Services

I provide general, engineering and legal translation services from Portuguese into English. Additionally, I provide escort interpreting and English coaching services.

What is involved in translation?

A translator is not simply bilingual. We are trained as translators and trained in specialty areas such as law, medicine or engineering. A translator must fully understand the source language, understand the subject, and write perfectly in the target language. For more information, read this booklet published by the American Translators Association.

What should you expect?

Translation is a service provided by professionals. Similar to consultants, our bottom line is time spent. However, for historical reasons, translations are billed based on the number of words translated (i.e. the number of words in the original document). Extra formatting, such of conversion from a pdf document, may cost extra.

I keep statistics on the ratio of words translated to time spent for all projects. These figures are used to provide a quote after seeing the material to be translated — I compare your text to texts I have already translated to estimate the number of hours it will take. The benefit of charging by word, for you, is that the price is fixed so there are no surprises when the translation is delivered.

How can you help?

There are many ways you can help me provide you with the perfect translation. First, I need to know why you are requesting the translation.

• Is the translation for information only? This is generally the case when only one or two people will be reading the document, then filing it away.
• Will it be valid in a court of law instead of—or along with— the original?
• Will the correctness of the original have repercussions on your business? Sometimes errors or poor wording in an original are corrected in a translation, so let me know if any errors or ambiguity should be pointed out.
• Did your company create the document, or did you receive it from a business partner or as part of research activity? Let me know who I can contact if I have questions.

I ask these questions because:

1. In some cases, not all of the text will need to be translated. Translating and recreating figures and tables in a document received as a fax or pdf file is particularly costly. Not translating text you do not need will be cheaper for you.

2. Texts to be used to convince the reader need a special touch to maintain their persuasiveness.

3. Translations for information purposes (or verification) need to be correct, but the exact register and style need not always be maintained.

Clients often pay one person to translate a document into a foreign language (type 2, above), then pay another person to translate the document back into the original language (type 3) to check the first translation. If the second person is not aware of this, the two transformations of may result in an unrecognizable final text, even if the intermediate translation is very good.

Another example is the correction of errors in the source text. Most translators automatically correct obvious errors in source texts, but in some cases the client needs to know about these errors. The purpose of the translation will indicate how I should treat these errors.

How can you obtain a quote?

I need to see samples of your documents in order to provide an estimate, and the full documents to provide a quote. Since price depends on the number of words and the difficulty of the text, only an estimate can be provided if only one of these two variables is evident. Please contact me via email for a quote or estimate. Your translation will be done Just Right.

Do you need a Brazilian sworn translation?

I am not a sworn translator (tradutora juramentada) in Brazil. All sworn translators must be Brazilian citizens, which I am not. Indeed, I had only just moved to Brazil when the last exam was held. If your translation must be sworn (juramentada), I can provide you with the names of competent sworn translators. I can also provide you with the names of English into Portuguese legal translators. Please contact me for more information.

Do you need a Certified Translation in the United States?

I am an ATA certified translator in the United States, and can provide certified translations of legal documents. My ATA profile indicates this.