Translation and interpreting agency in Tournai, Belgium

Look at who is going to read the document, not at what it says. A population department, a court registry, a consulate or a degree recognition service will only accept the sworn version: it carries the stamp and signature of a translator listed on the national register of court experts, together with a statement of conformity that binds them personally. An internal manual, a contract between partners or a website needs none of that. The linguistic work is identical in both cases; what differs is the standing of the paper before an authority.

One hour is enough, Monday to Sunday, for any request arriving between 8am and 10pm. The document you receive carries three things: the firm amount, the delivery date and, for interpreting, the language for which an interpreter is available. There is no fourth line that shows up later.

On the language pair, the field, the volume and the deadline. For a plain translation the unit of account is the word in the source document; for a sworn translation it is the 250-word page, rounded up. If you send us several documents that resemble one another, the translation memory finds the segments already approved, and those do not appear at full rate on the quote.

No, and the two are often confused. Legalisation concerns the sworn translator's signature: it is obtained from FPS Justice and we request it for you, adding 3 to 5 working days. The apostille validates the original document; it falls to FPS Foreign Affairs or to the foreign authority that issued the paper, and that step remains yours. The quote simply tells you whether your file is subject to it and which door to knock on.

That is never necessary. A scan, or a phone photo as long as it is legible, is enough for us to work from, and the translation goes back by email. When the stamped and signed paper is required, it travels by registered post, to Belgium, to France or further afield. Your address has no bearing on the turnaround.

The sixteen municipalities we serve are treated identically, with no mileage charge: whether the assignment is at the Tournai court, in an office in Mouscron, at the town hall in Lessines or on a site in Brunehaut, the journey is included in the interpreting rate. For a document to be translated the question does not even arise, since everything travels electronically.

It depends on the mode. Simultaneous interpreting in a booth takes 5 to 10 working days: two interpreters per language have to be brought together and equipment has to be shipped in. A liaison or sworn assignment is set up almost the same day, and 24 hours is enough for us in most combinations, including when the date falls tomorrow.

Not always, and it is the question that comes up most often here. The border is ten kilometres away, Lille twenty-five, and a sizeable share of the files we handle crosses that line. Administrative vocabulary is not the same on either side: a French town hall, a family allowance office, a notary or a court registry does not know what a bourgmestre, a household composition certificate or a national register number is, and the word commune does not cover the same reality there. So we put those notions into the terms used by the receiving office, with an explanatory note wherever no equivalent exists. Going the other way, a birth certificate or family record book issued in France is prepared for our own counters. The Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai, officially bilingual, adds Dutch to the equation.

As long as you find it useful, and no longer. Every translator and every interpreter in the network is bound by a confidentiality agreement. Hosting is European and GDPR-compliant; one request from you makes everything disappear. On a sensitive matter we start by signing your own undertaking, and only then do we open the files.