Do any of you have experience with providing copies of Japanese documents for your husband/wife visa for the US? We have several documents we would like to provide to prove validity of the marriage, but of course they’re in Japanese so they require translation.
My understanding is it’s not necessary to have a translation service handle it for you if you’re confident you can provide an accurate English translation of the Japanese. That said, if you do it yourself, what’s the best way? Scan copy of the original with English annotations? Recreate the look of the document without the Japanese on it at all and just the English, but of course provide both versions just to be sure US immigration can see the original document as well?
My wife and I thank you in advance for any advice or experience on this!
\*\*EDIT\*\*
I forgot that I didn’t note my wife is Japanese. So understanding the Japanese text shouldn’t be an issue.
4 comments
You can find templates online that allow you to translate the marriage certificate and the family registry. You may be able to find them on the US embassy or consulate sites.
I’ve done both, but used translation services for the majority as I got lazy recreating the forms.
Is this enough? From the US embassy in Tokyo.
[US embassy Tokyo, certificate of marriage translation template.](https://jp.usembassy.gov/passports/translation-templates/)
You can literally just “recreate” the document in English. Doesn’t have to even be a good recreation, just mostly follow the organization and placement of text from the original Japanese document. You can just do it yourself with Google translate if your Japanese is bad, or your spouse. Afterwards just date and sign the recreation saying you translated the document to the best of your ability. If it makes you feel better you can just make up a Japanese name or use a real Japanese friend and pretend they’re fluent in English and Japanese. Don’t have to put their contact info.
If there’s any kind of problem/need, the embassy/immigration department can get someone to translate the original document anyway. Making you provide translations is to just avoid that unless absolutely needed. That way they don’t have to constantly pay someone who is fluent in Japanese, and they can just use any person at the desk to process your green card documents.