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, it feels like your code of ethics and your concern for a person’s well-being can conflict – but is...
This week, the Blog team felt it pertinent to re-publish a short post from 2019, in the spirit of Thanksgiving. This is a time to celebrate gratitude; a time to recognize, acknowledge and be thankful for our experiences. A good life is not one free of hardships;...
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new” —Socrates Jon Leeth was the Special Assistant to the Assistant Director in Charge of Court Reporting and Interpreting Services, also referred to as Chief of the...
We have all been there: tired and in need of a partner. Could there exist a machine that does the notetaking for me? I started to ponder about speech recognition many years ago when ASR (automatic speech recognition) was accessible via software (think Siri). I...
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, it feels like your code of ethics and your concern for a person’s well-being can conflict. Thank you to...
I was so comfortable, but man was I bored. I had the privilege of being a Spanish teacher for two and a half decades, which brought with it tremendous success, along with some cool perks. I had taught in the International Baccalaureate program for twenty...
There is one aspect of all judiciary interpreters’ certification exams that I find somewhat inconsistent with real-life practice. In real life, being able to anticipate and appropriately reformulate what judges and attorneys say is very closely linked to the repetitious nature of legal language. There...
Interpreters are proving to be an indispensable resource to indigenous communities as the demand for their services increases. While a handful of language-service agencies claim to offer some of these languages, they cannot guarantee the interpretation provided is true or accurate. This is why, to...
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. A common fallacy in our time is to say that nothing is real unless you’re able to explain it. But...
There are big fish and little fish in a courtroom’s ecosystem. Judges are definitely the biggest fish of all. Interpreters? Well, that’s what I have been thinking about: where do we fit in the courtroom’s ecosystem? Throughout my years in this profession, I have encountered...