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, you may not agree with what an interpreting department in another state says is the right way. Thank you to...
A few decades ago, “language access” was not really a phrase. Litigants who did not speak English were frequently left in the dark as to their own judicial proceedings, and this carried severe consequences. The evolution of court interpreting as a profession has relied on the...
A friend of mine is certified as an interpreter in the courts of a dozen or so states. I was asking myself the other day, “Why not simply have a centralized system, in which your certification is valid in any one of the fifty states?”...
It was the kind of day that leaves you tired, yet proud. Your arraignment calendar that morning listed fifty-seven cases. Somewhere around your eighth interpretation, your lunch started calling. Now, however, it’s 1:28 p.m. Back to court. As you clear security, the office texts you: Hey, can you head...
Definition of pivotal[1] 1: of, relating to, or constituting a pivot Autumn is pivotal because it has a “central role, function, or effect” on the rest of the calendar year. Summer has just ended, the winter months are coming, and squirrels everywhere are going crazy making preparations....
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...
“Welcome to one of the world’s most beautiful professions.” That’s a variation on a book title I heard during my second year of translation studies, in the fall semester of 2015. The book title was Profession: Traducteur by Georges Bastin and Monique C. Cormier, and the student...
Other articles in the Get It Write blog discuss the confusion surrounding plurals and possessives (should we write “Happy holidays from the Smith’s” or “the Smiths”?). Making that distinction is arguably one of the trickier issues in English usage. Another is confusion about commonly used homophones: it is...
“Oh, that was terrible! I can’t believe how bad that looks,” said my 8-year-old niece the other day. She was referring to her own drawing, which was actually a very nice depiction of a butterfly. My niece would never speak that way about somebody else’s...
I truly believe life is a great journey, and it sometimes takes us places we didn't know we would go. In my first interpreting position, I was hired as a staff medical interpreter, and after a few years interpreting in the real world and completing...