Question on translating Chinese name on English Document Thread poster: Jessicagao
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Jessicagao
Australia
Local time: 08:06
English to Chinese
Hi everyone,
I am translating a marriage certificate and birth certificate from English to Chinese for a client.
She has Chinese name written in Chinese. When I do the translation for her, should I put her name in Chinese or leave it as pinyin( in English)?
If it is required to translate into name in Chinese, should I verify the name written in Chinese by asking for her id?
Thanks a lot for your professional advice!
Jessica
| | | | David Shen 
United States
Local time: 15:06
English to Chinese
+ ...
Hi Jessica,
If your client has provided her name written in Chinese, that would be the name she wants you to use in your Chinese translation.
客户已给中文名，照抄就行。
In fact, next time when you have a similar request from a client who does not provide his or her name already written in Chinese, you should ask for it, because you don't want to be creative when translating people's names for documents.
如果没给，反倒该问。证件翻... See more Hi Jessica,
If your client has provided her name written in Chinese, that would be the name she wants you to use in your Chinese translation.
客户已给中文名，照抄就行。
In fact, next time when you have a similar request from a client who does not provide his or her name already written in Chinese, you should ask for it, because you don't want to be creative when translating people's names for documents.
如果没给，反倒该问。证件翻译，你有创意也没门。
When you do need to contact your client for verification, however, I don't think you have the authority to ask them for IDs (unless you are a notary public yourself), just their word or something in writing is good enough for your translation purposes.
跟客人核对，人家无须向您出示证件。作为翻译，只需问个清。
Back to the above question, you can leave the spelling of this client's name in parenthesis or a pair of round brackets (pinyin) after her Chinese name. 中文姓名后，可加括弧（填上拼音)。
Mine is not the best answer, but I hope it helps. There are experienced translators here who might be dealing with such documents on a daily basis, and hopefully they would come to help. ▲ Collapse
| | | | JaneWJH
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:06
English to Chinese
+ ...
同意沈先生说的。加一句：如果客户也不知中文名，我会自己按常用名字用法猜测音译，在名字后用括号注明为音译。
| | | | David Lin
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:06
Member (2013)
English to Chinese
+ ...
Moderator of this forum | Welcome to Chinese Forum and a response to your enquiry | May 8, 2018 |
Hello Jessica,
First of all, welcome to the Chinese Forum! I hope you enjoy your experience here and come often!
With regards to your question about English > Chinese of legal documents such as marriage certificate, I usually do not ask for the original Chinese name if the job is from an agent. The reason is that there is no proof that is verifiable between the source English name and the Chinese name, and forged ID and forged documents are so rampant these days. For e... See more Hello Jessica,
First of all, welcome to the Chinese Forum! I hope you enjoy your experience here and come often!
With regards to your question about English > Chinese of legal documents such as marriage certificate, I usually do not ask for the original Chinese name if the job is from an agent. The reason is that there is no proof that is verifiable between the source English name and the Chinese name, and forged ID and forged documents are so rampant these days. For example, anyone can say Li Xiaoyi to be 李小一 or 李笑艺 or 利孝亿 and many others.
Even though sometimes an agent could provide a Chinese name given by end client, I would suggest to the PM to verify it with legal documents such as a passport before accepting it as genuine.
Being aware of the non-verifiable circumstances and to protect yourself from becoming an accomplice in any forgery process (without you knowing and I am not saying your client is a fake), I think you have the right to ask for legal proof of the Chinese name, if yours is an end client (directly to you without an agent), but of course the client has the right not to provide. In this case, you can say politely that since I don't have legal proof that you are the actual person who owns the Chinese name given to you, all you can do is to leave the English name in the Chinese translation.
If it's Chinese > English, I, like Jane and David Shen, would put the word "phonetic" in brackets next to the English translation without having to ask for any proof. It's an acceptable practice these days.
Hope you'll find this helpful.
David Lin ▲ Collapse
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