Documents Translation

[astroduck]

Hi all,

I am in the process of organizing the "Proof of Relationship" documents for my wife's sponsorship (I am the sponsor). We have some Emails, Facebook messages and video chatting log in Chinese characters (only the content - the layout is in English), do we need to translate and get those certified by a authorized person?
For example, I sent an email to my wife with the phrase "Happy Valentine's Day" in Chinese characters.

Any help is appreciated!!

Thanks.

astro

[sakamath]

How long have you been married? The longer the marriage, the lesser the burden of proof. If you have been married recently or lived apart for long, then you would have to show more proof of your relationship.

[canadianwoman]

Anything not English or French has to be translated. While the CIC states it wants the translations do be done by a certified translator, in practice people on the forum have been getting 'informal' translations for things like emails, facebook, etc. - relationship proof. It seems these can be done by a friend, though they should attach a statement stating it is a true translation of the original.
This is only to save money, since an official translation of pages of emails and facebook comments would cost a fortune.
For official documents get an accredited translator.

[astroduck]

I have done the translation for the documents myself, do I need those certified by an authorized person?
Can the person be a friend or another family member?

The thing is not all the documents are in Chinese, as a matter of fact, only about 10% are in Chinese.

Thanks again.

[canadianwoman]

CIC has stated they don't want you to do the translations yourself, and they don't want family members to do it. A friend would be OK, especially since there is no need to say it is a friend. This is kind of a grey area, though - because of the cost, a lot of people have done the translations informally, and have had no problem, as long as it was only secondary relationship proof such as emails.
If you can get an authorized translator to certify the translations cheaply, then I would do so. If not, I would be comfortable just attaching the English translation of a few lines of Chinese to the original, if I had a lot of other evidence the relationship was genuine.