Hi,

On the Tokyo Embassy I-130 page, it says

"English translations of all foreign language documents are required. Any foreign language document must be accompanied by a full English translation that the translator has certified as complete and correct. The translator must certify that he/she is competent to translate the foreign language into English."

Is my wife qualified to translate, or do we need to have a professional translator do the translation? If we translate ourselves, do we need the documents notarized? What exactly does it mean "that the translator has certified as complete and correct" and "translator must certify that he/she is competent to translate into English"?

Thanks,
John

Yes she can translate the documents, no need to be notarized.

We did the following without any problem

I ....... certify that this is exact word to word ... to English translation

Copies of documents submitted are exact photocopies of unaltered documents and I understand that I may be required to submit original documents to an Immigration or Consular officer at a later date.

Phone number ....
Address ...
Signed...

Montreal did not allow me to translate my own documents, due to conflict of interest. Check with the consulate: some will allow anyone who is bilingual (except the petitioner/beneficiary in most cases); others will require you hire a certified translator. The consulate is your best source of information,
Good luck, L.

Hmm,

I guess I will have to call the embassy to find out. If there is any one who has experience with the embassy in Tokyo though, I wouldn't mind hearing your experience concerning translating documents.

Thanks,
John

hi,

Your wife can approach the official translators in tokyo and get it done all for a fee

Jigi

Just checking to see if you got any more info on this question as I'm going through the same process myself, have my first scheduled interview in Tokyo in the beginning of April. A friend who went through this last year(also in Japan) said she translated the documents herself without being notarized and said all was good, but I don't know if anything has changed since then. As we have to hand deliver everything in Tokyo, and a trip to and from Tokyo isn't exactly free, I don't want to screw up and have to make another trip.

As of now, I translated my wife's birth certificate and marriage certificate, I'm hoping that's enough. The Embassy website mentions taking the translated marriage certificate into a local consulate(for me Fukuoka) to have it notarized, but when I mentioned doing this to the staff there they gave me a weird look and said they could, but they didn't need to, so it's left me confused as if to I need to get my translations notarized or not.

Hope all goes well, and let me know if you can shine any light on this stuff.

jon

We just went through this at the Tokyo embassy. Only US forms stating a notary is required (Ie: I-134) needs to be notarized. They have a notary at the embassy if you need one for anything (although when I lived in Japan, it wasn't cheap and I'm sure they've raised their prices as they have on everything else)

We got conflicting info on who could translate his birth certificate, so to be on the safe side and avoid delays and many trips to the embassy (as you state..it's not exactly cheap to go there), we sent it to a translation company. It only cost about US$40 and we didn't need to worry about it. I was told that even though he was fluent in English and translates for people and documents when needed for his job at a US military base, that since that is not what his actual job is, that it wouldn't be accpeted. He was never told by the embassy that he couldn't, but we didn't feel like taking a chance and having to redo it. At his visa interview, they accepted all of his docs along with his professionally translated birth certificate and he was in and out of there fairly quickly. Good luck and send me a message if I can give you any other info.

Thanks,

For that matter, what qualifies someone to be a translator? Do they need some kind of license? Or, can they just say that it is their primary job?

Thanks,
Joh