I know it may seem like a tired old cliché but, come on! You have to agree with me: it has been a great year! For me it was a year of enormous challenges chairing the NAJIT Board of Directors during the first half, and...
You may have heard of the ATA (American Translators Association) Certification Exam. It has been around for a long time, and it is recognized as a legitimate credential; passing it demonstrates that one is a competent translator in that pair of languages. In fact, for...
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?”...
Discoveries As I look back on what stays behind after this eventful 2021, I see the mistakes I have made and on the other hand the great choices as well. I would like to think that the latter outweigh the former, but a deep analysis is...
Talking to my mother the other day, I asked her if anything similar to Thanksgiving Day existed in Mexico, but it seemed that the closest thing we have there is New Year’s. She was right! It’s hard to remember all those holiday details after living...
Every career has its pathway to the top. The general consensus among court interpreters is that our gold standard is the Federal Court Interpreting Certification Examination (FCICE). The test is only offered in the Spanish-English language combination, as the test writers explain on the website:...
Every profession has certain requirements that allow a person to enjoy the benefits and respect of their respective titles. I have been wondering lately about all the people who call themselves “interpreters” and whether they all deserve to attribute that title to themselves. I know we...
A New Year's Resolution. I do not believe in New Year’s resolutions, but I did make a few for 2018, all related to my professional development. One of them was to take the Florida Courts’ Written Exam, a must to become a certified court interpreter in...
The Couch is a learning place, not only for its contributors but also for our readers who engage in the ensuing discussions. What do you do when you witness abuse on the job? The incident happened a few years ago but it still haunts me. No, I am...