German to Polish Translation

This direction is used when a German document has to be submitted in Poland. The typical applicant has completed a stage of education or a career step in Germany, Austria or Switzerland and is moving to Poland or carrying out an official procedure there. On the target side the two most decisive points are that the translation must come from a sworn translator on the Ministry of Justice list, and that recognition of a diploma may require a separate university procedure (nostryfikacja).

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

Education files predominate in this direction; for diploma applications it is taken into account from the start that the translation alone may not be enough and that the nostryfikacja procedure may also be needed. That widens the set of documents.

Translating these documents means placing German concepts within their Polish administrative counterparts and complying with the sworn translator requirement.

The first question in an application in this direction is whether recognition of a diploma is required; for some diplomas Poland looks beyond the translation for a university recognition procedure (nostryfikacja), and this changes both the set of documents and the process. That is established at the outset; otherwise the application can stall for want of documents.

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

German institutional abbreviations (i.V., i.A., for example) are not carried into the Polish 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.

Since the translation will be subject to the requirement of a sworn translator on the Ministry of Justice list, the document layout is prepared in a way that fits that form of approval; the positions of the signature and seal areas are preserved.

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 Polish

German umlauts and the letter ß are matched to the machine-readable spelling in the passport (ä→ae, ß→ss) and are not confused with Polish’s own diacritical letters. German’s long compound nouns are given in Polish by unpacking them.

The company form GmbH is not automatically converted into the Polish sp. z o.o. structure; the original abbreviation is kept and an explanation added. Although women’s names may be inflected in a Polish text, in an official document the person’s name as it appears in the passport governs.

The grading system is not converted; the German 1–6 scale is explained and the recognition decision is made by the Polish authority. The noun-phrase-based structure of German official style is rebuilt according to Polish sentence order.

Seals and registration details on the document are preserved with their position. Dates are given in day-month-year order, with the comma as the decimal separator; registry numbers are not translated but given with a reference to the record.

For diploma applications it is planned from the outset that the translation alone may not be enough and that the university recognition procedure known as nostryfikacja may also be required; the translation is prepared to the level of detail that procedure demands.

In commercial files, institution names and registry numbers have to be carried over untranslated, with a reference to the record. Since the translation will be subject to the sworn translator requirement, the layout is prepared accordingly.

Consistency of names and terms is maintained across documents belonging to the same person; using a different form on one document makes identity matching in the Polish records system more difficult.

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

For diploma applications the possibility that the nostryfikacja procedure will be needed is taken into account from the start; that widens the set of documents. In commercial files, institution names and registry numbers are given with a reference to the record.

In family files, names and details of kinship are set out clearly. In pension files, period and employer details are preserved exactly.

The chain of approval

Poland requires the translation to come from a sworn translator (tłumacz przysięgły) on the Ministry of Justice list; translations from outside the list are not accepted. The German document is expected to carry an apostille; where a diploma is involved, the nostryfikacja procedure runs separately.

To see these expectations and Poland’s approval regime, look at the country page and the requirements for the document type. Tell us whether the application involves recognition of a diploma, and which institution it is going to, before you send anything.

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The information below is a guide; for this language pair the level of approval is determined by the target institution. The requirements in force on the date of the procedure are what count.