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02:17 Oct 21, 2011
English to English translations [PRO] Social Sciences - Human Resources / Certificate
English term or phrase:Certificate
Portuguese in Brazil (and maybe in Europe) has two very similar words: "certidão" and "certificado". A question on Kudoz today asked for two different English words for these, as the asker is translating HR software which refers to both employees' "certidões" and "certificados". It would appear the program designer was thinking of two different things. I was at a loss...
The dictionary definitions of the two words are almost identical, as you can verify by consulting any PT or PT>EN dictionary. In general use, the only difference I could think of is that, while both can be used for official documents, such as birth, marriage, death and others of the plethora of official documents that exist in Brazil (though "certidão" dominates in these areas), "certificado" is used when referring to a qualification certificate from a training course. Maybe the original author wanted to distinguish civil and educational certificates.
So I wonder if anyone can suggest two different words in English, or one more plus "certificate", to reflect this difference, or at least some difference?
Explanation: I am not offering these as general-purpose equivalents of "certidão" and "certificado", since from what you say "certificado" is applied to things that would certainly be called certificates and not diplomas in English. However, IF the difference in this case is indeed between general documentation certifying whatever it may be, on the one hand, and qualification certificates, on the other, the latter can generally be called diplomas, I should have thought.
This brings to mind that the school examinations taken in England used to be called GCE and now are GSCE which means General Certificate of (Secondary) Education. So possibly we need to specify"Certificate of..." in both cases .
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Answers
3 mins confidence:
certificate
Certification
Explanation: Certification
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 6 mins (2011-10-21 02:23:47 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Hi Martin. I speak very little Portuguese but here's my suggestion, for what it's worth:
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Explanation: I am not offering these as general-purpose equivalents of "certidão" and "certificado", since from what you say "certificado" is applied to things that would certainly be called certificates and not diplomas in English. However, IF the difference in this case is indeed between general documentation certifying whatever it may be, on the one hand, and qualification certificates, on the other, the latter can generally be called diplomas, I should have thought.
Charles Davis Local time: 03:10 Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 4
The translation workplace 
peer agreement (net): +4
