Certification

The American Translators Association and several other national translators' organizations test for the individual translator's ability to translate between specific languages, and they certify successful candidates accordingly. Most translation buyers test their prospective translators. One translation company has recently started certifying translators; however, most translation buyers issue no certificates and some of them don't even tell translators whether they've passed the test. The U.S. State Department prohibits translators from mentioning the fact that they have been successfully tested.

The ISO (International Standards Organization) 9000 family of standards prescribes "good quality management practices" and certifies companies or individuals complying with those standards. However, ISO certification means only that the certified entity follows certain procedures; it does not attest to the quality of the entity's product, i.e., in the case of a translation provider, to the quality of the provider's translation. ISO certification may cost tens of thousands of dollars.

At least one vendor of computer-aided translation software is certifying the software's users; however, this company may be motivated by its business interests: they expect their certification program to increase their market share in addition to earning them extra revenues.

Which certification, if any, should translation buyers require their providers to have? Which certification offers the best indication of a translator's ability to perform a specific job? Are certain programs self-serving or do they fulfill a legitimate function of screening individual and corporate translation providers for quality and good business practices?