The Contradiction, the Backdate, and the Nahuatl Sentence
You are a freelance Spanish>English translator, ATA-certified, working directly for a small law firm. They send a three-page witness statement in Spanish, due in 24 hours, for USD 300, needed for a filing the next morning. Paragraphs 3 and 7 contradict each other about who was present. One sentence quotes the witness's grandmother verbatim in Nahuatl. The paralegal emails three requests: (1) “Clean up the grammar and take out the contradiction - it reads badly and the attorney won't have time”; (2) “Put yesterday's date on your certification so it matches our filing date”; (3) “Don't add a note about the Nahuatl, just translate it.” The firm is a repeat client and your invoice from last month is still unpaid.
1. Requests (1): the grammar and the contradiction. What do you do?
Read the worked answer
Split the request - they are not the same size.
Grammar: light syntactic smoothing that leaves meaning untouched is normal translation craft. In a certified legal translation, though, keep close to the source's sentence structure, because the witness's run-ons and repetitions may be exactly what counsel is assessing. If you do smooth, disclose it.
The contradiction: absolutely not. Paragraphs 3 and 7 disagreeing about who was present is potentially the most legally significant fact in the document - it may be impeachment material, or the reason the statement needs a follow-up interview. Deleting it is altering evidence, and your certification would then attest to a text that does not exist.
What to deliver instead: a faithful certified translation, plus a separate short note flagging the discrepancy by paragraph number, and bracketed translator's notes where the source is genuinely unclear. The attorney can then decide how to handle it - with time to notice it, which is the point.
Say it once, plainly, in writing: “I can't remove it, but here's how you'll see it immediately.” Framing it as service rather than refusal usually ends the conversation.
2. Request (2): backdating the certification. Response and alternatives?
Read the worked answer
Refuse. The certificate is your signed attestation that you completed this translation on a stated date. Dating it yesterday makes it a false statement signed by you, and it is your name and credential on the page, not the firm's. Depending on the jurisdiction and how the document is used, that is the kind of misstatement that gets a translator struck from a roster or subpoenaed to explain herself.
What is actually available to them:
- Date it today and state completion time if useful: “translation completed [date].”
- The firm can file with an explanation of the date, or request an extension, or file the Spanish original with the translation to follow. Courts deal with this routinely.
- If a notary is involved, a notarized false date drags the notary in too.
Do not trade: the unpaid invoice is a separate matter. Pursue it separately - you may withhold future work or delivery per your terms, but you never adjust a certification or the content of a document as leverage. Mixing the two gives the firm a story in which your objection looks commercial rather than professional.
3. Request (3): the Nahuatl sentence, plus the unpaid invoice. How do you close this out?
Read the worked answer
Competence limit. You do not translate Nahuatl. Producing plausible-looking English for that sentence would be fabrication inside a certified legal document - the worst place for it.
Options, in order of preference:
- Engage a Nahuatl translator for that one sentence, disclose in the certificate exactly which portion each translator produced. Most defensible.
- Retain the sentence verbatim in quotes with a bracketed note: [quoted in Nahuatl; not translated] and state the limitation in the certificate. Honest, and the attorney can see there is an untranslated element before filing.
Silently dropping the note, as requested, achieves neither: the reader gets a sentence in a language they cannot read with no signal that anything is missing.
Sequence: email now, not tomorrow morning - the attorney needs lead time to arrange option 1. State the limitation, offer both routes, and let them choose.
The invoice: mention it once, separately, at the end of the same email. Non-payment does not change any of the above; it just means future engagements start with terms in writing.