

A translator who certifies the accuracy of a translation in relation to an original document in another language carries full responsibility for making such a statement. Therefore, certified translations always require the utmost care and attention to detail.

Certified Legal Translator

As there is an ever-increasing demand in Ireland for the certified translation of legal and official documentation, the Association of Translators & Interpreters Ireland (ATII) introduced an examination in 2006 leading to the professional qualification of “ATII Certified Translator”. The title was revised in 2016 to “ATII Certified Legal Translator” to better reflect the predominance of legal work carried out by this group of ATII translators for the courts, solicitors, companies, private persons etc.

Only members in the top ATII membership category (“Professional ATII Member/MATII”) may apply to take this exam. Typically, the candidates will have at least five years’ professional translation experience and considerable experience in the translation of legal and state documentation. The stringent exam involves the translation of one short document (e.g. birth cert) and one A4 page of continuous text (e.g. Articles of Association). The scripts are assessed by experts in the field in line with best practice and are graded either as a Pass or Fail.

ATII Certified Legal Translators may only certify their own translations and only in the language pair (e.g. French into English) or pairs for which they are certified. An ATII Certified Legal Translator must be provided with original documents or certified copies and may not certify a document that has been translated from a scanned or faxed copy of the original document.

If you require a certified translation, please use our Translator/Interpreter Search or see the up-to-date list of ATII Certified Legal Translators (pdf) for the language pair required. Please contact the translator directly to discuss the translation assignment.