News

A&A Lingua has successfully passed a certification audit conducted by Metrosert AS to become the first Estonian translation company to meet the requirements of the new European translation service standard EN ISO 17100:2015. Certification of the written translation service attests to the professionalism of our staff, transparent project management and high-quality translation output. The certificate was issued on 23 November 2015.

A&A Lingua written translation service has also been certified under the previous European translation service quality standard, EN 15038:2006, since 23 November 2009.

As of 1 January 2015, a key change was introduced to the procedure for certified translations in Estonia. From now on, only certified translators (also referred to in Estonia as sworn translators) can prepare official translations of Estonian language documents into foreign languages. Until 2015, both notaries and certified translators could certify translations. This is the first stage of an overhaul of certified translation procedure to allow only certified translators to prepare certified translations. The final stage will enter into force in 2020, and from that point the sworn translators will also be solely responsible for the opposite translation pair, from a language other than Estonian into Estonian. Notaries will no longer be empowered to notarize the translator’s signature. Pursuant to the Certified Translators Act, a certified translator is a professional who has passed the state professional examination and to whom the state has given the right to

1. translate documents and certify the correctness of their translation
2. if necessary, to certify the correctness of a copy of the document being translated and
3. if necessary, certify the correctness of the printout of a document for translation obtained from the public online database.

Estonia has slightly more than 30 certified translators who translate from Estonian into English, Russian, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, French, Spanish, Italian and Latvian and from those languages into Estonian. In case of a need to translate an official document into a language not served by a certified translator in Estonia, the translation is prepared through a third language – in many of those cases, an Estonian document will be translated into English and then into the local language in the country in question. But don’t be put off if the above explanation seemed arcane. Nothing will change for customers. Send us a query and we will find the best solution, placing your order with a certified translator.

October 2014 saw the second conference organized by the Association of Estonian Translation Companies (ETBL), where Merit Altrov of A&A Lingua was one of the presenters. Speaking before an audience mainly consisting of young translators, Merit talked about the process of recruiting translators by ETBL members, explaining what skills translators are required to have under the European Quality Standard for Translation. This year’s conference was mainly oriented at people and companies working in the translation industry, aimed at fostering networking, sharing experiences and finding good solutions for furthering the entire sector. Over 140 people attended the conference. Besides presentations and workshops, a so-called speed dating event was held to provide an even more fertile setting for facilitating new contacts. For more, see ETBL’s website.

Estonia’s first Finno-Ugric Film Festival took place at Tsiistre Flax Museum from 4-8 June 2014 and A&A Lingua was one of the contributing sponsors. FUFF is a short film festival aimed at sparking interest in Finno-Ugric features and experimental films. At FUFF, the film-makers are Finno-Ugric in origin and/or the films explore Finno-Ugric themes. The village cinema at Tsiistre in south-eastern Estonia brought close to 50 films directed by film-makers from various small nations such as the Khanty, Vepsians, Ingrian Finns, Udmurts, Setos, Mari and Livs. The festival also brought short features from Estonia, Finland and Hungary and experimental films from all over – from Korea to Germany. The competition programme is open to films from smaller Finno-Ugric nations. A screenwriting workshop for directors and writers of short films also took place. The workshop was led by writer Mart Kivastik from Estonia and director Daniel Erdelyi from Hungary. The two festival days included also folk music concerts. More information: www.fuff.ee

A&A Lingua recently signed a contract to provide translation service to the European Court of Justice. Although Lingua has had years of experience working with several EU institutions, this is the first time we will be translating for the ECJ. Our team assigned to this contract includes our best jurist-linguists, whose qualifications and translation experience in both the law and linguistics meet the high requirements of the court.

The European Court of Justice based in Luxembourg is an EU institution founded in 1952 to uphold Union law in interpreting and applying the basic legislation of the European Union.