In this guide
  1. The language Ghana asks for
  2. The translation copies, it cannot correct
  3. Sorting the wording before you buy
  4. Per-page cost and turnaround

The language Ghana asks for

An English text is required for papers used in Ghana, so anything in your file written in another language needs one before it can be read there. Certified translation into English in Edinburgh covers that, one paper at a time, with a signed certificate of accuracy fastened to each finished set.

The translation copies, it cannot correct

A translator's job on this route is faithfulness, not repair. Whatever the record says is what the English pages will say: a surname with a letter missing, a date of birth a day out, a village name spelled the way a clerk heard it decades ago. All of it crosses over untouched, because the signature at the bottom is a statement that nothing was changed.

That is worth sitting with for a moment, because people assume the opposite. They expect a careful reader of the paper to spot an obvious slip and fix it in passing. Doing so would make the English pages disagree with the record they are fastened to, and a set that disagrees with itself is worse than no set at all.

Sorting the wording before you buy

So the reading comes first and the buying second. Go through the record line by line against what you know to be correct, and treat anything that does not match as a job for the record rather than for a translator. A Scottish birth, marriage or death entry sits with Edinburgh Registration Service, and any change to what it says is a matter for that entry, not for pages made from it.

Where the paper came from somewhere else, the same order of work holds: obtain the version you are willing to file, then have it translated. A certified translation for Ghana made from a paper you later replace has to be bought again from scratch, since the new paper is a different document with its own wording.

Per-page cost and turnaround

About £25 covers a page, standard work comes back in 2–3 business days, and the express route runs in 24 hours. Nothing in that changes because a record was reissued; the clock simply starts later. Notarisation can be added on request, and it sits on top of the certificate of accuracy rather than in place of it.

The real saving on this route is not speed but sequence. One reading of the record, done properly at the start, is cheaper than a fast turnaround on pages you end up throwing away. Everything else here follows page count, so the shorter the set, the smaller the bill.