Terms for this website, and for work we take on.

Quotes.

Every quote states the date it expires on its face, and holds at the quoted price and delivery date until then. Past that date, ask and we will re-quote — usually at the same number, but the schedule has to be re-checked before we can commit to a delivery date again.

A quote is priced on the file you sent.

Word count, price, and delivery date come from the source document as provided, together with the assumptions written into the quote. If the source changes after work begins — replaced pages, a new revision, added sections, a redesign of the form — that is new scope. We tell you what it changes, re-quote the difference, and continue once you confirm. We do not absorb it silently and we do not invoice for it as a surprise.

What we need from you.

• The final source text. A document still being edited will be translated as many times as it changes, and each pass is chargeable work.
• The audience. Who reads it, in which regional variety, and at what reading level. For Chinese, which script.
• Required terminology. Any glossary, style guide, program vocabulary, or earlier translation you need us to match. If you have none, we propose terms and record your decisions.
• The real deadline. Including the internal review time you need before it.
• Timely answers to queries. A linguist’s query is a question that has to be answered before the sentence can be right. A query left waiting moves the delivery date by the time it waits, and we will tell you when that happens.
• The right to send it. That you are authorized to give us the material and to have it translated.

Delivery.

We deliver in the format named in the quote, with a signed certificate of accuracy and a reference number that ties the file to our record of the job. If a date is at risk on our side, you hear it the day we know, not on the day you expected the file.

Cancellation.

You can stop a job at any point. You pay for the work completed to that point, and we deliver what exists so the spend is not wasted. If we have not started, there is nothing to pay.

Invoices and payment.

Invoices carry the purchase order number, the documents, the languages, and the delivery date, so they reconcile without a phone call. Payment terms are the ones in your purchase order or agreement; where your department’s standard terms differ from ours, we work to yours. Prices exclude any applicable taxes.

If we got it wrong, we fix it at no charge.

Errors of accuracy are ours to correct: a mistranslation, an omission, a wrong number, name, or date, an untranslated remnant, or damage to the layout we introduced. Send the passage and what you think is wrong. A qualified linguist reads it against the source. Where there is an error we correct the document and reissue the certificate with the corrected file, at no charge, regardless of how the job was priced or how long the correction takes.

Preference is not error, and we will say so.

Where a change is a matter of preference rather than accuracy, we tell you that plainly and still make the change if you want it. Where a request is a new terminology direction after sign-off, or a change to the source text, it is new scope and we quote it before doing it.

Who owns what.

• The translation is yours on payment. All rights in the delivered translation transfer to you when the invoice for it is paid. We keep no license to reuse your content, no right to publish it, and no right to show it as work.
• Your source stays yours. We use it only to produce and check your translation, and to let the assigned linguists do the same.
• Translation memory and glossaries belong to your program. Whatever we build from your material — approved terms, the decisions recorded next to them, the memory itself — is yours. Ask for it in a portable format at any point, including when you stop working with us.
• We keep a copy for two reasons only. To reissue a file or certificate and to answer an audit question about the job. Retention, and how to have the copy deleted, are on the privacy page.
• Our own materials stay ours. The certificate form, our templates, and this website.

Confidentiality, both directions.

Draft, deliberative, and pre-decisional documents are treated as confidential by default, whether or not an agreement says so and whether or not the file is marked. Everyone who touches a job is under a written confidentiality obligation. We will sign your department’s nondisclosure or confidentiality agreement rather than asking you to sign ours. We also keep confidential what you tell us about your program and your schedule, and you keep confidential any non-public commercial terms we give you. Where disclosure is compelled by law, we tell you before it happens unless we are prohibited from telling you.

What the certificate of accuracy attests to.

The certificate states that the attached translation is a true, complete, and accurate rendering of the identified source document to the best of the signer’s knowledge and ability, that a linguist qualified in the pair reviewed it, and that the person signing is competent to make the attestation. It carries the document, the language pair, the page count, the date, and a reference number.

It is a statement about the translation. It is not a legal certification of the contents of the underlying document: it says nothing about whether the source is true, valid, current, or effective, and a faithful translation of an incorrect sentence is still a faithful translation. It is not a notarization and not an apostille.

Whether a certified translation is sufficient for a particular filing, court, agency, consulate, or program is determined by the body receiving it, not by us. If the receiving body has a specific form of certification, notarization, or apostille in mind, tell us at intake and we will say before you order whether we can meet it.