Today, in the fifth blog article celebrating my 25 years in the translation industry, I want to write about the time when I learned certified translation techniques from an experienced mentor and became a sworn translator in Brazil – long before I received my licence as a sworn translator in Germany.
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The legal basis for certified translations in Brazil
In Brazil, a public sworn translator and court interpreter (official title: Tradutor Público e Intérprete Comercial) receives their licence not from a court of law, but from the Chamber of Commerce of the local Brazilian state in which they are established.
In the 2000s no special qualification was needed, a secondary school degree was enough; however, the perceived majority of licensed sworn translators were language teachers or had an academic background in languages.
A licence was given only to those who, amongst other requirements, had passed a qualifying examination in translation and interpreting in the form of a public competition. The goal was to achieve a grade that was high enough to qualify as one of the roughly 2-7 best candidates, as each qualifying exam served to fill a strictly limited number of available places for sworn translators.
An exception to this applied in the state of São Paulo, where instead of limiting the number of available places, it was decided that achieving a minimum grade was enough – which, in the latest public competition, resulted in more than 1,000 new sworn translators being admitted to office (thereby saturating the local certified translation market). The problem is that the examination takes place at irregular time intervals, and in certain states the time spans between the last exam and the second to last one were roughly 15, 20 or even 30 years. After 2013 there was no more such examinations in Brazil.
It was only in 2026 that a new qualifying examination for sworn translators was launched, this time at the national level and entirely online. And the profession now has a new name: Tradutor e Intérprete Público (Public Translator and Interpreter).
A new federal law regulating the work of sworn translators in Brazil came into effect in August 2021, replacing the old 1943 law as well as related statutory provisions. The new law changed qualifying requirements considerably:
- Now, foreigners with a permanent place of residence in Brazil are also allowed to be sworn in.
- In addition, proof of higher education is mandatory.
- And exams will be held nationally and not in individual federal states.
However, the new law protects acquired rights, meaning that all current sworn translators will be allowed to maintain their licence even if they don’t fulfil the new requirements! This differs sharply from the situation in Germany, where insufficiently qualified court interpreters will lose their court certification when the transition period stipulates in the the new German law on court interpreting of 2023 lapses.
In addition, until 2022 each state had regulations governing translation fees per line and per hour applying to sworn translators licensed in their respective state jurisdictions, so that negotiating translation fees was not possible. Today, there are no fixed prices for certified translations in Brazil anymore. However, the licence as a certified translator and interpreter in Brazil is highly coveted, as it is valid for an unlimited time and is often associated with income stability, even if such stability is deceptive in a saturated labour market (see above the example of São Paulo).
Learning certified legal translation techniques
In 1999, the state of Bahia, where I was living at the time and which is more than twice the since of the United Kingdom, had only one public sworn translator for German. When he invited me to assist him with certified translation work, it was a brilliant opportunity for me to learn from his expertise and acquire the certified translation techniques.
After all, this is a speciality within the translating profession which requires not only knowledge of legal terminology but also an understanding of how public institutions work. Part of my job was doing terminology work: for each translation I would research technical terms and compile a bilingual glossary, which my “boss” would validate and which would later be added to our large German-Portuguese glossary.
A peculiarity of certified translations done in Brazil is that they mostly have no professional formatting, so that tables and other visual elements are not transferred faithfully. This has to do with the Brazilian tradition according to which many kinds of public documents are written as continuous texts with a single paragraph – and, unfortunately, also with the fact that many Brazilian public translators have no command of word processing and desktop publishing techniques.
Unprofessional formatting usually leads to poor readability of translations when used outside Brazil. This is one of the reasons why German public institutions tend to not accept Portuguese-to-German translations done in Brazil.
But my job wasn’t all terminology and translation – I also had to deal with public institutions and consulates as well as provide customer assistance at the office. The core of our customers was comprised of private individuals and law firms. I think that was the time when I learned what customer-centric translation services were all about. Flexibility, punctuality, customer assistance before and during projects – I practised all of those every day.
Sworn translator in Brazil on an ad-hoc basis
After three years of collaboration, my “boss” filed a leave of absence with the licensing authority, which meant that there would be no other certified German-to-Portuguese translator in the whole state. I had already gathered a lot of experience, so I was recommended to the licensing authority and subsequently appointed as a sworn translator an ad-hoc basis. From now on, I was not only responsible for processing all projects in their entirety, but also legally responsible for the accuracy and completeness of every translation bearing my own signature and stamp.
About a year later, another public competition to fill vacant sworn translation places was organised. Of course, I took the examinations in order to be appointed indefinitely as opposed to on an ad-hoc basis. I passed the German/Portuguese exam with the third best grade, and the English/Portuguese exam in 10th place. However, there were only 2 places available for each foreign language, so unfortunately I didn’t get my licence, which was a huge disappointment. This happened in 2003, and since then there hasn’t been any new translator examination in the state of Bahia, as the competent authority apparently doesn’t see any need for that.
But life went on. I worked together with my former mentor and sworn translator for 2 more years, until I decided it was time to go solo and expand my business by seeking international customers in the US, Switzerland and Germany. In 2007, I relocated to Germany and started a new chapter of my professional life story as a translator.
