Hi Reader,
Over the last month, the World Speaks team has spoken about Interpretation, Translation, and Language Justice in several arenas, including the NATI conference and the Language Justice Training with the Douglas County Health Department. You can read more about each of these conferences below!
Interpretation and Translation services are part of our efforts to bring language justice and language access to our community.
But how much do you know about Interpretation and Translation? Since discussing interpretation and translation is top of mind this month, we wanted to share some of that teaching with you!
First - let’s define what interpretation and translation mean:
- Interpretation is for spoken & sign languages and conveys the message in another language verbally or through sign language.
- Translation is used for written languages and conveys the message in written form between two or more languages.
When you have a person sign for your deaf and hard of hearing participants at a conference, or when you need someone to help you communicate in real-time with clients who speak another language - you need an interpreter.
When you need someone to translate something you’ve written into another language (or languages) so everyone in the community can understand, you need a translator.
World Speaks offers both interpretation and translation services (based on interpreter/translator availability) in Spanish, English, ASL, Vietnamese, Karen, Thai, Cantonese, Burmese, Nepalese, Mandarin, Somali, Swahili, Arabic, Farsi, Dari, Pashto, Urdu, Hindi, Bhojpuri, Italian, Portuguese, French, Russian, K’iche’, and German! Our most popular languages for interpretation this year are Spanish and Karen. For translation, our most popular languages this year are Spanish and Arabic.
Both interpretation and translation have many different ways to utilize them.
Because interpretation is done with spoken/sign language, there are two types of interpretation in our toolkit that we can use:
- Consecutive Interpretation: occurs after the speaker has finished talking. The speaker uses consecutive interpretation pauses every few sentences to give the interpreter time to interpret the message. It is often used in two-way communication when both parties are having a conversation.
- Simultaneous Interpretation: happens while the speaker is speaking. There are no pauses, and the interpreter interprets the message while the speaker is presenting the original speech. It is often used in one-way communication when the speaker is presenting a topic or delivering a speech to an audience.
These types of interpretation can occur in various ways. Both can be used in person, virtually, hybrid, or over the phone. In simultaneous interpretation, you can also use whispering or equipment. There is also a practice called relaying.
Relaying is an interpretation technique used when multiple languages are needed or when no interpreter is available for a specific language combination.
Here’s an example of how relaying works: You have a conference attendee who speaks an indigenous language. Still, you don’t have an interpreter who speaks that language and English, but you do have an interpreter who speaks the indigenous language and Spanish. You can have one person interpret from the indigenous language to Spanish, then a second person interprets from Spanish to English. The two interpreters work as a team to meet everyone’s language needs!
Because translation involves the written word, sight translation, which focuses on reading a text out loud from one language to another, is also possible.
Here’s an example of how sight translation works: You have a text written in English but an audience who speaks Spanish. Using sight translation, an interpreter will read the text out loud to the audience in Spanish.
As you can see, interpretation and translation have many facets and can be used in various ways!
If your company, group, or organization wants to create more language access for your community and wants to work with interpreters. In that case, we’ve assembled a handy guide of dos and don’ts! You can download the guide here: Get the Guide.
Want to learn more about how your organization might use interpreters and translators? Give us a shout!
