Tahitian translator

Official documents from French Polynesia are usually drawn up in French, so for those a French translation is often all you need. Tahitian (reo Tahiti) matters most at a cultural and personal level — family records, songs, oral tradition and community material. We assess each document and advise whether French, Tahitian or both are needed for your purpose, so you only commission what serves your goal.

Because official records from French Polynesia are usually in French, a certified Tahitian translation is rarely required. For cultural or personal Tahitian material we generally provide professional (standard) translation. Where a body does ask for certification, we arrange it on request: a signed statement of accuracy, which can be escalated to notarisation by a solicitor or notary public, or to an apostille or legalisation through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). The UK has no sworn-translator institute, so there is no sworn translator as a legal office here; we confirm the level your receiving authority requires.

The most common are personal and family documents within the Polynesian diaspora, cultural texts (songs, oral tradition, religious texts) and outreach or community material from NGOs and churches. We confirm the approach and any certification per document in the quote.

Yes. The glottal stop ('eta, written as an apostrophe or ʻokina) and the macron (tārava) for vowel length are meaningful in Tahitian, set by the Académie Tahitienne (Fare Vāna'a). We confirm per project which spelling convention your source document follows and apply it consistently throughout.

On working days you receive a reply within 1 hour. The lead time for the translation itself depends on document type, volume and any required certification, and because the speaker population is small we confirm a workable schedule up front in the quote rather than promising a fixed turnaround.

A Tahitian translation agency takes the coordination off your hands. We select a translator who knows the language and its Polynesian context, advise whether French, Tahitian or both are needed, and arrange certification, notarisation or legalisation on request where an authority asks for it. You keep one point of contact for variant, terminology, scheduling and delivery, all under a single quote. A skilled freelance translator does excellent work too; the difference an agency adds is bringing those moving parts together so you are not managing them separately.