The Couch is a place to exchange ideas and brainstorm, not only for its contributors but also for our readers who engage in the ensuing discussions. Sometimes, to certain people, “keep calm and keep interpreting” may not be enough. A thank you goes out to this...
Early on in my interpreting career, I learned an important lesson: the Judge is the king or queen of the courtroom. What they say goes. This means that as interpreters, we should address the judge when we need anything. And we do need things, on...
“Your Honor, why don’t we have the interpreter read the script generated by Zoom?” This was a question that came up in one of my latest remote hearing cases. If that was not enough to surprise many of us who are court interpreters, the judge’s...
For a long time, I have wondered why the interpreting profession is respected more in some places than it is in others. I have asked myself how this affects the work we do and the pay we receive for it. I believe part of this...
Using wireless interpreting equipment provides a plethora of advantages. So why are so many of us still not using it? This technology allows interpreters to whisper into a microphone so our interpretation can be heard through headphones. The transmitter and the receiver(s) are not connected...
The popular phrase “follow the money” is what people recommend when you are trying to get to the bottom of a suspicious matter. What if, instead, we follow the words? What truths can words reveal? Last night, as I was cooking a huge pot of...
There is a practice in some of the courts where I have worked, in which the judge will call several defendants at the same time for proceedings like initial appearances, arraignments, or guilty plea hearings, each one having a different case. Sometimes they all need...
This article will exclusively address the interpretation aspect of the proceedings, omitting other case background and charges, which are readily available online. The defendant, Oscar Juracan Juracan, faces 1st-degree criminal charges before the Hudson County Superior Court in New Jersey and is a speaker of...
When Barb Fisher began interpreting for Marshallese-speaking people in 2011, she would never have imagined her whole family would soon be ushered into the same line of work. The Fisher family first became acquainted with the Marshallese language when they moved to the Republic of the...
Last fall, I started calculating the time it takes me to do my work including travel time, the courtesy pre-assignment time, the hours of waiting, the hours worked, the time for billing, e-mailing, confirmations, follow up, searching for work, etc. I realized that I was...