Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Marco Hanson, and I'm a Spanish translator. I want to explain today what a certified translation is, when you might need one, what it looks like, and what happens with the translation once it's finished. A certified translation in the United States means a translation that includes a certification statement, just like an affidavit from the translator, that's signed and dated and has contact information and says, basically, this is a legitimate translation. I'm a professional, I'm fluent in both languages, and I certify the accuracy and completeness of this translation. There are many different purposes for certified translations. They're often legal documents, like birth certificates or marriage records, death certificates, wills. Sometimes they're academic documents, like transcripts and diplomas, or credentials, like a driver's license or a voter's registration card from another country. So people need certified translations when they are conducting some legal or official transaction between two countries, coming from one country, going to another, sometimes as immigrants, sometimes as exchange students, sometimes looking for a job in a new country. So a certified translation has three parts, and I have a sample here of a marriage certificate. This is the title of the document. Here's my statement saying that it's complete and accurate and that I'm qualified to translate it. And then I have my stamp, my signature and date, my contact information down on the bottom. And then the next page, this is the way I arrange them, there's different ways to do them, is an image of the original document, followed by a translation of that same document, and then an image of the backside of that document, and a translation of the backside. If you are submitting your certified translation to USCIS, the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service, it doesn't have to be notarized, but for certain other purposes, like getting a driver's license or registering your vehicle in some jurisdictions, applying for a passport or visa, or anything that will later be apostilled, you need a notarization, so the certification statement will look a little bit different. Here's the same original certification followed by a notarization by a notary public saying I have verified the identity of the translator signing this certification. An apostille is a document issued by a Secretary of State. It can be the U.S. Secretary of State or the Secretary of State of any of the states in the United States. Here in Texas, there is an apostille and authentications office in the Secretary of State building across the street from the Texas Capitol. So if somebody is sending a document that originated in the United States to a foreign country for any of a number of transactions with the government of that country, sometimes they're required to get the original apostille and a certified translation also apostilled. And so we can prepare the translation and certification, and for people who are in Austin, they usually carry it to the Secretary of State themselves for the apostille, that final page on top, or for people outside of Austin or who are in a hurry, we can handle the courier service for the apostilling as well.