Tuesday, 31st December 2024
We use the Google Translator service so you have instant access to all our public pages in your language of choice.
The tool is the top right corner of all our public pages just below the helpful shortcuts.
To turn it off, first click on "Show Original" at the top of your screen. Then click the X close button to the right of that.
The Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) provides the TIS National interpreting service for people who do not speak English and for the English speakers who need to communicate with them.
Their interpreters speak more than 160 languages and dialects. TIS National is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any person or organisation in Australia requiring interpreting services.
Many organisations are eligible for free services from TIS. Otherwise there are fees charged on a time basis.
Telephone 131 450 - the operator will connect you to the interpreter.
TIS Help With Translating Service. You can pre-book either a telephone interpreter or an on-site visit. They also offer subscribers an automated telephone service for certain languages that is quicker and cheaper to use.
Please give us feedback about your experiences using Foolkit and ideas for improvements.
A shortcut that works with many programs is to hold down the CTRL key and at the same time to scroll the wheel on your mouse.
With Internet Browsers you can also hold down the CTRL key and press + at the same time to make make it bigger. If you hold down CTRL and - (minus key) then it makes it smaller. Holding down CTRL and pressing 0 (zero) sometimes makes it return to the original 100% size.
Alternatively, click on View in the menu of the browser and select Zoom / Magnification / Text size.
ImTranslator is an Add-On for the Mozilla Firefox Browser. It is free.
It will read the text on a page in a variety of languages.
It will also provide written translations, spell check in a variety of languages and provide keyboard support for those languages.
The best legal advice is often from a lawyer who speaks their language.
You will be sure of good translation of the problem and then of the legal information. There are also the benefits that the client is likely to feel more comfortable with them and both sides will be aware of any cultural issues to be considered.
Legal Aid and some of the Community Legal Services have good interpreter facilities. See our Community Legal Assistance page.
If you are looking for a private lawyer, then we recommend that you read our Choosing A Lawyer page. Often the best way to find a suitable lawyer is through personal contacts. Otherwise you can use the referral service mentioned by us on that page.
Australian glossary of legal terms
Multi-Lingual Legal Dictionary is Canadian. We are unable to test its accuracy, and the laws are different between the Countries. But it may help.
The languages are Chinese (simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Farsi, Korean, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese.
Even a native English speaker can have trouble with some of the terms used by the law. We have a Glossary of Common Legal Terms in English. Dictionary - Legal Terms (Canadian) is a free English legal dictionary. For Family Law there is the Term Finder - Legal words explained in several languages.
Each of these allow you to copy text or the address/URL of the page you want translated.
Babel Fish and Google have different software, so it may be worth trying both to see which is easier to read.
Google Translate also lets you upload a document for translation.
Google Language Tools also helps you to search across other languages.
No automated translation is completely accurate.
