Sight translation is the rendering of a written document aloud into another spoken language, without preparation. It is a distinct task from interpreting speech, it is harder than it looks, and it is the source of more lost time in interpreted depositions than any other single thing. The skill worth having is knowing when it is appropriate and when to stop and obtain a written translation instead.
Why it is harder than interpreting speech
In consecutive interpreting the interpreter hears a complete segment, holds it, and renders it. There is a moment of comprehension before production. In sight translation the interpreter is reading and producing at the same time, in a language whose sentence structure may run in a different order from the source, with no opportunity to hear the whole sentence before beginning to render it.
Add the ordinary features of litigation documents, which are dense, formal, full of terms of art, sometimes handwritten, and often photocopied badly, and the difficulty compounds. A competent interpreter will manage a short, clean, straightforward document without trouble. The same interpreter faced with four pages of a contract handed over cold is being asked to do something no professional standard expects.
What the record requires
California Evidence Code section 753 addresses translators of writings: the translator is sworn to make a true translation in the English language of the writing to be deciphered or translated, and the record is to identify the translator. Section 751(c) sets out the translator's oath in the same terms.
That identification requirement is worth honouring explicitly at a deposition. When a document is rendered aloud, state on the record which document is being rendered, who is rendering it, and that it is being sight translated rather than read from a prepared translation. That single sentence prevents a later argument about whether the deponent was responding to the document or to somebody's summary of it.
The interpreter's own credentials should already be on the record under Government Code section 68561(h), which is covered in the record statement a deposition interpreter must make.
When sight translation is appropriate
- Short documents, a paragraph or two, where the gist is what matters.
- Documents the deponent is being asked to identify rather than to construe: is this your signature, is this the form you filled in.
- Routine forms with predictable structure.
- Anything where an approximate rendering would not change the answer.
When to stop and get a written translation
- The precise wording is the point in dispute. If you would quote the sentence in a brief, do not improvise it.
- The document is long. Sight translating multiple pages aloud is slow, exhausting, and increasingly error-prone as it goes.
- The document is technical: medical records, engineering specifications, financial instruments, or anything with a dense specialist vocabulary.
- The document is handwritten or poorly reproduced. Deciphering and rendering at once is two problems, not one.
- The exhibit will be used at trial. A document that matters enough to be an exhibit twice should be translated once, properly.
The clean rule of thumb: sight translation is for identification and orientation. Written certified translation is for construction and quotation.
How it should be done in the room
When sight translation is appropriate, a few mechanics separate a clean rendering from a messy one, and none of them cost time overall because they prevent the rework.
- Give the interpreter the document and a moment to read it before rendering. Thirty seconds of silent reading materially improves accuracy and is not coaching.
- Render it in segments, pausing at natural boundaries, rather than in one continuous stream. This gives the reporter clean units and gives everyone a chance to note a problem.
- Let the interpreter say when a passage is unclear, illegible, or ambiguous, and put that on the record rather than pressing for a rendering.
- Do not ask the interpreter to summarise. Summarising is a different act from translating and it imports someone's judgment about what matters into testimony.
- Do not ask the interpreter to opine on what a document means. Rule 2.890 prohibits an interpreter from giving legal advice, and interpretation of a document's effect is not their role.
That fourth point is the one attorneys most often push on, usually in good faith and under time pressure. The answer is that a summary cannot be tested. If the document is worth putting to the deponent at all, the deponent should hear what it says rather than what somebody thought was important about it.
When the translation itself becomes the dispute
Occasionally the disagreement is not about the testimony but about the exhibit: two sides read a translated document differently, or one side challenges the translation the other has produced.
Two things reduce that risk substantially. First, produce the translation in advance and serve it, so any objection surfaces before the deposition rather than during it. Second, mark the original and the translation together as one exhibit, so the record always contains the source text and any reviewing court can see both. A translated exhibit with no original attached asks everyone to take the translation on trust.
Where a dispute does arise, the useful posture is narrow: identify the specific term or passage in dispute, state both proposed renderings on the record, and move on. A general assertion that a translation is inaccurate, with no identified passage, is very difficult for anyone to act on later.
Preventing the problem at scheduling
Nearly all of this is avoidable at the point the deposition is booked, and it costs nothing to handle then.
- Identify at scheduling whether any exhibits are in a language other than English, and say so when booking the interpreter.
- Where the case permits, send exhibits to the interpreter in advance. An interpreter who has read a document beforehand renders it far better, and this is preparation rather than coaching.
- Where the wording matters, commission a written certified translation before the deposition and mark it as an exhibit alongside the original.
- Agree with opposing counsel in advance how foreign-language exhibits will be handled, so it is not negotiated while a deponent waits.
On a remote deposition this matters more, not less, because an exhibit shared on screen may be unreadable at the deponent's end regardless of language. That is covered in the remote deposition protocol.
What a written translation should include
Where you do obtain a written translation for use as an exhibit, it should carry a certification statement identifying the document and the languages, attesting to the completeness and accuracy of the translation, and giving the translator's name, signature and date. In the United States a translator does not need to hold a particular credential to certify a translation, and notarisation attests only to the identity of the person signing the certification rather than to the quality of the translation itself.
That distinction trips up a lot of people and we cover it separately in certified versus notarized translation and in the longer comparison of sworn, certified, notarized and apostilled translation.
A practical point on formatting. Present the translation so that it can be read against the original: matching pagination, matching paragraph structure, and a note describing anything in the source that cannot be carried across, such as an illegible word, a handwritten annotation, a stamp, or a signature. A translation that silently drops a marginal note has changed the document.
It is also worth translating the whole document rather than the passages you intend to use. Partial translations invite an obvious objection, that the selection was made by the party relying on it, and the cost difference is usually small relative to the argument it avoids.
The cost of getting this wrong
The visible cost of improvising an exhibit is the lost time in the room. The real cost is usually later: testimony given about a document the deponent did not accurately hear, which then has to be revisited, sometimes at a second session. A written translation obtained in advance is almost always cheaper than the deposition time spent working around its absence, and considerably cheaper than reconvening.
Sources
California Evidence Code sections 751 and 753, and California Government Code section 68561, available through California Legislative Information; American Translators Association guidance on what a certified translation is. Verified against the primary sources in July 2026.
AMS provides certified translation of litigation exhibits as well as deposition interpreting, so an exhibit identified in advance can be translated before the deposition rather than improvised in it. See our legal document translation service.