Why ISO-Certified and Sworn SA Translations Fail Quality Tests

Why ISO-Certified and Sworn SA Translations Fail Quality Tests


The "Certification" Trap in South African Language Translations

If you are looking for professional South African language translation services in South Africa, you’ve likely seen the same three terms over and over: Certified, ISO-Certified, and Sworn.

To a procurement manager or a business owner, these sound like guarantees of quality. However, as specialists who are frequently called in to "fix" documents already translated by agencies advertising this service, we can tell you the uncomfortable truth: A certificate for a process is not a certificate for linguistic accuracy.

The Sworn Translation Myth

In South Africa, a "Sworn Translation" is a legal formality. It means an individual has stood before a Commissioner of Oaths and sworn they believe the work is accurate.

The problem? There is no mandatory requirement for that individual to have a degree in linguistics, 10 years of experience, or even a basic spell-checker. A sworn document is legally "official," but often we find they are linguistically flawed and full of embarrassing typos.

The "ISO-Certified" Box-Ticking Exercise

ISO 17100 is the international standard for translation processes. It mandates specification like having a project manager and a second person look at the file.

While it sounds impressive, many translation "mills" use this as a marketing shield. They follow these administrative steps but skip the actual quality:

•     They often use junior or generalist translators to keep costs low.

•     Their "Quality Control" is often a second person who makes the same mistakes as the first or just changes a few things to show they're working. An all too frequent occurrence on an edit.  

•     This satisfies a corporate policy checkbox, but it doesn't guarantee your translated text will actually make sense to a first language speaker.

Why Our Certified Translations are Different

At iiTranslation, we’ve chosen to invest our resources into the outcome of your translation rather than the marketing of a generic certificate. We provide a Certificate of Accuracy backed by a process that actually exceeds international standards.

1.    Subject Matter Experts Only: We don't use generalists. Your documents are handled by translators with university degrees and a minimum of 10 years of experience in fields like Law, Medicine, and Technology.

2.    Proprietary Technical QC: This is our "secret sauce." Most translation software has poor support for South African languages. We have developed proprietary localized exceptions dictionaries to run technical spelling and terminology checks that our competitors simply cannot perform. Many organisations ask us to demonstrate this and we're always happy to do so. It's a very reasonable request.

3.    Human-First Nuance: We don't just "check" a document; we ensure it has the correct i.e. a contemporary isiXhosa translation has the linguistic nuance it needs for the Cape Town market.

The Bottom Line

If you need a document for a court filing that is an administrative requirement, a Sworn Translation is necessary. If you just need to satisfy a generic vendor onboarding requirement, ISO-Certified works.

But if your document is for publication, medical, technical use, or legal precision needed in real world translation scenarios, you probably need a Certified Sign-off from a team that prioritizes the language not just the paperwork.

You can read more on the iiTranslation FAQ page.

Don't pay twice for the same translation. Get it right the first time with iiTranslation's dedicated South African language translation services.

 

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