German to Czech Translation

This direction is used when a German document has to be submitted in Czechia. The typical applicant has completed a stage of education or a career step in Germany, Austria or Switzerland and is moving to Czechia or carrying out an official procedure there. The most decisive feature of this direction is a formal physical requirement on the target side: the Czech court translator binds the translation to the original document with a ribbon and seals it.

Concrete examples make the direction clearer: the person applying to study or for professional recognition in Czechia with a German diploma, the business submitting German company documents to its Czech subsidiary, the family taking the record of a child born in Germany to a Czech authority. The source carries the German administrative world; the target assesses it according to Czech administrative language and the ribbon-bound approval system.

Business and investment activity in the border region makes commercial documents a frequent request in this direction; registry, signature and contract documents are translated regularly. In these files the ribbon-binding requirement is taken into account from the start.

Translating these documents means placing German concepts within their Czech administrative counterparts and complying with the formal physical requirement.

The first step in an application in this direction is to determine which documents will be combined into a single file, because the Czech court translator binds the translation to the original document with a ribbon, and the procedure cannot move forward unless that physical unity is planned from the start. The order and scope of the documents are therefore clarified in advance.

German diploma and degree names are given in their original form with an explanation, rather than according to their counterpart in the Czech higher education framework; the recognition decision is made by the Czech authority. Credit information is preserved in a comparable form.

German institutional abbreviations (i.V., gem., for example) are not carried into the Czech text as they stand; they are unpacked and, where necessary, given in their original form in brackets. In powers of attorney the formula setting the limits of authority is preserved to the letter.

In commercial and residence files the documents are submitted as a series; the company name, the names of the parties and the amounts are carried across in exactly consistent form from one document to the next. That coherence is what makes the ribbon-bound file look consistent.

In pension and insurance correspondence, transferring the periods worked and the employer names exactly has a direct bearing on the calculation in the receiving country; date ranges are given particular attention.

Technical issues specific to German into Czech

Women’s surnames call for attention in the reverse sense in this direction: in the context of a Czech text a woman’s surname is usually inflected with the suffix -ová, but in an official document the person’s original surname as it appears in the passport governs; the suffix is not added at will, and the spelling in the source is preserved.

German umlauts and the letter ß are matched to the machine-readable form in the passport (ü→ue, ß→ss). German’s long compound nouns are given in Czech by unpacking them.

The company form GmbH is not automatically converted into the Czech s.r.o. structure; the original abbreviation is kept and an explanation added. English or German abbreviations are unpacked and, where necessary, given in brackets.

Since the translation will be bound to the original document with a ribbon, the page layout and the order of the documents have to be prepared in a way that fits that physical requirement. The German 1–6 grading scale is not converted to the Czech scale but explained.

The noun-phrase-based structure of German official style is rebuilt according to Czech sentence order. Seals and registration details on the document are preserved with their position.

The date stays in the German day-month-year order but is given in a form that follows Czech usage; in number formats the comma is used as the decimal separator. Registry numbers are not translated but given with a reference to the record.

Because the ribbon-binding requirement is strictly applied, which documents will be combined into a single file is planned at the outset; this prevents delays in the process.

Which documents call for this direction

• German or Austrian diploma, Zeugnis and transcript
• Birth, marriage and residence records
• Trade registry extracts and signature documents
• Pension and social security correspondence
• Powers of attorney and court documents

The German 1–6 grading scale is not converted to the Czech scale; it is explained. Since the ribbon-binding requirement is strictly applied, which documents will be combined into a single file has to be planned at the outset.

In commercial documents the company form and registry number are given in their original form. In family files, names and details of kinship are set out clearly.

The chain of approval

In Czechia the translation is produced by a court-appointed translator (soudní tlumočník), who binds it to the original document with a ribbon and seals it; this formal physical requirement is strictly applied. The German document is expected to carry an apostille.

To see the details of this requirement and Czechia’s approval regime, look at the country page and the requirements for the document type. Tell us which documents will be combined into a single file, and which institution they are going to, before you send anything.

Upload your document to see the page count and the current fee, and compare unit prices.

The values here are for a typical file; the page count and the difficulty of the subject may affect the result. For definitive information, go by the relevant institution’s current announcements.