English to Spanish Translation

This direction is used when an English document has to be submitted to a Spanish-speaking country. The target may be Spain, or it may be one of the Latin American countries stretching from Mexico to Argentina, and these two worlds apply different certification regimes. A common case is a diploma from the UK or the USA being presented to a university in Spain, or an English commercial document being submitted in Spanish for a procedure in Latin America.

The users of this direction include people educated in an English-speaking country who are pursuing a master’s degree or professional recognition in Spain, companies taking their English paperwork into the Latin American market, and people carrying out a family or residence procedure in a Spanish-speaking country. For these profiles the most critical first step is settling the target country from the start, because a text prepared for Spain cannot be presented as it stands to a Latin American country, either in terminology or in certification.

Challenges specific to this pair

The first decision is which Spanish is being targeted: administrative terms and some vocabulary differ between the Spanish of Spain (Castilian) and the Latin American variants, and if the target country is not stated at the outset the text may have to be rebuilt. Date and number formats are rearranged for Spanish usage; since both languages use the Latin alphabet, the transliteration of names is not an issue, but Spanish tildes and accents (ñ, á) are placed correctly.

The second trap is the apparent equivalents between English and Spanish (false friends): words that look alike can carry different meanings, and in an official text that changes an obligation. English degree and institution names are not forced onto a Spanish degree; the original form is kept and the recognition decision is left to the institution concerned. English legal concepts are likewise conveyed into Spanish and Latin American civil law by their function, not word for word.

The breadth of the Spanish-speaking world calls for separate attention in this direction. A university in Spain and an institution in Mexico or Argentina may use different administrative terms for the same concept, and the name of certain document types even changes from country to country. If the target country is not known from the start, the choice of terminology stays incomplete and the text has to be reworked. English source documents may also come from various English-speaking countries; American state documents, British central records and other systems carry different formats, and all of them are carried over into a consistent Spanish presentation. In multi-document applications, the person’s name and the equivalent of the issuing institution are written the same way in every document; otherwise the recognition or residence assessment may see the same person as two different people. The positions of seals and signatures in the source document are preserved with a note in the translation, and while the page layout is adapted to Spanish presentation, the numerical and legal content of the document is left untouched.

Which documents call for this direction

Education files (diploma, transcript, course descriptions) are the core of university applications in Spain and Latin America. They are followed by civil registry records and criminal record certificates, and by commercial contracts and company documents. In university applications to Spain, the transcript and course descriptions form the basis of the recognition and admission decision and are therefore translated in full detail. For Latin American targets, the country and the name of the issuing institution are stated clearly, because the same name may belong to different institutions in different countries. In commercial contracts the essential point is that amounts and currency are not converted, only adapted in format to Spanish usage. In family and residence procedures the names on civil registry records carry the same spelling as the other documents in the file; since jurado certification is expected in Spain and local attestation in Latin America, the document set is prepared as a whole for a single target.

• English diploma, transcript and course descriptions
• English birth, marriage and criminal records
• Commercial contract, power of attorney and company documents

Chain of certification

Spain asks for a translation by a traductor jurado appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAEC); translations from outside the MAEC list are not valid. Latin American countries apply different regimes, such as notarisation, consular certification or a local sworn translator. The country certification regime of the target therefore has to be checked from the start. The translation can be prepared as a sworn translation at our office in Ankara and completed with an apostille; for Spain, however, jurado certification is usually expected locally.

You can review the requirements by document type, upload your document to see the page count and the current price from the card above, and compare unit prices.

This content reflects the current tariff; the delivery time can vary with the working calendar and public holidays. For the conditions in force, consult the institution’s current list of required papers.