English to French Translation

This direction is at work when an English document has to be submitted to a French-speaking authority. The target may be France, but equally the Walloon region of Belgium, the French-speaking cantons of Switzerland or the Canadian province of Québec. A frequent situation is a degree obtained in the UK or the USA being needed for a master’s application in France, or an English commercial contract having to be presented in French to a Francophone party.

The principal users of this direction are people with an education or employment history in an English-speaking country who move to a French-speaking one, and companies opening a business run in English to a Francophone market. A student applying to France through Campus France submits an English diploma in French; a family emigrating to Québec has its English civil registry records translated into French; and anyone wishing to submit an English document for a procedure in the Walloon region of Belgium has to keep the right language region in view, because a translation into the wrong language is refused from the outset.

Challenges specific to this pair

Both languages use the Latin alphabet, but French accents (é, è, ç, à) carry meaning, and proper names written plainly in an English text need those marks placed correctly in their French form. In number format French uses a space as the thousands separator and a comma for decimals. French official style is also fond of certain set formulas (par la présente, aux fins de); the short sentences of the English source are adapted to that register, but no condition is dropped.

The most critical layer is terminology. Common law concepts have no exact match in French civil law and forced equivalents make a document contestable; a concept is rendered by its function. There are also differences of administrative terminology between Canadian French and the French of France (some institution and degree names, for instance), which is why the target country must be stated from the start. English degree titles are not equated with a French degree; they are conveyed in their original form with an explanation, and the recognition decision is left to the institution concerned.

The document concepts of the French administrative order also differ from the English source, and that difference is made visible in the translation. In France, education applications generally expect the document to be submitted together with an official layer of certification; the English source document must have obtained that layer in its country of issue. Because some institution names diverge between the Walloon region of Belgium and France, the administrative vocabulary of the target country is taken as the basis. Québec, for its part, uses its own immigration and recognition bodies; in a file going there, terms are chosen according to Canadian French usage. Another practical point is the consistency of names and institutional equivalents in multi-document files: when a diploma, transcript and civil registry record are submitted together, the person’s name and the equivalent of the issuing institution must be written the same way in every document. The positions of seals and signatures in the source document are preserved with a note in the translation; the page layout is adapted to French presentation, but the content of the document is left untouched.

Which documents call for this direction

Education applications lead the way; English diplomas, transcripts and course descriptions are requested together in Campus France and Francophone university procedures. They are followed by commercial contracts, powers of attorney and declarations of conformity, and by the civil registry records of family and residence procedures. Course descriptions carry particular weight in applications to Francophone universities; since the name, credits and short description of every course are assessed separately, the content is not summarised. On the commercial side, the French version of a contract run in English has to reflect the parties’ obligations exactly; the loss of a single condition makes the contract contestable. In family procedures, the names on birth and marriage records are expected to carry the same spelling as the other documents in the file.

• English diploma and transcript (Campus France and Francophone university applications)
• English commercial contract, power of attorney and declaration of conformity
• English birth and marriage records (family and residence procedures)

Chain of certification

France expects the translation to be made by a traducteur assermenté on the official list of a court of appeal (Cour d’appel); Belgium applies a sworn translator (traducteur juré) and Switzerland cantonal notarisation. The translation can be prepared as a sworn translation at our office in Ankara and completed with notarisation and an apostille, but for final acceptance most authorities want a translation recognised locally; check the regime of the country you will apply to in advance.

You can go through the requirements by document type, upload your document to see the page count and the current price from the card above, and look at unit prices.

The figures here are for a typical file; page count and the difficulty of the subject can affect the result. We recommend checking the current position with the authority that will handle the procedure.