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...
Monday, May 22 is NAJIT Advocacy Day. Join NAJIT in Washington, DC. Together our voices are louder and can reach farther! NAJIT will be scheduling a group visit with Executive Branch offices and recommend interpreters and translators schedule appointments with their own legislators. That is only one part of...
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,...
We have renamed the "What Would You Have Done?" section. Presenting to you, The Couch. We trust you will feel the same warm welcome here, and confident enough to air issues and to help our colleagues. All data that might make the parties or case identifiable have been...
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...
This is Part II of Javier Aparisi's report on his Brazilian adventure. Pedri, a family friend from my early years in São Paulo, accompanied me a few days later in our visits to the Barra Funda regional court in São Paulo. This judicial complex offered a...
- 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...
Here is another installment of WWYHD. We thank our colleagues who have shared their experiences with us and invite YOU to contribute. All articles are shared anonymously and to avoid breach of confidentiality, all identifiable details are removed from the stories shared with us in compliance...
This article by Jennifer de la Cruz was first published on December 5, 2014. It started off like any other day. I had been working in court for just enough time to have experienced most types of hearings and a trial or two. I had just...
I’m not the only one who dreams about “I wish that more people who come into contact with court interpreters (for whatever reason) knew that __________” right? So I am asking for all of you reading this to help me. If you were able to...