Q1004. Do Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese document translations require official registered translators for MFA submission?

Answered by the NYC Visa & Translation certified translation team

The MFA certifies only Thai–English translation pairs directly. For Mandarin or Cantonese documents, the standard workflow is: translate Chinese to English, have the English translation certified at the MFA, and where the receiving body needs a Chinese-language certification, use a translator recognised by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (for Traditional Chinese/Taiwan documents) or the relevant Chinese consular channel (for Simplified Chinese/PRC documents). Cantonese is a spoken variant — written documents from Hong Kong use Traditional Chinese characters, so the translation is handled as written Chinese regardless of the spoken dialect, though names in Hong Kong documents follow Cantonese romanisation (e.g., 'Chan', 'Wong') which must be preserved exactly as printed in the passport. Common rejection causes: simplified characters translated as if traditional (different name spellings), and name order mismatches between the Chinese document and the applicant's passport. Confirm with the receiving Thai office whether it accepts the English certified translation or requires the original-language certification chain.