Sworn Translation in Rize

To understand what drives the demand for translation in Rize, a glance at the map is enough: to the east a route opening onto the land border, to the north the Black Sea, to the south the highlands, and in the middle, tea. Each of these four produces a different kind of document, and together they shape the language mix of the province into a trio of Russian, Georgian and Arabic.

The work produced by the border

Proximity to the land border is the principal source of demand for Georgian. Work and residence applications, civil registry and marital status documents, small-scale commercial contracts and transport papers all arrive under this heading. Georgian is not a language often called for across Türkiye as a whole; in provinces such as Rize, however, the need is a steady one. We therefore run files in this language on a planned basis.

The paperwork of the tea and of the sea

On the export side, tea production generates analysis reports, packaging and label copy, purchase contracts and product presentations. Fishing and shipping bring vessel documents, seafarer certificates, and insurance and survey reports. The wording used in maritime documents has been standardised internationally; what these texts call for is not a creative translation but the accepted equivalent.

Source	Document	Language
Border and neighbouring ties	Residence, work and civil registry papers	Georgian
Commercial relations	Contracts, invoices, correspondence	Russian
Highland tourism	Accommodation and tour documents	Arabic
Tea industry	Analyses, labels, contracts	Russian, English
Shipping	Vessel and crew documents	English

Highland tourism and Arabic

The flow of visitors heading for the highlands over the summer months concentrates demand for Arabic into one particular season. Accommodation and tour contracts, rental terms and, from time to time, medical and insurance documents come in during this period. Turnaround on this work is usually measured in hours; the visitor is setting off the following day. You can see which languages we work in on the languages page.

What it says on the tea packet

In tea exporting, the packaging is scrutinised as closely as the product itself. The ingredient information on the pack, the description of the blend, the brewing guidance, the production and best-before dates, the storage conditions and the producer’s details all have to appear in a set order laid down by the rules of the buyer’s country. Translating these texts looks like a short job, but every line answers to a requirement; a phrase left out can delay the product reaching the shelf.

Blend and grade descriptions are a matter apart. The classification terms used in the tea trade are settled ones in international commerce, and putting descriptive phrases in their place creates confusion at the buyer’s end. We therefore keep the industry’s own terms and add an explanation in brackets where one is needed.

Alongside the packaging there is a second body of commercial paperwork: purchase contracts, batch-by-batch analysis reports, shipping and insurance papers. In these documents the governing principle is that batch numbers and measurement values are carried across exactly; the latitude allowed in packaging copy disappears here altogether. Seeing two such different kinds of text in a single file is the most distinctive feature of tea export work.

Another problem we meet often in packaging copy is the constraint of space. When the equivalent in the target language runs longer than the Turkish, it may not fit on the pack. In cases like these we prepare a version that keeps the mandatory information and pares back the explanatory sections, and we set out in the delivery note what has been shortened and why; the decision stays with the client.

Besides retail packs there are bulk sale packs, and the rules for those are different. On a wholesale shipment it is enough for the pack to carry the batch number, the net weight and the storage conditions, whereas retail packaging calls for the full set of information addressed to the consumer. The two sets of packaging copy for the same product are therefore translated separately.

With smaller producers the need is a more basic one: working out which of the documents the buyer has asked for genuinely need translating. Going through the list together often reveals that half the file has already been drawn up bilingually.

We have no branch in Rize, and even if we had one a burden of travel would still be left over: settlement in the province is spread along the valleys, and reaching the centre from the districts is not equally easy in every season. Because the translation and the approvals are completed at the office in Ankara, the document is sent from wherever you are, and even on a day when snowfall has made travel difficult the process is not disrupted.

The point at which geography stops being an obstacle

Settlement in Rize is spread along the valleys, and reaching the centre from the districts is not equally easy in every season. Working remotely changes that picture completely: the document is sent from wherever you are, the translation and the approvals are completed in Ankara, and the result reaches you by email or by courier. Even on a day when snow has made travel difficult, the process is not disrupted. You can send us your document through the quote form.