Translation of diplomas

[lyon23girl]

Hi,

I have to have my South African diploma translated into French by a sworn translator if I want to have a chance of working in my chosen profession (psychology) in France. All my documents are in English. I have shopped around and have found the translation process to be a very costly one. I am capable of translating my documents into French myself as I'm fully bilingual. What I really need is a person who is sworn translator and who would be willing to validate/correct my translation as opposed to doing the whole translation (obviously this would be remunerated). I've contacted several translation services, but no one seems to be interested in doing this. My whole issue is that I've calculated that translating all my documents into French would cost me a small fortune. . This in no way guarantees that the French authorities will validate or recognize my diploma. It's a lot of money to spend with no guarantees of an official recognition or the possibility of working at the end. If anyone has had the same issues as me and has managed to negotiate this possibility with a translation service, I would be most interested in hearing from you.

Please don't mention names of companies or services as this would be "proselytizing" which is not at all my intention.

Many thanks!

[frogblogger]

Go to the SFT (Sté Française des Traducteurs Professionnels) site. I find it very difficult to use, but if you can work out how to search for a sworn translator, quite a few of those will do a 'correction' or 'révision'.

I stuck in 'france expert' in the 'recherche simple' box, and got 173 replies, a large proportion translating into French from English, and a fair few sworn translators amongst them.

They are independents as opposed to agencies, so you might be able to come to a good arrangement if you can find one with not much on.

Alternatively there's the 'traducteurs assermentés annuaire'. 440 sworn translators around France, translating from English to French.

The second one is probably your best bet, I don't see why you won't be able to find a sworn translator prepared to rubber stamp a decent translation.

Coincidentally another new member wanted information about practising pyschotherapy in France today, and I replied with this information...

By way of info from this site

You may already be aware of this organisation, but they might have some useful suggestions with respect to the translation of diplomas, you never know.

[lyon23girl]

Thanks so much for your suggestions. I will look into it asap and hopefully someone will be willing to accept the rubber stamping. Regarding the contact details for the recognition of psychology diplomas in France, I have already been in contact with Mrs Cantonnet who is very pleasant and helpful and who has sent me the rather lengthy list of requirments necessary in order to get a degree recongnised. It's quite daunting when you see all that is required, especially in terms of translation, but it's even more discouraging to have studied for 6 + years
and not be able to put it to good use.

Originally Posted by frogblogger

Go to the SFT (Sté Française des Traducteurs Professionnels) site. I find it very difficult to use, but if you can work out how to search for a sworn translator, quite a few of those will do a 'correction' or 'révision'.

I stuck in 'france expert' in the 'recherche simple' box, and got 173 replies, a large proportion translating into French from English, and a fair few sworn translators amongst them.

They are independents as opposed to agencies, so you might be able to come to a good arrangement if you can find one with not much on.

Alternatively there's the 'traducteurs assermentés annuaire'. 440 sworn translators around France, translating from English to French.

The second one is probably your best bet, I don't see why you won't be able to find a sworn translator prepared to rubber stamp a decent translation.

Coincidentally another new member wanted information about practising pyschotherapy in France today, and I replied with this information...



You may already be aware of this organisation, but they might have some useful suggestions with respect to the translation of diplomas, you never know.

[Bevdeforges]

Be careful - the idea of having documents translated by a "certified" translator has less to do with the translation itself than with the idea of validating the document. I don't know what process the "translators" use for validation, but I do know that the translation community in France has a very hard core and powerful union that more or less dictates pricing and procedures.

I have had to have several documents translated by a traductor assermenté - between my immigration, marriage and naturalization here in France. Best deal I found was about 64€ per page, even when the entire "document" was a standardized form that I'm sure is stored in the translator's computer as a template.

Shop around to see what kind of a deal you can strike. But don't be surprised if you get no discount for having translated the document yourself or for having a standard form that "everyone knows" already. It's how it works here in France. And chances are, you need to find a translator who is "sworn" for South African documents. Someone who "just" translates English language documents for any other country will not do.
Cheers,
Bev

[lyon23girl]

I haven't shopped around much, but 64 Euros a page is pretty much what I'm looking at per page. When you consider that I have at least 30 pages to translate, the total price is really very high. My documents are really standard. They’re basically a description of my course work (6 years worth - standard international university jargon) my grades and my internship evaluation + my degree certificates.

I first moved to Belgium before coming to France straight after completing my studies and I was confronted with similar hurdles to those I am currently facing in France. Then someone suggested I go to the Flemish community as opposed to the Walloon community to get my degree accredited. I was pleasantly surprised because they didn’t require any of my documents to be translated into Flemish (unlike the Walloons). They accepted all my English originals. My degree was officially in Belgium and I am now belong to the “ordre des psychologues” there and am qualified to practice. Unfortunately in France, this is not good enough and I need to go through the whole process again but this time with the extra hassle of translating everything (except my thesis, luckily) into French. I really can’t afford to spend 2000 euros translations at this point.

Originally Posted by Bevdeforges

Be careful - the idea of having documents translated by a "certified" translator has less to do with the translation itself than with the idea of validating the document. I don't know what process the "translators" use for validation, but I do know that the translation community in France has a very hard core and powerful union that more or less dictates pricing and procedures.

I have had to have several documents translated by a traductor assermenté - between my immigration, marriage and naturalization here in France. Best deal I found was about 64€ per page, even when the entire "document" was a standardized form that I'm sure is stored in the translator's computer as a template.

Shop around to see what kind of a deal you can strike. But don't be surprised if you get no discount for having translated the document yourself or for having a standard form that "everyone knows" already. It's how it works here in France. And chances are, you need to find a translator who is "sworn" for South African documents. Someone who "just" translates English language documents for any other country will not do.
Cheers,
Bev

[Bevdeforges]

I've just had a brief correspondence with Frogblogger offline, and it appears that (like many things in France) your mileage may vary, depending on where you are located and which officials you are dealing with.

You may want to see if you can negotiate something that would involved getting "sworn" translations of only the key documents (hopefully, the shorter ones - the actual certificates, not the descriptions of course work), with informal translations of the other stuff.

Or maybe this web page will help ENIC-NARIC.net - Your Gateway to Recognition - I found it from the EU webpage on working in Europe. The fact that your qualification came from within the EU should mean that there is a way to recognize it without all the detailed paperwork and translation.
Cheers,
Bev

[frogblogger]

Just to add a little more information to the above,

The fees charged for civil sworn work (for private clients) are not fixed - only those that are charged directly to (ie commissioned directly by) official French government departments are subject to an 'approximately' fixed (and quite high) tariff. I say approximate, because it is not only a matter of the number of pages, the number of words and complexity of each page, as well as the source language, are also relevant.

Therefore rates can go as low as 25 euros per (English/French) page in civil sworn work, assuming an average 250 words, and limited difficulty. Of course wordy, more technical documents may be more. As a result even though rates don't vary quite as wildly as they do for non-official documentation, there is a big range in prices per page (250 words) for a sworn translation. I've seen anything from 25 euros up to 75 euros being asked for, ie in the latter case 0.30 euros per source language word.

Beware 'price-fixing' on a local basis. Nothing illegal about this, but sworn translators in a particular region sometimes arrange minimum tariffs between themselves. As a result do shop around - you can use a sworn translator based anywhere in France, no restrictions apply.

Stands to reason really, but if you go through a translation agency, you are likely to pay a commission that will add substantially to the cost. You get no extra quality guarantees - indeed you rarely have a clue who is actually doing the work. Many agencies aren't employing salaried translators, they are simply middle-men farming the work out to independents. So go directly to the sworn translator for a quote, ask at least half a dozen or so around France, you are far more likely to get a decent price.

Just to make it clearer, it is not the government agency that is commissioning sworn documents in this case, for example. It is the poster herself as a private customer, for eventual provision to government departments. Technically all sworn docs end up with an official department at some point, but it is only where the state dept does the commissioning itself that there is a broadly based fixed tariff at the kind of rate mentioned earlier (60 euros +). On the other hand sworn translations for production in court proceedings I've a feeling are considerably cheaper. Despite the fact government departments are extremely slow to pay up! (There was one case of payment being made after 2 years, a while back, in the papers!)...

Union membership is not compulsory - there are a number of sworn, expert and specialised translators out there who are not members of the SFT and the like. Membership implies conformity with URSSAF etc regulations, and conveys an air of authority and professionalism, but in no way obliges members to apply minimum tariffs. Non-membership doesn't imply less thorough work or less capable translators.

With respect to the language of origin, this is a typically blurred area, but a sworn translator contact of mine regularly does work from UK English, US English, Kenyan English, you name it. Civil sworn work doesn't involve such rigour, even if French state departments may occasionally be more petty. Just imagine if someone arriving from independent Samoa was asked to find a sworn English/French translator hailing from Samoa for a document originating in that country! A pretty hopeless task.

To make a comparison with the rates applying to non-sworn work, here the translator market is much more competitive. Translators doing non-sworn work try to apply a minimum 0.10 euro per source language word within France - understandable because as self-employed workers their social charges here are very high compared to those working from abroad (not just the likes of Belgium and Luxembourg, but in these days of immediate electronic communication, based much further afield - in countries with low taxes, and costs of living a fraction of those in France). You can get a translation into English done in the most 'unlikely' of countries for 2 or 3 eurocents per word... at your peril though!

One last point, for those who think rates are excessive! Believe me, even if certain translations are straightforward, one doesn't actually sit down with the original text and just get on with it; on average, I would say that once I receive a commission roughly half my time is spent translating, while the the remainder is spent on researching terms, checking back with the client about inconsistencies, compiling lists of questions, formatting the text, installing special fonts, quality assurance, etc. Obviously the time spent on this differs according to the complexity, clarity and other special demands of the work I'm tackling, but that's how it averages out for me. So even if in an hour of actual translation I may complete between 250 and 400 words (if I am very lucky), I am effectively working at roughly half that rate. If I do 2,000 words in a day, it's been a good day. Say I'm charging 0.10 eurocents per source word - I am therefore earning between 12.5 and 20 euros per hour. And those that are aware of the social charges that apply to independent workers in France know how little of that is left at the end of the day!

[GALLUS]

If you are looking for an accreditation of your degrees by French Authorities, you can have them translated as explained by other contributors.

There is also an other way which is implicit , which is trying to register at a French University, they will ask for degrees and diplomas, your present what you have (translated) and the University might enroll you (you pay for that) thus certifying your South African degree (let it be diploma, bachelor or masters or higher ).

Same process if your degrees come from a non-recognised institution.


My advice: speak perfect French, coz they will judge you on your spoken language. In some cases holders of masters degree has been asked to register for a Licence (bachelor) degree by some French universities. All depends again from the country of origin of the degree: South Africa might be tricky. I worked for a while at the French Embassy in South Africa and we had to deal with such issues on a daily basis.

[lyon23girl]

Hi,

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately regardless of what route I take, I will still have to translate everything and the translation process is really the problem. I haven't had the time to phone around, but I'm doubtful that any sworn tranlator will accept to significantly reduce their tariffs or rubber stamp a translation which they've have only checked. I'm lucky enough to be fully billingual as I've spoken French since I was a child, so speaking Ffrench is not a problem for me .

Originally Posted by GALLUS

If you are looking for an accreditation of your degrees by French Authorities, you can have them translated as explained by other contributors.

There is also an other way which is implicit , which is trying to register at a French University, they will ask for degrees and diplomas, your present what you have (translated) and the University might enroll you (you pay for that) thus certifying your South African degree (let it be diploma, bachelor or masters or higher ).

Same process if your degrees come from a non-recognised institution.


My advice: speak perfect French, coz they will judge you on your spoken language. In some cases holders of masters degree has been asked to register for a Licence (bachelor) degree by some French universities. All depends again from the country of origin of the degree: South Africa might be tricky. I worked for a while at the French Embassy in South Africa and we had to deal with such issues on a daily basis.

[frogblogger]

Just to confirm, you should be able to get close to 25-30 euros per relatively straightforward 250 word page by shopping around, and I know for a fact that translators don't turn their noses up at draft versions that simplify their job, if a cost-effective compromise can be arrived at when they are busy!