This week it was my turn to post on the NAJIT blog, and I asked some of my colleagues what I should write about. I was told, “Don’t teach. Tell your story.” So here it is. U.N., here I come. I graduated Rutgers in the spring of...
Have you ever heard the term, word picture? If you are a trained interpreter, chances are you have. Often, it is explained as a remedy; a way to describe a term that has no equivalent in the target language. However, word pictures are much more...
Maybe it is time to make friends with Spanglish. …And Italish, Portinglish, Haitian Creolish and any other language +English! It happened this way: Judge (English): “…mortgage…” Me (Spanish): “…hipoteca…” Litigant (No language): [Blank stare; look of incomprehension and confusion.] The question was repeated. All at once, understanding dawned and the litigant...
Happy New Year everybody! For the first post of this year, I’d like to propose a new year’s resolution that doesn’t involve us joining a gym. Not that the gym is so terrible, but with all these cold fronts right now I personally would like...
I still remember it vividly: On October 18th, 2013, I discovered that I had passed the FCICE federal exam. It was one of those remarkable moments that remain transfixed in one’s memory no matter how much time passes. I was elated to receive the news. The...
- By Athena Matilsky There are few things more off-putting than to hear an interpreter fill their delivery with um and uh, second-guess themselves, and interject side commentary. In real-life situations, this sort of delivery makes the listener tune out. On a test, it costs the...
Okay, perhaps it’s a bit far-fetched to compare a courthouse to Shakespeare’s famous rose, but I have to admit that after months away from court (or, should I say, du palais de justice…our francophone neighbors certainly have a way with words, don’t they?!) when I...
The problem with court interpreting is that it’s messy. Heck, life is messy, and court interpreting is just a manifestation of our daily struggle with chaos. Allow me to explain. For months now I have been mentoring students to study for their tests; notably I’ve been coaching...
Here’s the thing about my Spanish: I learned it from a book. When I enrolled in my first Spanish class, I didn’t even know how to ask someone, “How are you?” But I progressed quickly, with brilliant professors hailing from places like Peru, Costa Rica,...
- by Athena Matilsky © 2017 Ah yes. Sight translation. The interpreter tendency to ignore sight translation is kind of like that affliction suffered by us, middle children. You know middle child syndrome, right? It’s like this: our big brother Simultaneous is overtaking the track field and...