WHAT YOU SHOULD DO BEFORE SUBMITTING DOCUMENTS FOR TRANSLATION
By Carlos de Paula, who has translated over 100,000 documents from over 50 countries and territories.
1) First, make sure the document is complete. Sometimes people make a copy of the front of a document, and there is information in the back and it is not submitted for translation.
2) Make sure there are no typographical errors in the document. If there are, I will not be able to make changes on my own. Once I translated four documents from a client from Ecuador, her name appeared differently in all four documents.
3) If the original document has an expiration date, make sure you get an updated document. Expired documents may be rejected. This is especially applicable to Good Conduct Certificates.
4) If the original is handwritten it is a good idea to transcribe it in the original language before submitting it to me.
5) When you order translation of financial documents (bank statements, tax returns, invoices, bills, etc.) make sure whether the recipient requires conversion of financial figures. We will gladly provide it without extra cost and indicate the source for foreign exchange information.
6) Medical documents often have medicine names. These can be local brands, which are not sold under those names in the U.S.A. Unfortunately, we cannot change the name.
7) We cannot provide G.P.A.s for academic transcripts. After you receive your translation, you must submit it to evaluation by a Naces.org member.
(877) 626-0642
WhatsApp (786) 543-1687
https://legaltranslationsystems.com
SHOULD DOCUMENT TRANSLATIONS LOOK EXACTLY LIKE ORIGINALS WITH SIGNATURE REPRODUCTIONS AND ALL?
By Carlos de Paula, who has translated over 100,000 documents from over 50 countries and territories.
I still remember my first desktop scanner. It worked well, as far as scanning pages, but OCR in the 90s was still quite undeveloped, so OCR output was usually an abstract work of art when you tried to use it.
In the past few years, as technology improved, OCR, especially when converting certain types of PDF, has produced almost perfect documents.
Several new translation start-ups came into the scene and got the notion that reproducing originals as certified translations was the way to go. This disruption has made aesthetic appearance more important than actual content, and I have personally lost a few clients in the last few years, because I refuse to recreate originals as translations, with reproduction of country’s coat of arms, QR codes and even signatures.
It is not so much that there is a lot of work involved, it is actually easy to do if you got some PDF handling skills, which I do. The fact is that reproducing logos and even copyrighted forms without permission is a violation of U.S. and international law. Placing a scanned officer’s signature on a translation is also a violation of law, tantamount to forgery. Such misuse, I suppose, could be averted if authorization is obtained from the owners of logos, coats of arm, form copyright and signatures, but no one bothers to give such authorization. Not worth it for the pittance those companies charge, so the law gets violated, and the client is happy carrying with their law infringing document, even if there is no intent to defraud.
This is not done only by ruthless companies located offshore who care less about American law. In fact, some very large U.S. translation companies are doing this and widely publicizing it on their websites, for all to see.
I for one will continue to refuse to reproduce other people’s intellectual property and signatures on documents I prepare. To me documents that feature such reproductions look like forgery, and I am surprised nothing has been done by Federal agencies.
A FEW MORE TIPS ON SUBMISSION OF CERTIFIED TRANSLATIONS
By Carlos de Paula, who has translated over 100,000 documents since 1982.
There are a few reasons why a translation may not be accepted by the likes of USCIS. The top reason is the version you have translated does not match the document in the original language. You may have several copies of your document (birth, marriage, divorce, death certificates, academic documents) and submitted a translation done from one original and submitted another original. Remember, whenever filing a translation you must always submit a copy of the document in original language. How can they differ?
1) the date of issue of the document is different. Everything else matches (format, content), except the date, one issued in 2026, the other, 2016.
2) you have two copies of the document, issued in the same day, but the document has an individual serial number; the one on the translation does not match the submitted original. Sometimes the problem is not the document’s serial number (it may not have one), but maybe an authentication number that differs, because you have different copies.
3) you have documents that are issued in different formats. Certain countries, like Brazil, change the format of documents often. Older Brazilian birth certificates contain much less information than current ones, so you must make sure you submitted documents that match. Venezuela has multiple personal document forms.
4) you have a document, say, a birth certificate from the European Union. You had the EU standard form (in French) translated, and submitted a different, country specific form in your language.
5) the document comes from a country with a different alphabet than the Roman alphabet, and the transliteration does not match the information you have on prior or current visa or immigration applications. Always make sure the transliteration on a translation matches the previously submitted information.
6) there are misspellings in the original document, which you had not noticed before.
7) you submitted multiple documents, and there is conflicting information between documents (names, dates, places, gender, marital status).
8) you had the document translated by a Notary, who notarized his own signature. That is a violation of notarial law in every state.
9) you had the translator do the translation of one page of a 2-page document and submitted the 2-page original version.
10) the translator (most likely AI) failed to reverse day and month in dates.
11) the original contains a material error, for instance, the date of issue is earlier than the date of a fact on the document. This is rare, but it happens.
12) the original is handwritten, and you did not check the translation. Handwritten documents are often illegible, so you should always check and tell the translator if something needs fixing.
13) the receiving entity had strict submission requirements (for instance, translations for FCCPT) that were not met.
14) the receiving entity required notarization and full affidavit from translator, and the submitted translation did not comply with either or both requirements.
15) the translation was done abroad and it is not notarized and/or apostilled.
16) you followed wrong ChatGPT procedures, rather than follow the experienced translator's instructions.
Remember that translations are always checked by the recipient. The person checking may not speak the language, but can read names and dates, and any red flag may result in refusal. Before you send a document for translation read it to make sure that everything is OK with the original. And after you get the translation, make sure the documents correspond. I know, it is easier to blame the translator, but often it is not our fault.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top AI Translation editor as well.
A FEW MORE ISSUES CONCERNING CERTIFIED TRANSLATIONS
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.
A NOTE ON TRANSLATION OF BRAZILIAN BIRTH CERTIFICATES
By Carlos de Paula
In my 44 years as a translator in the USA, I have literally translated tens of thousands of birth certificates from dozens of countries. Brazilian birth certificates represent a large percentage of this figure, for obvious reasons.
There are currently two types of birth certificates these days. One certificate presents the information in a form which is filled out by the Civil Registry. The other is a full-text birth certificate (certidão de inteiro teor), which provides a literal narrative of the record.
For reasons that are not worth speculating, USCIS often rejects the filing of the Brazilian form birth certificate and requires its replacement by a full-text certificate. Therefore, my advice to Immigration Attorneys is to tell the client to request the full-text certificate from the start. One client had to translate four different versions of her birth certificate because of a contradiction found in a divorce decree.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top Brazilian Portuguese translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top Portuguese AI Translation editor as well.
NOT ALL PDFS CONVERT EQUAL
By Carlos de Paula
Professionals who only occasionally handle PDF files besides merely opening a file may have a distorted view of the extent of the technology.
There is a perception that all PDF conversions are perfect and create editable documents. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
It all depends on which type of file was used to create the PDF file in the first place. If the file was a graphic file, such as GIF or PNG file, converting it into a Word file will likely result in a file that cannot be edited. OCR may pick up 10% of the text correctly, the rest will be useless garbage. That applies to most scanned documents.
I have worked on hundreds of documents from a client that sends me PDFs of files that were obviously created from PowerPoint. You would be amazed as to what can happen in such cases: converting the file from PDF to PowerPoint may result in something that cannot be edited, while converting it into a Word file may result in a semi-workable document.
There is great emphasis on formatting these days, in fact sometimes it seems formatting is more important to some people than content. Therefore, it is always best to provide original files to the translator. When a translator spends too much time dealing with formatting issues, unfortunately, quality suffers.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top AI Translation editor as well.
CERTIFIED TRANSLATION OF EMAIL, TEXTING OR WHATSAPP CONVERSATIONS
By Carlos de Paula, who has translated over 100,000 documents from over 50 countries and territories.
1) First, make sure the document is complete. Sometimes people make a copy of the front of a document, and there is information in the back and it is not submitted for translation.
2) Make sure there are no typographical errors in the document. If there are, I will not be able to make changes on my own. Once I translated four documents from a client from Ecuador, her name appeared differently in all four documents.
3) If the original document has an expiration date, make sure you get an updated document. Expired documents may be rejected. This is especially applicable to Good Conduct Certificates.
4) If the original is handwritten it is a good idea to transcribe it in the original language before submitting it to me.
5) When you order translation of financial documents (bank statements, tax returns, invoices, bills, etc.) make sure whether the recipient requires conversion of financial figures. We will gladly provide it without extra cost and indicate the source for foreign exchange information.
6) Medical documents often have medicine names. These can be local brands, which are not sold under those names in the U.S.A. Unfortunately, we cannot change the name.
7) We cannot provide G.P.A.s for academic transcripts. After you receive your translation, you must submit it to evaluation by a Naces.org member.
(877) 626-0642
WhatsApp (786) 543-1687
https://legaltranslationsystems.com
WHY YOU SHOULD NOT EVEN THINK OF HIRING PER PAGE TRANSLATION SITES FOR FCCPT TRANSLATIONS
By Carlos de Paula, top syllabus translator for FCCPT use
Not long ago, the translation industry worked as follows: if you needed material translated, you sent it for a quote. If agreed, the work was done. For the most part, work was priced on a minimum job and per word basis, and there was some variation according to language and expedited work.
Then the “per page” translation sites began to pop up all over the internet, offering what appeared to be good deals. In reality, “per page” is not a pricing policy, rather a bait and switch tactic, greatly helped by search engines. Every “per page” site defines a page as having x number of words, that can range between 125 to 250 words. So, when you see the ad for translations for $22.50 a page, you may be inclined to believe that is how much you are going to pay for a 1-page Brazilian birth certificate.
It just occurs that new Brazilian birth certificates have much more than 400 words, if you count all items, so the low-price site changes pricing to “per word”, most of them $0.12 per word. Other sites go further, adding fees for notarization, rush service, print outs, seals, etc. As a result, what appear to be a US$22.50 deal quickly becomes 60 to 70 dollars. Search engines are partly to blame, because rather than requiring ad copy stating “prices starting at $22.50 a page”, they allow “$22.50 a page” with no proviso.
A physiotherapist requiring certified translation of a syllabus for FCCPT has a real problem in their hands. That is because syllabi can range from about 120 pages to 1700 pages, so, the “low-price” 22.50 quickly becomes a very expensive US$ 2,700 to US$ 38,500, that is, if the per page price is used: a per word price would be even higher.
The business model of per page translation sites is simple. They lose money with short documents, in the hope they will get enough long documents to make up for the loss, or enough full charge for pages with a single stamp, or ten, twelve words, that doubles or triples the expected low price. The money they get from short documents is used to dominate online advertising, with the help of platforms that prioritize high price keywords.
That is why a FCCPT applicant should use Legal Translation Systems for syllabus translations (https://physiotherapysyllabus.com). We have been doing translations for FCCPT since the agency started in 1998, and we know what they require in the documents, and provide translations that meet their specifications. When you send your FCCPT files for a quote we do not simply multiply the number of pages by a fixed page price: we look for translatable material and charge accordingly. As a result, the US$38,500 price tag for a 1700-page syllabus from Colombia, quoted by per-page sites, becomes US$1,800.00 when you do it with LEGAL TRANSLATION SYSTEMS. It is not magic; it is knowledge and experience (44 years in business).
Call 877-626-0642, or send a pricing request to legaltranslationsystemsquote@gmail.com
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT PHYSIOTHERAPY SYLLABUS TRANSLATIONS
By Carlos de Paula, Legal Translation Systems Director, Top Physiotherapy Syllabus Translator in the USA
MY FRIEND ATTENDED THE SAME UNIVERSITY AS I, CAN I USE THE SYLLABUS TRANSLATION SHE(HE) DID A WHILE AGO?
Not really, for several reasons:
1) the curriculum may not have been the same, with different elective, optional courses, and internships.
2) the same University can issue syllabi in different formats, changing course descriptions from year to year. Sometimes they issue different syllabi in the same year.
3) even on the same year, they may give you a syllabus with course order which is different from your friend’s syllabus. Evaluators must see the subjects in the actual format of the original.
4) for FCCPT the translation submission must come from the translator, with a copy of the document in original language stamped by FCCPT.
CAN I DO THE TRANSLATION MYSELF TO SAVE MONEY?
No. The translation must be done by a professional translator and properly certified. For the most part, evaluators require receiving the translation directly from the translator to ensure non tampering.
MY SYLLABUS CONTAINS LITTLE DETAILS, IT IS TOO VAGUE. CAN I ASK THE TRANSLATOR TO ADD MORE INFORMATION I FEED HIM?
No, you cannot. Our certified translations are not interpretative. We cannot add or try to explain items in your document. Evaluators will most certainly reject the translation. It has not happened to our translations because we never accepted client’s request to further explain items on the syllabus. Additionally, you do not need to describe to the evaluator what is thalassotherapy, for instance, they know.
WHY IS YOUR PRICE FOR FCCPT TRANSLATIONS SO MUCH LOWER THAN THE OTHER TRANSLATION SITES THAT ARE LISTED FIRST IN GOOGLE?
Because we do not charge per page, we charge for translatable material. The “per-page” sites simply multiply the number of pages by their unit price, including material that is not required (in fact, not wanted) by FCCPT. Plus, they charge a full-page price for a page containing a single stamp. Therefore, you should choose our experience and track record with FCCPT translations since 1998.
I ASKED CHATGPT ABOUT PHYSIOTHERAPY SYLLABUS TRANSLATION REQUIREMENTS. SHOULD I FOLLOW THE SCRIPT?
No. AI frequently hallucinates and compiles information from good and bad sources. It overdoes certain things and forgets very important things. So, AI will tell you that you need certain things done, when you do not need them, and omit very important things you do need. As a result, you may end up paying more for your syllabus translations, especially for FCCPT, because you have followed bad advice. I am not singling out ChatGPT, the same applies to Gemini, Grok, Meta AI, etc.
IERF ASKED FOR A FULL TRANSLATION. IT IS TOO EXPENSIVE, WHAT SHOULD I DO?
That is IERF’s prerogative. You should have considered that before signing up for a less expensive evaluation. FCCPT may charge more for the evaluation, but requires much less material, so, in the end it is less expensive.
I NOTICED MY SYLLABUS IS FULL OF MISTAKES AND ABBREVIATIONS. WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Syllabi often come with misspellings of names of diseases, scientists or even common words. We are often able to correct clear and obvious misspellings. As for abbreviations, we normally provide the English equivalent (for instance, WHO for World Health Organization) or the actual term (for instance, DM we write diabetes mellitus).
CAN I REVIEW THE SYLLABUS TRANSLATION TEXT BEFORE SUBMISSION TO EVALUATOR?
Yes, you can request that. We welcome any grounded suggestions. You will get a copy of the fully certified translation by email.
AI SOMETIMES OVERDOES THINGS
By Carlos de Paula
A client of mine had a problem that seemed impossible to solve. He was born in Croatia, during World War II, and migrated to Argentina with his parents a while after birth. In Argentina an overzealous translator converted his name as it appeared in his birth certificate into the Spanish equivalent. However, the name was never officially changed, and USCIS wanted to see a name change decree. Now in the USA to live close by his daughter, he could not get his green card because all he had was the translation, which converted his name into Spanish. I found the solution easily: I told him to get a copy of his Yugoslavian document in Serbo-Croatian, and I would translate into English properly. Issue solved, happy client.
My dear Argentine colleague failed to observe a major rule in document translation: never translate names.
Guess who does this all the time? You guessed right, AI. AI translation software cares less about translation rules, and normally translates names, last names of people, names of cities and streets that should not be translated. Thus, Miguel easily turns into Michael, and Maria into Mary. Those are the easy ones: Tiago turns into James, for example. Certain cities, for instance, Lisbon, have to be translated (originally Lisboa in Portugal), while others, such as Paris, are not. AI may be compelled to translate Sao Paulo into Saint Paul, quickly turning a Brazilian into a Minnesotan. By the way, names of Academic Institutions are by convention not translated as well. In a simple document this is easy to pick up and correct, in a large one or in a book translation full of names it can turn into a nightmare.
Additionally, AI Translation makes a huge confusion with dates, often failing to invert month and day from some documents, without looking into context. Sometimes it does it right, then wrong in the same document, further compounding the problem. It also has a bit of a problem with commas and periods in numbers.
Notice that transliteration is different from translation, but that is the subject of another post.
An AI Translation editor with a keen eye for detail and experience should be hired to avoid confusion.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top AI Translation editor as well.
ARE WE BEING DUPED INTO THINKING AI IS THE NOVELTY OF THE YEAR?
By Carlos de Paula
This is a strange world we are living in. Even garbage collection companies are now claiming to use AI! I kid you not.
Everybody is in, just like during Y2K, ISO Standards, the dot com craze, Carbon credits, SEO, blockchain, the cloud. A tsunami of AI claims has appeared suddenly, as if this were something new. Coaches, authors, pundits, advertising agencies, the media, seminar promoters are reeling in the bucks, most are not really offering much but smoke and screen, but everybody is feeling modern and signing up.
Digital sound sampling has been around since the 80s. Intelligent phone systems have been around for a while. Good old Alexa was launched in 2014! Google is based on AI since day one, only the word algorithm is not all that sexy. Image altering cell phone filters have been available for a long time. What is Photoshop but AI? Health coverage decisions have been made by AI for many years. Decisions on prioritizing social media posts have been made by Facebook, Twitter, etc since they came about. Who do you think feeds you playlists on Spotify and youtube? Also, who do you think calculates Uber prices since 2010? Finally, translation AI has not improved all that much in the last 20 years, despite the hype.
The list goes on.
You get the point. There is nothing new about AI, it is not as innovative as purported to be. In fact, the phrase AI slop has been coined back in 2020, when offensive (for Christians) shrimp Jesus memes proliferated on the internet. That was 5 long years ago.
What changed?
The only noticeable change is that in the last few months most software now come with intrusive AI assistants, in some cases difficult or impossible to remove. In fact, since these started appearing on free and subscription sites alike, computer performance has been dreadful. Simply turning on a computer in the morning can be challenging, until AI sleuths have settled down. What will be done with such information is a matter of concern.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top AI Translation editor as well.
THE TRANSLATION DONE BY SOMEONE IN THE OFFICE WAS REJECTED BY USCIS. WHAT NOW?
By Carlos de Paula
I understand that Immigration law is one of the most competitive specialties in the USA, and getting and retaining clients can be difficult at times. As a result some offices try to keep everything in-house, including doing translations on behalf of clients, to ensure the client does not explore other alternatives. It is called marketing. That is the very reason why I block access to my LinkedIn contact list.
A well-meaning and bright paralegal may be very competent to translate simple documents like birth certificates but might have a difficult time turning out long documents and more complicated documents like divorce judgments and prenuptial agreements. The output often is not the best, but the document is filed anyhow.
I don’t need to tell you that assuming the USCIS officer will not read the document in its entirety because it is long is dangerous. I already mentioned in another post the case of a client who filed a divorce document with an improper date, which resulted in USCIS requiring her birth certificate four times, plus other documents. I have also seen cases being placed on hold because a filed translation was poorly done or inconsistent. This, of course, can cause delays, costly additional filing fees, and put a dent on a layer’s reputation.
Blame it on ambiguous and seemingly lax translation requirements from some agencies, economic considerations, or mistrust, the best thing to do is hiring a professional translator with track record to handle the translations for your office. Freeing the paralegal to do other things, like filling forms, follow-up and contacting clients, might not only be more productive but also influence the bottom line.
In 44 years in business, having dealt with hundreds of lawyers and law offices, I have always considered confidentiality the number 1 priority, protecting clients, both applicants and attorneys. Even if a client complains to me about the services provided by a law office or paralegal, I do not interfere in any way. That is how it should be, even though I know that some people have their own little business networks and unscrupulously divert business from one professional to another, seeking additional gain. Shame on them.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top AI Translation editor as well.
UNDERSTANDING AI TRANSLATION EDITING DOUBLE SPEAK
By Carlos de Paula
AI seems to have taken the world by storm, including the translation business.
One thing you might have noticed is that translation companies have surrendered to the fact that a lot of what will remain of the translation business may be editing of translations done by AI. However, you should know exactly what you might be buying from a vendor, even one you share a great working history. A large part of the industry is in survival mode, and everything might be done for a buck.
In a nutshell, you might be offered different levels of service, from less to more expensive.
These may be referred to as:
RAW MACHINE TRANSLATION
LIGHT HUMAN POST-EDITING TRANSLATIONS
FULL HUMAN POST-EDITING
I will start with the least expensive, something often referred to as RAW MACHINE TRANSLATION.
Believe it or not some companies are actually offering this to clients for a cost. It is the type of thing you should run away from. Why should you pay a company to run huge texts on a translation platform, when you can do it for free? Sure, they will tell you the platforms they have are state of the art, not your regular google translate, but they are just as bad. They might tell you they have industry specific databases, proprietary glossaries for every conceivable subject and all types of stories to convince you, but they might do what you would: run the text and hope it is good. More often than not it is bad, but they will charge you for it anyway.
The longer a text is, the worse the result. AI translation is very faulty when it comes to context, and normally you must break down the text in sections, because it will not translate 30k words in a single session. Heavy formatting will result in worse output. Text from one section might be moved to another, and whole sections might be lost in coding.
If the original text comes from a PDF conversion, results might be even worse. Machine translation often skips whole sections of long text, without explanation or warning, and sometimes repeats whole sections, without reason or warning. Additionally, OCR has severe trouble with accents, formatting, and often fails to convert or hide large sections of huge files. Conversions of power point presentations are even more disastrous.
Using Raw Machine Translation is asking to be fired, lose a case, or anger/offend a client. With some luck, you will come out unscathed. Unless you are well versed in both languages, and have the time to thoroughly edit yourself, you should avoid it at all costs. It is indeed a raw deal.
LIGHT HUMAN POST-EDITING TRANSLATIONS.
This is more expensive than Raw Machine Translation, and what they promise is light human editing, in other words, a qualified translator who knows well both languages, and will make corrections to the text without going crazy. More than likely, you will get text that has been machine proofread and machine edited. With some luck someone with different skill sets might read the entire document and make a couple hundred changes in 30k words, most in the beginning of the text, and you will feel you got a great deal, maybe even great praise from the boss.
When translations are done into English, editing is often done in India, where the editor might have a fair command of English, but understand little to nothing of the source language. In other words, the English might sound good, but entire sections of it will not correspond to what the original text says.
Then there are the “little AI helps”, over translation that can bring dire consequences. I mentioned the other day that AI had over translated ML Account, in a long petition, as “Money laundering account” into Spanish. This was done several times, although ML was clear a reference to a well-known Wall Street, incidentally, mentioned in the text more than once. In the interest of speed someone might have been indicted or investigated for money laundering, if I did not pick up the faux pas.
Such errors are unlikely to be detected by light human translators who are being pressured to deliver huge output for little pay. Remember that agencies are middlemen, and although most say they have specialized inhouse staff to do this kind of job, it is often subcontracted.
At the end of the day, Light Human Post Editing is just slightly better than Raw Machine Translation.
FULL HUMAN POST-EDITING
There should not be no question in my mind, full human post editing is the only way to go for text translated by AI. No business translates text for sport: there is always a reason, and as much care should be used in the translation process as in the production of the original. Originals sometimes take weeks to be signed-off, myriad versions, rewrites, and sizable budgets in terms of person-hours. Perfect translations are expected to emerge in a brief time, for pittance. It has always been so, but now, in this age of AI and Machine Translation the scenario is gloomy. There is a perception that translation is nothing more than a mathematical operation that can be solved in seconds.
Maybe AI translation will be perfect one day. Who knows. But here are a few things that it does very badly that warrant having translated text edited by a qualified, experienced human:
- it messes up dates.
- it over translates things. Remember the ML account translated as Money Laundering account.
- it often includes words out of the blue that are nowhere in the original.
- it messes up formatting
- it is inconsistent changing commas and periods in numbers.
- it is inconsistent with terminology. It may translate X as Y in one line, in the next line it translates it as Z.
- it often uses the wrong translation, not only for technical terms. Even words that a 5-year-old uses can be mistranslated by AI.
- it makes positive statements negative, and vice versa. A definite danger in contracts.
- it excludes text that should not be edited out.
- it repeats whole sections of text.
- amazingly, it commits occasional spelling errors.
- it often fails to read irony, exaggerations and it is bad for context as well.
- it often translates words literally when it should not.
- it often does not identity errors made by OCR in PDF conversion
- it translates names when it should not (unbelievably bad in documents).
- last, but not least, it gets exceptionally low grades in syntax, grammar and style.
There are some more issues, but I do not want to bother the reader. You get the idea.
In other words, considering the cost of having AI translations professionally edited is not that high, and considering that until recently corporate clients were willing to have text proofread and edited by someone other than the translator, it seems a good idea to have someone flying the plane for take off, other than leaving the job for the automatic pilot.
Think about that the next time you have a translation project.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top Brazilian Portuguese translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top Portuguese AI Translation editor as well.
THE G.P.A. QUANDARY
By Carlos de Paula
I have done thousands of translations of academic transcripts from many countries since 1982. These translations normally must be certified and a great many clients ask that I provide a G.P.A..
The ensuing exchange with the customer can be exhausting, because some clients simply do not understand that a translation is provided and certified as a literal translation and cannot be interpretative in terms of grade and content. The best we can do is linguistic interpretation, for instance, providing the rendering “High School Transcript” for Spanish “Bachillerato” (in most, but not all countries), because that is a linguistic issue: a Bachelor’s degree, we all know, is a college degree in English, after all.
However, calculating G.P.A.s in the American system is beyond my authority as a translator. There would be no problem If all grading systems in the world were standard. However, some grading systems range from 0 to 5, others from 0 to 100, yet others from 0 to 20. In some institutions a D is a failing grade, just a few have letter grades outside the USA, and some assign phrasal/word evaluations (Very Good, Satisfactory, Poor, etc.) with no numerical equivalence. Many institutions grade on a curve, others on an absolute basis. Some just issue Pass and Fail grades. In other words, it is a mess, no ISO Standard here.
In the end, most clients accept that the academic evaluation must be done by a company member of NACES, which is the association created by historically recognized evaluators for self-accreditation of its members. Last I heard, such GPA evaluations are quite subjective and can vary greatly from company to company, so there is no consensus. Some companies which are not members of NACES do provide such services, but these can be rejected, but many get away with it.
While a few NACES members provide both translation and evaluation, this combo tends to be more expensive (and take longer) than if I or another translator do the translation, and the document is evaluated by the likes of World Education Services.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top AI Translation editor as well.
PDF CONVERSIONS OF HANDWRITTEN DOCUMENTS
By Carlos de Paula
There is a very optimistic opinion, driven by lots of hype, that AI is able to do just about everything, including frying eggs. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Many people might be surprised that there are still millions of handwritten documents circulating all over the world, mostly issued outside the USA, in countries such as Argentina, Cuba, Russia, Brazil, Italy, France, even England. These can be birth, marriage, and death certificates, but also a vast number of medical documents, from certificates, prescriptions to hospital records. Other documents that surprisingly come in handwritten splendor are academic documents, police reports, affidavits, etc. Occasionally, I still see judge rulings handwritten in paper documents, even in US judgments.
The question that begs is, can AI convert handwriting precisely? I have never seen it done. For the most part it converts handwriting into mumbo jumbo coding, an admission that the software has not understood the writing. The all-powerful AI has limitations, after all.
Quite frankly, cursive styles can be difficult to discern even for human beings. So, these documents always require extra care and should not be taken lightly. Assistance from the client, and other supporting information is always welcome.
An experienced and detail-oriented translator such as me is always required to unveil the mysteries of handwritten documents. After all, much of the new generation is mostly unable to read handwriting to start with.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top AI Translation editor as well.
PRONOUN MIX-UPS: ANOTHER AI TRANSLATION SPECIALTY
By Carlos de Paula
It does not take much to realize that not all languages are similar. Sounds, alphabets, intonations are just some of the obvious differences between Russian and Chinese, for instance. But there is much more than that, much feared grammar. Some languages have articles, others don’t, some have declensions, many do not, several have tons of verb tenses, others have simple verb structures, so on, so forth. One area where AI translation often messes up is personal pronouns.
Take for instance Portuguese and Spanish, two languages where AI wreaks real havoc in the pronoun area.
I have handled many AI edits to and from these languages, and AI makes a real mess of things, which can be troublesome in litigation documents, for instance. AI does have a problem reading context and seems to regard the use of gender in Romance languages a futile nuisance. This can even cause legal issues, when pronouns are wrongly translated and seem to identify the incorrect party. The longer the text, the worst the problem.
That is why a professional, experienced and thorough editor should be retained to edit any text translated by AI.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top AI Translation editor as well.
ARE TRANSLATORS DOOMED TO BE EDITORS?
By Carlos de Paula
In the early part of my career as a translator, back in the 80s and 90s, I did quite a bit of proofreading. Most of the time I was told to stick to spelling, but I faced, quite a few times, poorly constructed sentences, grammatical mistakes, and often ended up editing the text after getting clearance from the client, normally translation agencies. A few became full rewrites.
In the 21st Century, the practice of submitting translations to a proofreader or editor mostly disappeared from the industry, even though agency clients were often told documents were edited. Translations truly edited by a competent editor were costly, so “edit” normally consisted of the document being looked over by a project manager that did not speak the language, using guesswork. As a result, quality declined, even though word processing software spellcheckers improved (they still have flaws), as prices dropped.
That explains the ambiguous, terrible, unclear, convoluted, dry and incorrect writing found in brochures, sales materials in general, websites and the like, produced by translators who have to self edit and work at unreasonable pace to make some money.
With AI, the role of competent editors has come back full power. Although clients would like to think that AI can produce excellent and precise translations for no cost, the output is often subpar and downright dangerous.
Translators may dislike the idea they will now become mere editors, and fear they are fighting for their professional life, however, editing is not really a bad thing. Although one apparently makes less money editing than translating from scratch, that may not be true for seasoned editors such as me, whose experience allows greater productivity. Novices may struggle, though.
See it as opportunity, rather than doom.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top Brazilian Portuguese translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top Portuguese AI Translation editor as well.
JUST HOW GOOD IS AI TRANSLATION?
By Carlos de Paula
I have been exposed to machine translation from the very beginning, so in the 90s I had already tried computer software in a few language pairs. To tell you the truth, they were all very bad back then.
However, time flies when you are having fun, and it does the same when you are not. With time translation software has become better, I must admit. However, most AI translations still sound like AI text, devoid of style and life, incapable of understanding figures of speech, cynicism, irony, humor, nuances, and the proverbial text between the lines.
However, I knew that sooner or later it would be widely adopted as a tool, so in the last couple of decades I continued to study several software titles in myriad languages.
As it stands, AI produced translation still has a major problem: it reads context very poorly. That, in certain languages, can have disastrous consequences, for the same word can have different meanings in the same language, for instance, “recurso” can have several meanings in Portuguese. This can cause all types of nasty havoc. Embarrassment is one such problem. Legal issues are more serious, for, to this day, the most popular AI translation tools around make positive negative, and negative positive, with disturbing frequency. This in a contract can lead to litigation, great expense and loss of face.
Not only that, AI frequently picks up the wrong translation for a given term, often leading to hilarious renderings. Again, translation software fails to connect the dots where the dots are often very important.
Another problem is that AI translation works reasonably when text is well written. As writing skills are in short order these days, AI is often used to make sense of the senseless, haphazardly put together, ghastly collections of words. A badly written text will sound wacky, bizarre, after being put through translation software.
In short, commercial planes are flown by automatic pilot for the longest part of a trip, but qualified pilots have to take-off and land the darn things. It is no different with translations.
Let us face it, one cannot stop the wheels of commerce. Businesses penny-pinch as much as possible when it comes to translation work, it has always been so, for it is often seen as nuisance. Now that it is available a few clicks away, for free, the perception is that we translators have been highway robbers all along.
I saw the writing on the wall and specialized in editing AI produced translations, for it is the future of the written translation industry, whether we like it or not. I have been able to turn atrocities and inaccuracies into good and precise text, even making them enjoyable. When a client comes to me with “a translation he did”, I already know what that means. I only draw the line on certified document translations: I do not accept AI done translations prepared by clients, after all, I have to certify that I did it. Those are done from scratch.
Whether AI will ever reach perfection is debatable. Brazilians, for one, like to be witty, and AI fails to handle wittiness all that well, so that a culturally competent editor will always be necessary. In other words, rather than making it my number one enemy, I decided to coexist with it. We translators have no choice. I am not that handsome to become an influencer.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top Brazilian Portuguese translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top Portuguese AI Translation editor as well.
EDITING YOUR AI TRANSLATION: CONSIDER IT AN INSURANCE POLICY
By Carlos de Paula
I was still a novice in the translation field in the late 80s. Back then, I used to do a lot of interpreting, including in New York Courts. Unfortunately I stopped interpreting years ago due to hearing issues in both ears.
A translation company which is still around occasionally hired me for both written translation and interpretation. They used to pay little and late for large assignments, plus they set the price, but it helped my cash flow. I found in previous jobs that they pretty much hired anybody who claimed to be a translator or interpreter without any vetting.
In this instance I was called to do witness preparation for a jurist who was being used as a legal expert on Brazilian law. He was an older man, very well dressed and spoken, the real deal. At the end of our session, he implored me to return the next day because the interpreter the agency sent the day before was totally unprepared. The gentleman knew enough English to figure the interpreter was mistranslating a lot of what he was saying, making him sound like a simpleton, and was afraid this would tarnish his reputation. I explained to him that the agency assigned interpreters, it was not my choice, and there was nothing I could do. So, I never returned.
There is a huge risk when you run your key presentation text or contract through AI translation software and trust the output with your life. You, a busy executive or secretary, may have looked over the first pages, and found it to be OK. The document has over 10,000 words, and you have no time. Is it worth saving a few hundred dollars, ending up like my reputable jurist friend from the 80s, looking silly and unprofessional?
While AI is clearly disrupting the translation industry, the fact is that usually output is a rough draft at best.
Consider hiring an experienced AI translation editor like me for all your Portuguese needs. It may be a deal maker.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top Brazilian Portuguese translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top Portuguese AI Translation editor as well.
LINGUEE PROVES THE POINT
By Carlos de Paula
Linguee is a nice site that provides two things: a comparative translation feature, which picks up translations from millions of sites worldwide and provides translations for the individually searched terms, and an AI translation platform.
Needless to say, the majority of the results in the comparative side are translations done by AI. And Linguee proves my point, for the results range from excellent, right-on renderings to dreadful out of context mistranslations. In other words, the choice of term lies in the user who may not be an experienced and qualified professional. Linguee proves that as far as translations are concerned, AI goes all over the place and needs human assistance.
The translation platform, which we test ever so often, and which clients use for translation, is alright, but like all other AI translation tools fails to read context, provides weird and confusing renderings for complex sentences, and can be a handful when the original is flawed (lack of punctuation, unclear ideas, improper terminology, missing words, poor grammar, etc).
While the comparative translation feature can be useful to a professional translator, it can be a weapon of mass destruction for people with passing linguistic or technical terminology knowledge.
For further information contact me.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top AI Translation editor as well.
ARE TRANSLATOR-WRITERS BETTER THAN THOSE TO STICK ONLY TO TRANSLATION?
By Carlos de Paula, who has translated over 100,000 documents and written 10 books since 1982.
Translation is derivative work, and for that same reason the craft has been demeaned through the ages. Two folks I appreciate, German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci did not love translators at all. Both thought translators ruined their ideas and beauty of their texts. Schopenhauer hated almost everything and everybody, even the French and English languages he considered vulgar, so it is not surprising he hated translators. On the other hand, the translator who often translated Fallaci’s works into English said the Italian author was under the delusion that she wrote English well, but she in fact wrote in Orianese, weird English written with Italian syntax, grammar and idioms.
The major advantage a Translator-Writer has over translators who veer off writing their own material is that creative writing gives them better vocabulary skills and editing ability than their peers. One should not be very fanciful or poetic when translating a legal judgment or medical report, however, you would also be surprised how many judges and lawyers flex their literary muscles every so often, with mixed results. Creative writing does boost one’s capability of interpreting poorly written text even in those disciplines.
I have written over ten books, most in English and Portuguese, and literally tens of thousands of blog entries since 2003. Most of these I pulled off from the web, due to copyright considerations and AI use. I also wrote newsletters on several subjects in the early 90s, and published a magazine called Brazil Sourcing for a few years. I had articles published in several newspapers, in Brazil and USA.
In short, I find that my creative writing skills help me tremendously in editing AI produced translations and am glad I have been doing it for decades. I did not become a famous author, but writing from scratch helps me adapt to this new environment.
SHOULD I HIRE A COMPANY THAT USES STANDARD TABLE TEMPLATES FOR BIRTH CERTIFICATE TRANSLATIONS?
By Carlos de Paula, who has translated over 100,000 documents from over 50 countries and territories.
In a nutshell, no.
Usually, a standard template (a one size-fits-all table template, if you may) is used by people who are not qualified translators, such as multiservice companies. They simply create a table with name of person, date of birth, place of birth, names of parents, and other data they seem important, and fill it in. Such templates often miss out important information which is checked by the receiving authority (mainly USCIS) and results in the rejection of the cheap translation. You have simply wasted money.
Additionally, these translations are often self-certified by a notary who “prepared” the translation. This is also improper. A notary cannot certify their own signature, resulting in the rejection of the cheap translation. You have simply wasted money.
Rejection of a translation usually slows down processes, resulting in more costs and wait-time. Additionally, they may raise an unwanted and unnecessary red flag for the case.
THE RELIABILITY OF CUSTOMER REVIEWS
I have often been offered the “services” of customer writing review companies that specialize in writing praiseful reviews for a charge. Although I understand part of the internet culture involves the reliance on user experience, reviews are for the most part questionable for this very reason, many are artificial. Except for sites such as hotels.com, which require the reviewer to be a paying customer, online reviews at their best should be taken with a pinch of salt. Let me correct that, a lot of salt.
A personal case in point. I signed a contract with a local contractor that had rave online reviews. It turned out to be a disaster. Communication zero after the contract was signed, they could not even get a permit, no accountability, they changed personnel all the time, the few people that actually spoke to me were rude, so the whole thing seemed to be one big scam. It is a good thing I did not pay a cent under the deal and managed to have the contract cancelled. A few months later I checked, and the number of reviews had blossomed into multiple hundreds, just a few dozen revealed the true scam side of the company, replicating my experience.
It is no different in the translation business.
Recently, a translation startup with no google reviews published a section on its own site with not a few, but thousands of testimonials, calling them reviews. Just so it would not look doctored, there were a few negative reviews. One could tell the reviews came from the same source, for they were all written in the same excessively praiseful style, with no spelling or grammatical errors one often finds in reviews, especially from an international audience.
What is a client to do? I look at the negative reviews in google or yelp. Disclaimer: I have a negative one in google, which incidentally, is unjustified, because the obviously emotionally unbalanced client claimed to have left originals with me, when she left copies that were discarded after she disappeared for months. Based on the negative reviews, I assess the risk and compare the number of negative reviews relative to positive ones that look legitimate. This should work for translations as well.
Carlos de Paula is one of the top translators in the USA since 1982. And now a top AI Translation editor as well.
DO YOU REALLY KNOW WHO IS HANDLING YOUR SENSITIVE INFORMATION IN TRANSLATIONS?
By Carlos de Paula, who has translated over 100,000 documents from over 50 countries and territories.
Most likely you have been driven by low costs to hire a company for certified translation work. The output is often a certification which does not have the name of the actual translator, no signature, no notarization, not even a date.
There are hundreds (if not thousands) of "translation companies" globally that are run by people who are not translators, who do not identify themselves, and who may not be even in the United States. The question that begs is, who is really preparing those translations with poor certification?
Lots of these companies operate outside the USA. They hire low-cost, high-volume preparers in Asia to make a document that looks graphically legitimate. If the company is charging US$20 per page, you can be sure it is paying the translator (a preparer, really, who is just running the text on AI) less than US$10. No US translator can survive on US$ 10 a page.
That is just one aspect of the issue. The other important question is, who is handling sensitive items such as your date of birth, income, bank statements, Social Security and other tax id numbers, current address, possible criminal record, medical data, signature, and the like? Working with these companies will likely expose your data to the dark web. So, the choice is obvious. Know your translator.
(877) 626-0642
WhatsApp (786) 543-1687
New text element
