Norwegian to English Translation

This direction is used when a Norwegian document has to be submitted in an English-speaking country. The typical applicant is someone who studied or worked in Norway and is now applying to a university, an employer or an immigration authority in the USA, the United Kingdom, Canada or Australia. The document carries the Norwegian administrative order, while the authority that will read it assesses it according to Anglo-Saxon culture; this passage between two systems means the translation is not merely a translation of language but of institutions.

Concrete examples make the direction clear: a researcher applying for a doctorate in the USA with a Norwegian university diploma, the service records of a specialist who worked in the Norwegian oil and maritime sector and then moved to the United Kingdom, the civil registry and birth records of a family relocating to Canada. What they have in common is that the document is meaningful within the Norwegian system while the receiving side does not recognise that context directly.

Education files are the backbone of the demand; the international standing of Norwegian higher education keeps diploma and transcript translation in constant request in this direction. The second group is employment and civil registry documents, the third professional qualification documents. In these files the documents are usually submitted together and are expected to come from the same hand.

The shared difficulty of these documents is that Norwegian administrative reality is not directly recognisable to an authority working in English, and that the two written standards of the language have to be read correctly; the translation carries these differences into the target system without making a display of them.

Technical points specific to Norwegian into English

The issue peculiar to this pair is the two written standards of Norwegian: Bokmål and Nynorsk. Which standard the document is written in may affect the choice of terms, yet in an English translation both resolve into the same English text; recognising the source standard is needed only for reading it correctly. Confusing the two standards can undermine the consistency of terminology.

The Norwegian letters æ, ø and å are rendered in personal and place names according to the spelling in the passport; arbitrary simplification makes the same name look different in two documents. A fødselsnummer is an identity number, it is not confused with a date of birth, and the translation states that distinction.

Norwegian builds compound nouns; in English these are broken up and paraphrased, because a single English word cannot render them. Institutional names are rendered according to their function; the marking system is not forced into equivalence with an English one but explained, and the decision is left to the destination institution.

The seal and the record details in the document are kept in place. In documents belonging to the same person the passport spelling of the name is carried across unchanged; this keeps the application free of contradiction as to identity.

Since the Norwegian diploma system rests on the European higher education framework, the credit and level information in the transcript is explicitly preserved in the English translation; the recognition body assesses on the basis of those figures and an incomplete rendering delays the process.

Norwegian official style is plain and direct; that plainness is not made ornate as it passes into English, and the clarity of the source is preserved. In documents from the oil and maritime sector, particular care is taken to give technical terms in their international form.

In professional qualification documents the title and the field of competence are conveyed according to their function rather than being forced into an English equivalent; mismatching a professional title can make the recognition process in the receiving country contentious.

Documents for which this direction is requested

• Diplomas (vitnemål), transcripts and course descriptions
• Birth, marriage and civil registry records
• Employment, service and criminal record (politiattest) documents
• Bank and income documents
• Professional qualification and sector documents

Education files are the backbone of the demand; how the marking system works is explained and the credit information is preserved. The passport spelling of names is preserved across all the documents.

In employment files the service record and job titles are conveyed accurately. In family documents the relationships between relatives are set out explicitly; in sector documents technical terms are preserved in their international form. In certificates from the oil and maritime field the names of bodies and qualifications are given together with their international counterparts, which makes them easier to recognise in the receiving country.

Chain of certification

Because the destination is an English-speaking country, the sworn translator system does not come into play: the USA and the United Kingdom ask for a signed statement of accuracy, Canada for a translator registered with a provincial association or an affidavit, Australia for NAATI accreditation. A document arriving from Norway is expected to bear an apostille.

For these differing expectations, look through the certification regime of the destination country and the requirements for the document type. Tell us the passport spelling of the name and the destination institution before you send the document.

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