How to translate the native place of English resume: How to write the personal information column

Key points of this article

There is no official unified English name for the place of birth. Native Place or Hometown is commonly used. It can be written in the province or city, and it is not necessary to write in the county or village.
When applying for an overseas position, you can omit your place of origin in the personal information column; domestic and foreign companies have different recruitment requirements, so check the recruitment information first before making a decision.
Place of origin, place of birth, and place of household registration are three concepts. Before translating, confirm which one HR really wants to ask.
The names of provinces and cities should be written in Chinese pinyin plus official English place names. Keep the same writing method throughout the article and do not mix abbreviations.
When translating from a Chinese resume, the translation needs to be checked item by item, and the results of machine translation cannot be used directly as a finished manuscript.

When many people change their Chinese resume to English, the "Place of Origin" item in the personal information column makes people hesitate. There is no fixed word that corresponds to it one-to-one in English. If you translate it word for word, HR may not be able to understand it. If you simply delete it, you will worry about incomplete information. This article is written for job seekers who need to submit an English resume or translate a Chinese resume into English. It explains how to write place of birth in an English resume and which line it should be placed on.

After reading this article, you can judge whether your position requires writing your place of origin, choose a suitable English expression, write it in the personal information column in a unified format, and check it after you are done. The steps in this article take a Word document as an example, because most resumes are typeset in Word.

How to translate the place of origin in an English resume? One sentence conclusion

There is no official unified translation of place of origin in English. In job hunting scenarios, Native Place and Hometown are commonly written in two ways, both of which refer to the ancestral home or the place where one grew up. As long as the writing is clear and consistent throughout, most HR people can understand it. Whether and where you can write it depends on the target position and the recruiting party's habits.

your situation	Recommended practices	reason
Submission to domestic and foreign companies or Sino-foreign joint ventures, the recruiter clearly requires personal information	Write Native Place: Province name, only write the province or municipality directly under the Central Government	Domestic HR is familiar with the place of origin, and writing at the provincial level can meet routine needs.
Submit to overseas companies or overseas universities or overseas positions	Place of origin is usually omitted and nationality or place of residence is replaced (if requested)	Overseas resumes generally do not require this kind of information, and it would seem unconventional to include it.
The recruitment information only states "basic personal information" and has no specific requirements.	You can write Hometown: the name of the province, after the date of birth	Hometown is more colloquial than Native Place. Readers can understand it at a glance and it is not easy to misunderstand it as birthplace.
What needs to be indicated is actually the place of birth or domicile.	Write Place of Birth or Household Registration respectively. Do not use place of birth instead.	The three concepts are different, and mixing them will cause HR to misunderstand the information.
Resumes should be submitted to positions that require background verification	Confirm the required information items with the recruiter, and then decide how to write it.	Some positions have clear requirements for household registration or place of birth, and the writing method should be based on the other party's requirements.

Before you start: Confirm these points first

First, confirm whether the recruiter wants a native place. Many English resume templates do not have this column at all. If the recruitment notice does not mention personal information, just omit it; if it is a form sent by a headhunter or HR, just fill in all the items in the form. Forcing a column that no one needs will only take up space.

Second, figure out what exactly you want to express. Place of origin usually refers to ancestral home or long-term hometown, place of birth refers to the city where one was born, and household registration location refers to the place where one’s household registration is registered. The three are often used interchangeably in Chinese, but they have different meanings in English. If your place of birth and place of origin are different, write only one of them, don't put them both on the same line.

Third, unify the spelling of province and city names. Chinese pinyin is commonly used when converting Chinese place names into English. For example, "Shandong" is written as Shandong, and "Sichuan" is written as Sichuan. Municipalities use Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing. Only one way of writing can be used in the same resume. Inconsistency will make people doubt whether the layout or information is reliable.

Fourth, decide which level to write to. The place of birth should generally be written in the province or municipality on the resume, not the county or village. Writing in too much detail takes up space and is unnecessary. If the recruiter clearly wants the city level, just add the city name.

Fifth, check the format of the Word document. The personal information field is usually a two-column table or several lines of text. Colons, spaces and punctuation should be consistent, and English punctuation and Chinese punctuation should not be mixed. Try to keep the font and size consistent with the main text. These details are easily overlooked in a resume.

Steps to write the personal information column in Word and check the translation

If your resume is a Chinese Word document and you want to translate it into English, you can follow the following method. The overall idea is: first determine the fields to be written, then translate them, and finally make a unified typesetting in Word.

List all fields of personal information. List the name, phone number, email address, date of birth, place of origin, place of residence, etc. in the Chinese resume one by one on a piece of paper. Mark which ones are required by the employer and which ones can be deleted.
Determine how to write your place of origin. Based on the table in the previous section, select Native Place or Hometown, and confirm that you only write to the province or municipality.
Prepare a manuscript of your resume in English. If you already have the English version, modify the personal information column directly in the original manuscript; if not, you can upload the Chinese Word file to omnidoc.top, select "Translation Only" to output, and download the English version. The translation result can only be regarded as a first draft and needs to be checked word for word by yourself.
Replace the line of place of birth. In the personal information column of the English version, write your place of origin in the form "Native Place: Shandong Province" without adding extra spaces after the colon. All provincial names are capitalized.
Unify the format of other fields. Check whether the writing method of phone number, email address, and date is consistent with your other fields. It is recommended that the date format be unified as "Month Year" or "YYYY-MM", just choose one.
Check whether the layout remains unchanged. Open the file in Word and check whether the personal information column is misaligned and whether the line breaks are abnormal. If you are using the UniDoc web editor, you can also edit there. It supports editing and exporting in Word format.
Read it again before exporting to PDF. When exporting to PDF before delivery, check whether the fonts are embedded and whether the table is complete to avoid layout changes after opening on the other party's computer.
Save a backup of the original version. The English and Chinese versions are saved separately to facilitate future modifications for different positions.

# check item by item after completion

After the translation and typesetting are done, it is recommended to cross-reference the following list item by item. This step can find common errors in machine translation and manual modification. The translation results involve important information, be sure to check it yourself, do not send it directly.

Check item	What do you think?	What if there's a problem?
Is the place of origin consistent with the original manuscript	Check the resume in Chinese to make sure that the provincial name is not wrong or omitted.	Go back to the original manuscript to check, correct the pinyin or provincial name, do not change it according to your impression
Whether the place of origin and place of birth are mixed	See if the label of the line is Native Place, Hometown or Place of Birth.	Change the label according to the actual information, and only the required item will be retained when the two are inconsistent.
Whether the spelling of provinces and cities is unified or not	Search for common variants such as "Shandong" and "Shandong" throughout the article	Unify it into one way of writing, deleting extra spaces or spelling mistakes
Punctuation and spaces	Check whether colons, commas and periods are English punctuation, and whether there are extra spaces between Chinese and English.	Batch replacement, keep the English format
Whether typesetting is out of shape	View the alignment, font size, and line feeds of the personal information bar in Word	Adjust the width of the table, or change the line to paragraph form to keep it in line with other fields
Exported PDF	Open the exported file and check that the text is complete and the font is normal	Re-export, switch to other fonts if necessary, and check the content again

# Core comparison: Native Place, Hometown and Place of Birth

All three writing methods can be found in English resumes, but they point to different points. If you make the wrong choice, HR may interpret it as another matter.

Writing method	Pointing to information	A suitable scene	Matters needing attention
Native Place	Place of origin, origin, or origin.	Domestic enterprises, forms with clear requirements of place of origin	More formal, suitable for personal information bar
Hometown	Hometown, usually the place to grow up.	A resume with a relaxed tone, general personal information	It may be understood as a long-term place of residence, with additional instructions if necessary
Place of Birth	Place of birth	Forms and official documents that require birth information	Different from the place of origin, don't use it instead of place of origin.

# which writing method is suitable for you?

If you want to deliver is a domestic enterprise, the recruiter may be used to looking at the place of origin, Native Place is more secure. If the position is biased towards an international team, the personal information bar is very short, and Hometown can also make it clear to the reader at a glance. If the form specifically asks about the place of birth, don't write down your place of origin, just fill in the form according to Place of Birth.

# frequently asked questions (FAQ)

1. Must I write my place of origin on my resume in English?

Not necessarily. The place of origin is personal information, and resume templates for most overseas positions and some domestic and foreign companies are not required. First look at the recruitment information, there are clear requirements to write, no requirements can be omitted.

2. Is the place of origin written to the city or to the province?

It is generally enough to write to provinces or municipalities directly under the Central Government. If the recruiter asks for more details, add the city name. It is usually not necessary to write to a county or village.

3. Is it possible to directly use translation software to translate the place of origin in your resume?

It can be used as a first draft, but you have to check it yourself. Mistakes can be made in the spelling of place names, the formal spelling of provincial and municipal names and the use of contextual words. The final version should be confirmed by you.

4. Which line is more appropriate to write the place of origin?

It is generally placed in the personal information bar, adjacent to the date of birth, household registration or place of residence. Don't occupy a large section, just keep it in the same format as other fields.

5. What if the typesetting is messed up after the Chinese resume is translated into English?

First check the table width and paragraph alignment in Word to unify the font and font size. If the personal information bar is deformed, it can be changed to a simple paragraph form, so that each item has a single line.

# Summary

There is no uniform translation of the place of origin in the English resume. Native Place and Hometown are two common words, which can be written in a province or municipality directly under the Central Government. First confirm whether the recruiter needs this item, and then unify the spelling and format, and then check it item by item, so that the personal information column can be both accurate and tidy.

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