How do you translate a certificate where the numbers are spelled out in words?
An El Salvador marriage certificate (partida de matrimonio) spelled out every number in words. The folio, the year, the marriage date and time, and each party's national ID (DUI) all appeared as Spanish words, with no digits. We rendered the numbers as figures for the US reader, verified each DUI against its check digit, and documented the convention in a Translator's Note. The certified translation was delivered for the client's USCIS filing.
What We Received
A client submitted a marriage certificate from El Salvador (partida de matrimonio). A municipal Registry of Family Status issued it. The form is computer-printed, yet it carries no digits at all. Every number is written out in words — the book and folio, the year, the wedding date and time, and each party's national ID. That ID is the Documento Único de Identidad, or DUI. We delivered a certified Salvadoran marriage certificate translation from Salvadoran Spanish for the client's USCIS filing.
Why This Required Special Handling
USCIS wants a certified translation to be complete and accurate (see our USCIS translation requirements). A national ID has to match the applicant's other records exactly.
When the ID is spelled out as eight or nine Spanish number-words, one miscounted word changes a digit. A DUI is eight digits plus a check digit. Read a word wrong, and the ID is simply wrong. A wrong national ID invites questions from an adjudicator.
The same risk runs across the whole page. The dates, the time, and the folio are all words too, so every value has to be read with the same care.
How We Handled It
We converted each spelled-out number into figures, so a US reader sees a normal ID, date, and folio. We read every number-word twice and wrote the digits in the same order as the original.
For each DUI, we confirmed the result against its check digit. A valid Salvadoran DUI is eight digits followed by a check digit that the first eight must satisfy. When the digits and the check digit agreed, we knew the reading was right. That step caught a mis-read on one ID during review, before it ever reached the client.
We kept the certificate's two-column form layout, with each labeled field beside its value. A Translator's Note recorded that the original spells its numbers out in words and that we rendered them as figures.
The Outcome
The certified translation was delivered for the client's USCIS filing. Every number appears as figures, and each DUI matches its own check digit. We handle Salvadoran civil-registry documents this way whenever the numbers are spelled out — figures in the translation, the original convention noted, and every ID checked. It is the same standard we apply to all our Spanish document translation for USCIS.
What This Means for You
If your certificate spells its numbers out in words, that is normal in some countries, and it does not have to slow down your filing. A careful translation turns those words back into figures and checks each ID against its own math. Before you submit, confirm that the ID, dates, and record numbers in the translation match the words in the original, digit for digit. Our certificate of accuracy states plainly that the figures came from spelled-out words.
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