Sworn translation for the communes of the Grand Duchy
from the capital to Esch-sur-Alzette and Diekirch
Communes, public services and bodies writing for a population of every language. Procurement, regulations, letters to residents, civil status counters, multilingual files of the institutions.
16
Municipalities served
3
Languages in the language regime
24 h
Interpreter available
70+
Working languages
What the public authorities & public sector sector sends us most often
In the Grand Duchy a civil status record may be drawn up in French or in German, and the officer at the counter moves from one language to the other in the same morning. Add to that the make-up of the population: nearly one resident in two does not hold Luxembourg nationality, and the papers presented at the counter come from all over Europe and well beyond. The City of Luxembourg and the municipalities we serve send us first of all what has to be understood at the first attempt, by the resident and by the department processing the case.
Cross-border cooperation
Cooperation agreements, agendas, minutes and European funding files exchanged with authorities in the neighbouring regions.
Public procurement
Notices, specifications, tenders received in another language and notification letters to bidders, timed to your calendar.
Decisions and by-laws
Municipal council sittings, decisions of the board of aldermen and regulations that apply to every inhabitant.
Letters to residents
Information sheets, forms and template letters addressed to the public, written to be grasped on the first reading.
Population and civil status
Foreign records presented at the counter, residence certificates, extracts and attestations to be produced to an authority in another country.
Website and communication
Pages of the municipal website, the bulletin distributed to households, prevention campaigns and the booklet handed to newcomers.
The public authorities & public sector sector in a country where three languages coexist
Three languages hold official status here, Luxembourgish, French and German, and English has taken hold as a working language in the institutions as much as on the financial centre. No other country in Europe asks so much of its administration. The same communal regulation may have to exist in two versions, a letter to the residents of one district has to be understood by people whose mother tongue is official nowhere in the country, and a civil status counter issues records drawn up sometimes in French, sometimes in German, depending on the commune and on the period.
A contract notice and a letter to a resident are not handled alike, and we do not entrust them to the same people. The first answers to a regulatory formalism and a publication calendar that tolerates no slippage. The second will be read once, quickly, by somebody who needs to know straight away what is expected of them. European files form a third register: the institutions based at Kirchberg, Court of Justice of the European Union, Court of Auditors, European Investment Bank, secretariat of the European Parliament, have their own drafting conventions and vocabulary, and a text that ignores them gets sent back.
At the counter the interpreter's position is narrow: they convey without steering or advising, in interviews where their neutrality determines the validity of whatever is recorded. We also know what a population office checks on a sworn translation before accepting it, which saves a second trip over a badly worded statement of conformity.
- Tender notice and the bill of quantities
- Regulatory text voted by the communal council
- Circular letter and a form to complete at the desk
- Full copy of a record asked for by a resident
When the spoken word counts as much as the written one
At the counter there is no time to work around a misunderstanding. An interpreter costs less than a second appointment and a file left waiting.
Municipal counters
Population, civil status, residence and planning formalities, in Luxembourg as much as in Esch-sur-Alzette, in Mersch or in Grevenmacher.
Social welfare interviews
Processing an application, an urgent situation, a support plan and a follow-up appointment with the social office.
Public meetings
Information evening for residents, advisory commission and presentation of a development scheme to neighbours.
International sittings
Steering committees, technical groups and progress reviews where partners from several states sit together.
One point often goes unnoticed when a foreign record arrives at the counter: depending on the document and on the use it will be put to, the department may require a sworn translation where a standard one would have done, and the requirement is not the same everywhere. Let us read the request before you send the resident home. We will say what is actually expected, and we will also say so when no translation is needed at all.
Four steps between your upload and the handover
A single project manager follows your public authorities & public sector file from the first message to the handover, so that no instruction gets lost on the way.
- 01
Send the document as it is
A phone snapshot will do, badly framed included. For a spoken assignment, give us the date, the address of the appointment and the two languages involved.
- 02
Price and deadline inside one hour
You receive the price, the handover date and the route chosen: sworn where an authority requires it, standard in every other case. No commitment attached.
- 03
A linguist from the field takes it on
The text goes to someone who uses public authorities & public sector terminology every day, and a second linguist reads it again before anything leaves us.
- 04
File delivered or interpreter on site
The file reaches you electronically. The stamped copy follows by registered post when the recipient insists on it, and the interpreter turns up at the agreed address.
A document due in two languages for a fixed date?
An invoice carrying the details your finance department needs, a sworn interpreter within 24 hours, a price inside the hour.
What changes the moment a public authorities & public sector file reaches us
An invoice that clears the check
Commitment number, line-by-line breakdown and the details your accounts office requires. The document goes out right the first time, with no round trip before approval.
The administrative French and German used here
Our linguists use the wording in service in the administrations of the Grand Duchy, not that of the neighbouring countries. The officer handling the case sees the difference in the first line.
The specialist for the field, not the first one free
A specialised text goes to someone who practises in that area. A tight handover date does not suspend the rule: it only shortens the time we have to find the right person.
Confidentiality signed before anything is opened
Everyone involved signs a confidentiality undertaking before reaching your file. Documents sit on infrastructure located inside the European Union and are erased on a written request.
The approved quote is the invoice
Nothing is added later. Revision, layout work and delivery are inside the figure stated at the outset.
No travel charge
Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Differdange, Dudelange, Bettembourg, Mersch, Ettelbruck: the interpreter travels there without the journey being billed.
Frequently asked questions
Will a translation made abroad get through our counters?
Not in every case. The receiving department may ask for a translation prepared by a translator sworn and entered on the roll kept by the Ministry of Justice, even where the version presented already carries a stamp. Send us the document before you give the resident another appointment: we will tell you whether it holds.
How do you invoice a municipality?
Against a purchase order, with the details your accounts office requires. Where requests follow one another, an annual agreement and a single month-end statement replace invoices issued item by item, which cuts bookkeeping on both sides.
Do you translate from French into German and the other way round?
Yes, it is ordinary work here, since both languages sit side by side in administrative texts. We start from wording already published in the target language rather than improvising it: an officer spots a formulation that did not come from here straight away.
Is a municipal by-law translated from beginning to end?
Almost never. A resident reads the provision that applies to them and nothing else. We usually take the body of the rules and the explanatory sheet, leaving the technical annexes aside. The full version is only justified for a department that has to compare two texts line by line.
Get your free quote within the hour
A document or a date is all we need. You get the price, the deadline and the form of certification Luxembourg authorities will expect. You decide afterwards.