Three years ago I retired from thirty years as a Spanish<>English court interpreter. Before that I was a classical guitarist — a good one, but not so phenomenally good as to make a reasonable living out of it. At around age thirty, I quit music...
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...
Does anyone remember that commercial for a chocolate-covered coconut candy bar that could be bought with or without almonds? So, if you “felt like a nut” (if you felt like eating a nut, that is), you could buy the one with almonds, and if you...
The following article by Athena was published a while back. The NAJIT Observer team would like to offer it for your reading pleasure once more. Enjoy! Have you ever taken a dash of one language with a sprinkle of another, mixed them together and simmered to taste?...
Two questions: 1) Is technology going to replace us? (Ironically, the “age-old” one.) 2) Does language really evolve so fast? I want to bring perhaps a different perspective, which others may have evoked in other places. As to technology, it is possible that AI becomes powerful...
Have you ever taken a dash of one language with a sprinkle of another, mixed them together and simmered to taste? Of course you have! You’re bilingual. You’re bound to have stirred your languages together at one point or another. There’s actually a fancy name for...
This post was originally published in February 2015. But its subject matter is timeless. We hope you enjoy it. Thank goodness for words like “judge”. Juez just rolls off the tongue so nicely. I can say it in French with no problem at all, and assuming...
- Gio Lester© for Proteus, 9/2014 I have always been a curious individual. I recall asking my mom if Jesus was history or legend (got a scolding for that one), and asking my Biology teacher where the first bacteria found RNA to replicate its DNA from...
This article by Jennifer de la Cruz was originally published in August 2014. We thought it was especially relevant after Athena's piece on sight translation. This is a new aspect of what we do in court interpreting. When Facebook and Instagram and even text messaging were...
Thank goodness for words like “judge”. Juez just rolls off the tongue so nicely. I can say it in French with no problem at all, and assuming there is a similar concept in any other language of choice, a bilingual dictionary would probably make me...