FAQs About  Certified Translation Professional (CTP) Program

Below are some of the frequently asked questions regarding the Certified Translation Professional (CTP) Program and Practice Testination. If you are interested in the CTP, please consider downloading the CTP Study Guide or learning more about why others have enrolled by clicking here.

A certification program is a designation earned by a person to assure qualification to perform a job or task.

The CTP Designation program is accredited by the CPD Certification Service. The CPD Certification Service was established in 1996 and is an accreditation platform working across all sectors, disciplines and further learning applications. CPD uses rigorous guidelines that must be met in order to provide accreditation. The CPD Certification Service works internationally with organisations ranging from small consultancy firms to large training providers such as CTP Designation.

The CTP Designation Program is 100% online, so you can take the exam from anywhere in the world, and it is the fastest growing certification program for freelance translators and translation career professionals. Our tuition is lower than a single course at a university, and there are no ongoing membership dues or fees of any type when you complete the CTP Program. The CTP Program is the only certification program recommended by the Global Translation Institute (GTI).

  • All participants gain access to our Library of Audio Interviews, which we have conducted with experienced translators from all over the world. By listening to these interviews you can receive valuable translation career advice directly from trusted experts in the industry.
  1. All participants gain access to our Library of the Audio Interviews, which we have conducted with experienced translators from all over the world. By listening to these interviews you can receive valuable translation career advice directly from trusted experts in the industry.
  2. Those who join the CTP also gain access to our Translator Training Video Platform, which provides 50 concise educational videos as well as audio study tips and a resume template.
  3. After joining you also get free access to our $300 database of over 1,000 global translation agencies and their full contact details in Excel (Sold for $300 at DatabaseofTranslators.com).
  4. CTP Alumni also get “author status” on our leading websites, BecomeATranslator.com and TranslationTraining.org, where they can grow their industry profile and contribute original articles to the website.

All candidates looking to complete the CTP Program must be able to read and write fluently in both English and their target language.

Please complete the Re-registration Form here: http://translatorcertification.com/re-registration/ .The cost to re-take the exam is $99.00

The CTP Designation Program is currently available for 25 different language pairs. Our exam evaluates participants’ abilities to translate in both directions. For example, if you choose the English-Spanish language pair you will be tested on translating from English into Spanish as well as Spanish into English. The language options are: English, French, Chinese (Mandarin), German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Japanese, Greek, Korean, Polish, Dutch, Irish, Romanian, Hindi, Thai, Indonesian, Punjabi, Danish, Farsi.

Please notify our team with our online Date Change Form to move your examination date. A request to move an already scheduled examination date must be received at least 2 weeks prior to the examination date. There is a $25 fee to move your examination date before the 2-week deadline. If an examination date is not moved by the 2-week deadline, you will remain scheduled for that specific examination date. To move an examination after the 2-week cutoff, a $99 fee will be applied.

Refunds will NOT be made after an examination has been scheduled and the examination has been sent to a participant to complete. Once you submit your examination date request and are subsequently sent the online examination to complete, your refund period will be voided. This means that, should you register for the CTP program and take the examination just 2 weeks later, your refund period will no longer be extended to 7 weeks. If you have any questions about this policy, please let us know. We can be reached by email at Support@TranslatorCertification.com

Please note that by using the payment plan option offered on the CTP website, you agree to the following terms – examination results will be sent to you via email one month after your examination takes place. If you have passed the examination, but still owe payments, your certificate and designation will not be made available to you until the final payment has been made. You are always welcome to pay off a payment plan balance and receive your certificate and designation in a more timely manner. If you have any questions about this process, please let us know.

The CTP program is self-study, meaning you get to set your own schedule and go at your own pace. You can go through the materials in the program in 2 months, or 24+. If you need more time, you’re welcome to take as long as you need. We recommend that you spend ~100 hours going through the text book, audio, and video resources to prepare for the examination.

  • Participants in the CTP Program may include:
  • Corporate or Freelance Translators
  • Professionals specializing in both interpretation and translation
  • Teams of professional translators who work together
  • Professors and teachers
  • Individuals
  • The $475 registration payment covers tuition, access to the CTP Training Video Tutorials, audio recordings, the practice exam, and the actual examination fee as well as the PDF certificate.
  • The PDF stamp and PDF certificate are not included in this price and are an add-on.
  • To review the required reading, please click here. There, you can purchase the electronic PDF copy or visit Amazon.com to purchase the hard copy.

Yes. There is no deadline to take the CTP examination. You must notify the CTP team at least two weeks before your desired examination date, however. If you miss or fail your examination, there is a $99 re-take fee. This can be paid on the registration page and on our Re-registration Page.

No. Once you are registered, we will keep your information in our records.

If you fail the exam you will have to pay a total of $99 to retake the exam.

You can take the exam as many times as needed, though the retake fee of $99 will apply with each re-take.

  • Yes, once you successfully pass the examination (which requires earning a minimum grade of 80%), we will send you a certificate via email in PDF format.
  • If you wish to purchase a physical certificate with a diploma holder we will confirm your mailing address with you before it is sent. 
  • Each year, the CTP exam is held every quarterly in March, June, September & December.  After you register, you will receive instructions on choosing an appropriate examination date, as you are able to choose from any future available exam date. The CTP program is 100% online, including the examination. You can schedule your exam on our website here: http://translatorcertification.com/examination/. The deadline to schedule an examination date is 2 weeks before the exam date. If you request your examination date after that time, you will be scheduled for the next examination.

The examination is offered for 24 hours on the date of your exam (based on Eastern Daylight Time (GMT-4)). Once you start the examination, you will have 3 hours to complete it. Your examination link and further information are sent to you the night before the examination (at 11:55 pm EST).

The exam is only available online. This makes it possible for you to earn the certification from anywhere in the world.

Yes. You can complete the CTP from anywhere in the world and take the examination online. As long as you have a good internet connection, the CTP program is accessible to everyone, anywhere.

  • The preparation time required for this exam depends on each candidate’s current knowledge, experience, reading speed, and comprehension. It is impossible to calculate how much time a specific individual would need to prepare, but we suggest 75-100 hours of reading /study time. There is only one required textbook, and some people may require extra time in order to gain a better understanding of its contents.
  • Study Guide: http://translatorcertification.com/ctp-study-guide/
  • Examination results are sent out one month after examinations are completed. We make an effort to get them back to participants in a timely manner. We grade essay answers and translation passages for up to 100 participants each examination and work as quickly as we can. We will send examination results 30-days from the day of the exam.

After one month has passed, please feel free to get in touch the next day and we can look into your examination results. Any requests for results before that time slow the grading process, and your patience is greatly appreciated.

You need to earn a minimum grade of 80% in order to pass the exam.

We accept payment through any major credit card, check, wire transfer, PayPal, and the Western Union. Payment plans are only offered through PayPal, so you must have an active PayPal account to a linked account or credit card. Please see the registration page for more information on payment and the offered payment plan. You can find the registration page here.

The CTP Certification ensures that if you hire someone who has completed this program, he or she has mastered a certain base level of knowledge about conducting professional translation projects. Our program tests participants within six distinct areas including; ethics, translation work, translation best practices, translation skills, translation career, and quality of translation.

Registration for the CTP program is open year-round. We limit the number of registrations each exam session to just 100 participants. To ensure you reserve your desired examination date, please register for the program by clicking here.

Refunds will be made if written notification is received in the first 7-weeks after registration was completed.  After 7 weeks has passed, refunds will not be made. Moreover, a refund will not be offered if you take the CTP examination before the 7-week refund period has passed. Your refund period will end as soon as the examination link is sent to you via email.

  • You are welcome to use your notes or a translation aid, like a dictionary or software, but as if translating for a client, you would not use software or copy and paste from another source. As such, you are expected to submit your own work during the exam. If there is any indication of plagiarism, whereby the work of someone else is used without giving credit, participants will receive an immediate failing grade and will be removed from the program.

These participants will not be given an opportunity to retake the examination, and a refund will not be issued. Any copying of someone else’s work is taken very seriously, and measures will be taken to ensure that CTP holders are of the highest caliber. Do not copy and paste someone else’s work for any part of the examination.