Registering marriage at city hall translation of documents

So i got an affirmation from my countries embassy which was translated by them automatically.
Went to city hall and they requested i translate my birth certificate. Did this and turned up with both and they then told me i need to translate the affirmation even more. They want everything including spouse name, address into katakana, and same for my birth certificate, so all the hospitals, doctors names, home addresses etc into katakana.

Does this seem odd? I would have thought the embassy would have a pretty good idea of what was required and in all my research online i never saw requirements for such painstakingly thorough detailed translation.

10 comments
  1. This is normal, every city hall/city hall employee basically makes up their own rules. You were just unlucky to get the most thorough of the bunch.

  2. Well it is a traslation, so of course you need to translate everything not just what you may consider important. I had my translations done by a professional and the even put a description at the place where official stamps should be.

    If you need and official translation you also need the information of the person who did it and a phone number or contact information. But sometimes they only ask for simple translations

  3. You have to translate everything. I had to translate my passport lol.

    I translated it all myself and then signed that I did it and that was good enough.

  4. I guess it depends on the Ward/City office. My Ward was chill about the process. I emailed them first and provided basic facts, they replied with all the requirements. They even suggested to visit them a few days before to look over the paperwork so the misses and I could choose a date of our liking.

    The real pain in the arse was wifey changing her name and updating all credit cards, insurance, trading accounts, passport, DL, etc. It’s been 6 months since the marriage and she is still going through the process.

    btw – congrats on getting married!

  5. lucky you! my embassy did nothing for me, I had to translate everything myself. but the clerk approved it right away.

    I’m not sure the embassy knows what’s necessary. sometimes the required documents are different (my local city hall asked me for a certificate that I wasn’t already married in my country).

  6. Just here to chime in with another “it’s not odd.”
    I had to do the same thing. Translate everything to be safe.

  7. Doesn’t seem too odd… just lengthy and annoying. Different city halls require different things, like whether a birth certificate is required. The US Embassy at the very least mentions it *may* be necessary. In my city it wasn’t, but they were still making things a pain, and we made three visits in total. It wasn’t until my wife put her foot down and said something along the lines of “I bet you don’t make it this hard for non-international marriages” that we finally got through to someone higher (who was incredibly kind and helpful) and actually got somewhere.

  8. Just another “same” here. Got the docs from my embassy, but still needed to write everything out in katakana. The city office was quite relaxed about it tho. They let me do it right there on the spot, didn’t even have to bother coming back another day.

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