• USCIS requires a signed certificate of translation that includes the translator’s name and contact information, but this certificate does not have to be notarized.

• U.S. state and federal courts require translators to sign a sworn affidavit or declaration, which does need to be notarized. Some courts provide a standard form for the translator to complete. Others do not. Let me know the jurisdiction and I will verify their requirements.

• Universities and education evaluation services do not normally require that the certificate of translation be notarized.

I translate names to match the spelling in the individual’s travel passport (загранпаспорт). You don’t want to have your name spelled differently across multiple documents.

• Translations submitted as evidence in legal matters must be certified by a qualified translator who takes full responsibility for the entire translation.

• You can use AI or machine translation tools to help your attorney evaluate your evidence, but you cannot submit translations to a court without certification by a qualified translator

• Possibly. An existing translation will need to be proofread and corrected before I can certify it.

• Whether or not I can use an existing translation depends on its format. If it’s a PDF, is it editable? I also look at the quality and how much formatting the final translation would require.

Occasionally, but only with your permission.

• AI transcription saves time, but not as much as you might think. AI audio transcribers are fast, but they make odd, unpredictable errors and require close, careful review. In my own experiments, using an AI audio transcriber saves me 10-20% of the time it would take to manually transcribe audio. That said, I’m happy to consider using AI-powered transcription if you are interested in that option.

• ‍ ‍Keep in mind that in most cases, audio files uploaded to an AI-powered transcriber will be used as training data. Only you can decide if this is acceptable for your audio files.

• The better the audio, the more I can “get” out of it. If speakers are too far from the microphone, or if the device is obstructed (for example, inside a pocket or bag), portions of the audio may be difficult or impossible to understand. Low-quality recordings can still be transcribed and translated, but sections that cannot be reliably deciphered will be marked as “unintelligible.”

• Accents are less of a barrier; I have experience transcribing a range of accents from across the Former Soviet Union.