Polish to English Translation

This direction is used when a Polish document has to be put before an English-speaking country. The large Polish community in the United Kingdom is the group that calls for it most: people submitting documents issued in Poland to an institution in England, the United States, Canada or Australia. The regime of source and target parts company with the pl|de pair: here the document is put before the Anglo-Saxon declaration system.

Concrete examples make the direction clear: someone starting work in England with a Polish diploma, the civil registry records of a family going to the United Kingdom through family reunification, a transcript of marks taken through recognition in the United States. What they have in common is that the document makes sense within the Polish system but the receiving side does not recognise that context directly.

Education and work files form the backbone of demand; the density of the Polish workforce in the United Kingdom keeps professional and civil registry documents in constant demand in this direction. The second group is family and immigration documents.

The shared difficulty with these documents is that the Polish administrative reality is not directly recognisable to an English-speaking authority, and that the special letters of the language and women’s surnames have to be carried across correctly.

Because of the large Polish community in the United Kingdom, a file in this direction is often made up of several documents; diplomas, civil registry records and professional documents are submitted together, and all of them are expected to be translated with the same spelling of the name and consistent terminology. Inconsistent spelling across documents weakens the application.

In Polish documents the form of a woman’s surname, masculine or feminine, is fixed throughout the document; since -ski in one document and -ska in another can create confusion when members of the same family are matched, the form in the passport is taken as the basis.

Polish institutional abbreviations are not carried into the English text as they stand; they are unpacked and, where necessary, given in brackets in their original form. Otherwise they carry no meaning for the official reading in English.

In professional documents the title and the scope of authority are conveyed by function rather than forced into equivalence with an English counterpart; a professional title matched wrongly can leave the recognition process in the receiving country open to dispute.

Technical matters peculiar to Polish into English

The stroked and tailed letters of Polish (ł, ń, ś, ż, ź, ą, ę) are carried across in line with the spelling in the passport; the letter ł is not confused with the English l. Place names are not translated but preserved in their original spelling.

Women’s surnames differ from the masculine form (-ski / -ska); the spelling in the passport is taken as the basis, and the masculine form is not used in one document and the feminine in another. That consistency is maintained across documents belonging to the same person.

The heavy case inflection of the Polish official register is resolved into prepositional structures in English; each condition is set out separately. The Polish grading system (2–5) is not forced into equivalence with an English counterpart but explained.

Institutional names are rendered according to their function; registry numbers are not translated but given with a reference to the record. The seal and registration details on the document are preserved in place.

Since the Polish diploma system rests on the European higher education framework, the credit and level information in the transcript is preserved openly; the recognition body assesses on the basis of that data.

Because dates in Polish documents are given in day-month-year order, the month is written out in words in the English translation. Since the decimal separator in figures is a comma, the notation is adapted while the value is preserved in the move into English.

Owing to the border changes after the Second World War, place names may appear in different forms in some older documents; these names are preserved as they stand and an explanation is added where necessary.

Which documents call for this direction

• Diplomas, the świadectwo and transcripts of marks
• Birth, marriage and civil registry records (akt urodzenia)
• Employment, service and criminal record documents
• Bank and income documents
• Professional qualification documents

Education and work files form the backbone of demand; keeping the form of the surname the same across all documents secures the identity match. A breakdown of courses and credits is required.

In family and immigration files the relationships between relatives are set out openly. In commercial documents the company name and registry details are carried across in their original form.

Chain of certification

Because the target is an English-speaking country, the sworn translator system does not come into play: the United States 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 Poland is expected to carry an apostille.

For these differing expectations, look at the certification regime of the target country and the requirements for the document type. Tell us the form of the surname in the passport and the receiving institution before you send the document.

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The information below is offered as guidance; in this language pair the level of certification is determined by the receiving institution. We recommend following the practice in force through official announcements.