Last week, we referenced this article by the American Translators Association that detailed the case of a Cameroon citizen applying for asylum in the United States. The individual reportedly spoke a pidgin variety of English, and was unable to fully understand the proceedings nor provide a testimony that was able to be recorded accurately. The judge in charge of the case erroneously believed that the individual would not need an interpreter as English was his “native language.” It was eventually determined that the judge violated the individual’s right to due process by not providing an interpreter.

It’s an unfortunate fact that many people have false ideas about language. For example, hearing a non-standard dialect of English—such as African American Vernacular English or Appalachian English—might cause someone to think the speaker to be not well-educated, when in actuality, linguistic choices don’t necessarily reflect the intelligence of the speaker. A separate “dialect,” also called a “variety,” of a language can create cohesiveness in a smaller group among speakers and allow members to feel more at ease.

A so-called “language” tends to be the “ideal” way to talk by the most powerful group among a larger whole, whether in one country, several countries, etc. For example, when our colleague, Olivia, studied Japanese in college, she was taught the Tokyo dialect, because that’s where the current capital of Japan is, as well as its center of its business and trade. When she lived in a homestay in Nagoya, a major city to the west of Tokyo, she was surprised when some people would conjugate verbs differently or use sentence endings she’d never heard of.

An “accent” can sometimes be used interchangeably with “dialect/variety”; however, this isn’t quite the case. “Accent” refers to how a person pronounces words (think a New Yorker saying “I’m walkin’ here!”), while “dialect” or “variety” refers not just to pronunciation, but also grammar and vocabulary (like “I gone down to the meeting, but wasn’t nobody there” or “bald” for a treeless mountain in Appalachian English).

In the article mentioned above, the individual said he spoke “pidgin” English. A “pidgin” is a form of language that arises when two or more groups who do not have a language in common must speak together, and create simplified, rather limited vocabulary and grammar structures. Linguists tend to consider pidgins as incomplete languages, as they do not generally have a fully structured grammar. A pidgin may form into a “creole” when fully developed vocabulary and grammar develop from children who learn to use the pidgin as their native language. An example of a pidgin sentence is: “Dem neva cam?” for “They haven’t come yet?”

The world of linguistics goes even farther and deeper than just these examples, and are just some of the things we need to think about as language service providers. An interpreter might need to study up on a dialect before helping a client, or a separate person might need to be found altogether if the interpreter knows nothing of the specific language variety.

As a language service provider, we think of these different scenarios, cases, and variations all the time. It’s our responsibility to provide our clients with quality service, and getting to the heart of linguistic differences is just one aspect of that.

We recently read this article by the American Translators Association that detailed the case of a Cameroon citizen applying for asylum in the United States. The individual reportedly spoke a pidgin variety of English, and was unable to fully understand the proceedings nor provide a testimony that was able to be recorded accurately. The judge in charge of the case erroneously believed that the individual would not need an interpreter as English was his “native language.” It was eventually determined that the judge violated the asylum seeker’s right to due process by not providing an interpreter.

That article reminds us of a recent situation we encountered. We had a client seeking asylum in a somewhat remote location in the United States who requested Triqui interpretation. We were about to provide a Triqui interpreter over the phone for telephonic interpretation, given that in-person interpretation in such a remote location was not really possible for the client. However, at the last minute, the asylum office decided that they did not allow telephonic interpretation. There could be any number of reasons for the telephonic interpretation cancellation. Yet, these incidents have got us thinking. What rights do non-citizens have in the United States, especially in regards to translation and interpretation?

According to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, any program that receives Federal funds or financial assistance cannot discriminate based on race, color, or national origin of a person; this also means that these programs must provide access to people with limited English proficiency. Read more about Title VI here and more about Title VI and LEP services here.

However, Title VI does not provide an all-encompassing solution. Service providers are only required to take “reasonable steps” to give access to their programs to LEP individuals. Whatever the case, non-citizens do have the right to request language assistance from Federally-funded institutions. Non-citizen’s rights to have access to translation and interpretation is a basic human need for communication. We at Monterey Language Services are all for supporting the human rights that non-citizens deserve to have in whatever format that interpretation would be conducted, be it in-person, by phone, or over video.

This blog post is our first attempt to look into non-citizen rights to translators and interpreters, so stay tuned for more to come!

Monterey Language Services recently had the pleasure of providing English to Simplified Chinese translation and localization services for the new graphic novel Journey to Gao. The website can be found here, where Monterey Language Services is honored to be listed as the translation provider and as part of the talented team.

This graphic novel project is part a type of new media, a pioneering effort by a handful of creators in search of a new medium for presenting art, story, voice, and music. A pool of talents was gathered for an old-fashioned romantic adventure with elements of Arabian Nights, Cinderella, and the Shangri-la myth. The story depicts a romantic adventure that spans modern-day New York City and the ancient, fictional country of Gao in China. In the midst of modern and old, fiction and non-fiction, West and East, English and Mandarin, romance and mystery, the graphic novel indeed is exotic to watch.

The work has been produced into ten video chapters. To give you a glimpse of our translation work, among what has been published: Chapter 3 has the most translation voices so far. The significant amount of Mandarin presented among English voices indeed makes the graphic novel stand out as a unique and interesting entertainment piece!

Monterey Language Services took extra time to polish the translations into Simplified Chinese to ensure not only accuracy, but an enjoyable and colloquial read for native speakers. Some of the challenges for this project were derived from cultural differences in how to translate certain phrases created specifically for the graphic novel.

For example, we have the “golden doom,” which refers to a specific event in the story. Because the event transports people similarly to the Christian idea of the rapture, our translation was “极乐升天,” which means “bliss ascension” in Chinese language.

One more example of the cultural challenge is rooted in English homonyms. The sentence: “They follow the standard of Lord Kang and swear on his eyes.” In this sentence, what does “standard” mean? If we suggested “average or normal requirement,” it actually would be incorrect! “Standard” in this instance means a battle flag—something ancient soldiers would follow on the battlefield.

Another difficulty was dealing with the ambiguity of written words. In spoken English, a person’s tone can very easily denote sincerity or sarcasm — consider the phrase “good job” being spoken sincerely and being spoken sarcastically, and their meanings become very different. While the context and illustrations in graphic novels can alleviate this confusion in text, sometimes the tone could be just missed. One such problem occurred in our initial translation of “What a stunt,” a line which our translator took be said in admiration, when in actuality, it was an insult. Through our editing/reviewing process we discovered the issue, and the translation was changed from “真是好身手” (really good) to “真有一套,” which has a similar meaning in a more sarcastic tone.

We are incredibly proud of the work we were able to provide for this project, and would like to add more viewing pleasure and excitement by sharing the above behind-the-scenes glimpses to our translation work. We wish all the success to the audience and contributors to the graphic novel. The chapters will be published in video format weekly on YouTube until the tenth and final one is uploaded.

Have you ever listened to the poetry reading of “The the Impotence of Proofreading” by Taylor Mali? A good amount of the jokes are for adult audiences (I certainly wasn’t an adult when I first heard this poem, but I’m very glad I’ve returned to it now that I’m older), but the poem seems to accurately describe a writer who lets their phone’s auto-correct function do the talking. It’s a hilarious ride.

This poem is a great reminder of why we should always, always proofread—and for language service providers, why we should do it even more than the average writer. In today’s blog post, we’ll go over the reasons why.

1. Proofread the source material

Oftentimes, language service providers are given source material documents that the parent company wants to distribute at the same time as their translations. Theoretically, these documents will have been proofread already. After all, the parent company will want their readers to focus on the message of the documents and keep up their reputation and good impressions.

However, before translation, it’s essential that the source material be proofread again to ensure that the translator understands the meaning of it. Grammatical or spelling errors can cause the translated document to lose lots of meaning, and potentially bring about lots of costs to fix these mistakes later down the pipeline.

Let’s look at a common English example of a grammar mistake: “Let’s eat, Grandma!” and “Let’s eat Grandma!” With just a forgotten comma, the entire meaning of the sentence changes into something out of a horror novel. An accurate translation of the second sentence’s meaning could spell disaster, if that sentence is a mistake.

2. Proofread the translation

People are only human—making mistakes is something everyone does, and there’s no shame in it. However, what’s important is how we monitor ourselves to make sure that we catch those mistakes and take responsibility for them.

Translators have the same ability to miss a comma or period, misspell a word, or accidentally misunderstand the meaning of a sentence in the source document. To be safe, it’s crucial to hire a separate translator to act as a proofreader for the translated documents.

3. Assure the quality of the final product before delivery

Even after a translation has been proofread, oftentimes, language service providers are tasked with putting the translation into a certain format—a pamphlet, a PowerPoint, a website, etc. Once the translation is in that format, it’s important to double-check the target document. You want to avoid crashing, missing or hidden text, text overflow, and a slew of other issues.

The need for proofreading all stems back to the need for a proper, professional, trustworthy identity between the parent company and the customer or reader. Glaring issues in the text, or visual problems in the final product, convey to the reader that the document was handled sloppily—and if the document was handled sloppily, why would the parent company treat the reader any differently?

Remember: we should always, always proofread.

Monterey Language Services provides all types of translation and interpretation services, and we feel that it’s very important to keep an eye on best practices for all language services.

Subtitle translation is a very useful way to relay information, as subtitles are shown alongside videos. Like all media, it can range from simple entertainment, to scientific, political, or anything. We’ve collected some best practices for subtitle translations below.

First, be mindful of the length of translations. You have to remember that subtitles only have a set amount of time and space to be displayed on screen. You should try to be as concise as possible while also staying as true to the speaking character as possible. If you think you need more space to say something, consider how long the character is talking for. Would it be possible to separate the sentence into two or more parts? Let’s say that a character is talking for ten seconds. You could possibly split a line into two five second segments. That should ensure that you get the viewer has enough time to read the entire line without being too distracted by the length of the line.

Furthermore, do not ever exceed two lines on the screen at a time. Standard practice is at most two lines, but any more than that and it becomes a huge distraction and an eyesore to the viewer. The aim of subtitling is to avoid being intrusive while providing viewers a way to comfortably enjoy the media.

Also be sure to use the right kind of software. There’s a lot of different programs out there that subtitlers use, and it really depends on how you’d like to go about it. For example, while not industry standard, many people enjoy using AegiSub for its easy use and features that aren’t too heavy on resources. Other people may use other programs such as Adobe Premiere or even MemoQ. It all really depends on how you work and if your employer has a preference.

Most subtitlers come across a dilemma between “soft” and “hard” subtitles. Soft subtitles are subtitles that aren’t hard coded to the video. The best way to think of it is to imagine a picture. If you try writing on it, the writing will be permanent, unable to be removed. With soft subtitles, however, imagine taping your text onto the picture. It’s not permanent, and you can remove it whenever you like. The advantage to soft subs is that you can give the user more freedom. If they want to turn off the subtitles, then they can. If they want to use a different language subtitle, they can easily swap them out.

Hard subtitles on the other hand are hardcoded to the video. Once you use hard subtitles, they are not coming off of that video unless you manually edit them out. The advantage to hard subtitles is that people won’t have to go through any extra steps to load subtitles. They can easily just use one file to and enjoy the subtitles. Of course, they will lose the freedom of being able to turn them off, but that’s what the tradeoff is.

The last thing to be mindful of is that subtitling is, in most cases, localization. You are not expected to do a 1:1 translation of what characters are saying. You are expected to give characters their voice in another language. That being said, you should be careful of over-localizing to the point that the character is completely different than what they sound like in the original version. This is where it’s useful to have editors and QAers to help review your subtitles and make sure that they’re good to go.

There’s a lot to keep in mind while subtitling, but one good way to keep in mind what best practices are is to review other websites’ guidelines. For instance, many people follow Netflix’s guidelines for subtitling when doing their own, even if they aren’t employed by them.

Subtitling is fun, but it takes time to become familiar with the process. The good news is once you get it down, it’ll be second nature.

Monterey Language Services specializes in medical interpretation for hospitals and clinics. Therefore, we are conscious about health and energy related information and would like to share some of our ideas on how to manage your energy levels, so you can increase not only the quality of your work, but your day-to-day life as well.

1. Get a Routine

Get lots of sleep—really! Sleep is integral to how we function and rest our bodies. Getting into a personal routine for your sleep schedule is important. Whether you’re a morning person or a night owl, missing sleep, sleeping too much, or sleeping at the “wrong time” for your body can upset your biological rhythm and leave you tired for days.

Humans thrive off of routines. Having a set time for meals, work, play, etc. can help us rest and recharge in a way just as important as sleep. For example, continuously chugging away at your computer drains on your mental energy—but if you take a good break when you start to feel down, you can come back feeling much more refreshed.

2. Synergize with Your Coworkers

Nothing really energizes you like a job well done. The sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing work to hand off to a partner is fulfilling to many people, and gives you a goal to work toward during your shifts.

Human beings, being social creatures, can thrive off of collaboration. Even if we’re tired, we can get a burst of energy from our peers—like cheering each other on. If you tend to work alone, try bouncing ideas off of a friend, or attempting a collaboration if possible.

3. Eat Well

This should go without saying, but eating well and avoiding certain types of food help keep your physical energy up. Vegetables, fruits, and protein are all very important for keeping human bodies going.

Don’t forget to pack healthy snacks as well if you’re heading out of the home to work, but try not to rely on sugary or carb-heavy snacks like donuts or pastries for these snacks. They might give you a boost, but sugar boosts don’t last long and leave you crashing. A healthy snack avoids the crash.

4. Relegate Work to Certain Spaces

This is difficult to do when so many of us have to work from home nowadays, but separating spaces for work and play helps keep our brains from mixing things up. If we view our homes as a place of rest, it’s harder to get in a mindset to work. If possible, setting up an office space in your home might help tremendously. And, very importantly, keep your work desk as a place of work only—avoid social media, videos, and other distractions, even while on breaks. Breaks should take place in other places than at your desk.

5. Exercise (Yes, Really)

You might think that exercising will make you more tired, but keeping up a good exercise routine will keep endorphins pumping throughout your body. It will generally help you sleep better as well, and given enough regular exercise, you will get more stamina for your energy reserves.

6. Take Breaks (Again: Yes, Really)

Continuously whiling away at your work can wear down your mental energy. Taking breaks allows your brain to get some time to rest and reset, allowing you to come back to your work with a fresh perspective. In fact, matching your break time with exercise time might help you even more. Lots of people like to exercise first thing in the morning and “get it out of the way,” but an afternoon or even a mid-morning workout during your work break can get your blood pumping. You might even get inspiration for your work.

7. Make Time for Yourself (and the Ones You Love)

The old English saying “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” still applies in today’s world, all work and no play not only takes away from your time to broaden your mind, but also makes you burnt out, with no energy left for anything.

Making time for your hobbies and loved ones—real, quality time—is essential for your energy reserves. Doing what makes you happy outside of work refreshes you and allows you to enjoy life to the fullest, and might help to keep you aware of what matters to you, giving you purpose when you come back into work.

So far, 2022 has been a roller coaster — and not a particularly fun one for many. As we go into the second half of 2022, we can make a few predictions for how the year might turn out, and how translators and interpreters might want to prepare for it.

We mentioned in our last post that gas prices have been soaring this year, and it doesn’t seem like they’ll be dropping any time soon. Luckily with the general trend toward remote work, many have the option to work from home and save on travel and gas in the tank. However, this doesn’t mean that translators, and interpreters especially, should just exclusively hole up in their homes. For instance, the gas price increase will affect low-income households terribly, especially those that don’t speak English, or speak limited English.

Similarly, the American baby formula shortage has left parents struggling with increased costs for formula—at least, the formula that they can find. We’re not expecting the issue, or the ramifications, to be resolved overnight. Once again, low-income families could easily be hit the hardest, with non-English speaking families having another barrier to entry concerning information from news outlets, supermarkets, and doctor recommendations. We suggest keeping a close eye on news concerning this event. Even if formula were magically restocked and prices dropped to normal tomorrow, there would still be long-lasting effects, especially concerning the health of children.

It would be best for translators and interpreters to be prepared to travel for assignments concerning low-income households and LEP (Limited English Proficiency/non-English families). These low-income households might not have easy access to the technology needed for remote translation or interpretation. Even access to email and cell phones might be limited or impossible. Given the tendency for low-income families to have a lower quality of health compared to medium-income households, they could very likely be in need of in-person interpretation at a clinic or hospital. In-person interpretation activities may gradually rise again.

Sadly, the Russian war with Ukraine is unlikely to end any time soon. Many Ukrainians have fled, looking for refuge, and numerous translators and interpreters have stepped up to the plate. Yet still, the need for translations and interpretations into and out of Cyrillic-based languages will likely only rise. We suggest that any translator or interpreter able to help do so.

Lastly, while there has been some return to “normalcy,” Covid-19 is still a danger to many and will likely stay that way going into the end of 2022. We hope you use lots of precautionary measures, and stay safe and healthy.

It’s no secret that gas prices are rising, making transportation a much more difficult and costly process for anyone who needs to drive to get to their destination. But also, everyone has been experiencing the effects of inflation. What would have cost maybe a dollar or two previously is maybe double its price. As a result, we’ve all had to learn how to cope with it. This is just as true for translators and interpreters. Here are some things you can do to make sure that you are able to keep up with inflation.

First, understand that if you’re feeling the effects of inflation, so are your clients and companies that you’re working with. You should try looking at your rates compared with other translators and interpreters and know where you stand.  Everyone’s situation is different, however everyone is in the same inflation. This means the best way to cope with the uncertain times is to make sure that you stay in a good position without losing any of the business that you currently have. You should always be sure to do your best to honor your rates with your current clients. Even to lower your rate to attract more business may be also a good idea!

Next, the world has gone through a lot of changes over the years and we all have had to learn and adapt in order to stay afloat. Before the pandemic, the majority of work was done in-person, but now, there are more and more remote interpretation opportunities. Be sure to also widen your reach to other parts of the country. If you are working from home, that means you can work anywhere. Someone in a completely different area from you may be looking for someone with your experience. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there.

If you’re going to be working more from home, it may be time to reassess your internet, phone plan, and current equipment. Investing in better internet, phone service, and equipment will make you a more attractive interpreter or translator because you will not have as many technical difficulties as others may have. For that matter, be sure to educate yourself on how to connect to the various video conferencing services. For example, try setting up Zoom, Google Meets, or Webex on your own and test having a call with yourself to make sure you know how to quickly connect and also that your audio equipment is good. Connection means work and livelihood in today’s work place!

Finally, we do hope the world will be back to normal where we can also provide both remote and in-person interpretation without worrying about the inflation nor the pandemic. After all, a balance of in-person and remote work would be the ideal model for clients, interpreters and language service providers!

Monterey Language Services is looking for 3-4 Spanish medical interpreters to provide in-person interpretation services to federally funded productive health care facilities in Richmond and Antioch, CA.

Requirements:

1. Have completed 100 hours of CCHI approved interpreter training
2. Experienced with in-person medical interpretation
3. Have reliable transportation to and from Richmond or Antioch
4. Enjoy working with young children and particularly mothers
5. Familiar with OBGYN or prenatal services
6. Female interpreters preferred; male interpreters welcomed as well
7. Entry-level is welcome
8. Culturally competent
9. Professional in conduct and appearance
10. Authorized to work in the US

What to Expect:

1. We need someone who is living or willing to relocate to the Richmond/Antioch areas in California for in-person interpretation
2. This will be a 2-year contract
3. Part Time (15 hrs or more per week)
4. Be available to stay on-site for blocks of time to be designated every week
5. Able to work on a team and work well with others
6. May need to shadow physicians and nurses and provide interpretation when necessary
7. Occasionally interpret remotely (via phone or video)
8. Willing to undergo a background check and health screening/immunization
9. Willing to undergo some training to ensure that all guidelines will be followed
10. Willing to follow hospital immunization and safety procedures

If you are interested in joining us, as a first step, please go on our website and in particular answer the questions about your medical interpreting experience, so we can follow up with you. Please also feel welcome to refer entry-level colleagues by sharing this email. Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you soon!

https://www.montereylanguages.com/send-a-resume.html

Some of the most critical languages to interpret for are those that are indigenous, especially given how rare native speakers of these languages are. In today’s post, we will be listing several of Mexican Indigenous languages and where they are from and where they are most commonly spoken in the US.

1. Triqui
There are about 25,000 speakers of Triqui, with most of the speakers being indigenous people of the western part of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The language is also spoken in Baja California; native speakers are typically ethnically Trique. Somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 Triqui speakers have immigrated to the US, with communities in California, New York, and Washington state. There are four major varieties for Triqui: Triqui Bajo, Triqui Alto, Triqui Media, and Triqui de Copala with Triqui de Copala having the most speakers. There are also Triqui-language radio programs based in San Quintin, Baja California, and XETLA (an indigenous community radio station).

2. Mixteco
This is another Oto-Manguean set of languages, and is spoken by about 530,000 people from Oaxaca, Peubla, and Geurrero, Mexico. Immigrants from these areas can typically be found in New York, Arizona, and throughout California such as Baja, San Diego. Though people might think of Mixteco as a single language, some estimate that there are thirty or fifty variations of the language. Typically when they speak to each other though, they use Spanish, so even if they do not speak the same variation, they can communicate with each other.

3. Zapotec
Zapotec has about 490,000 native speakers with the majority of speakers in the United States based in California and New Jersey. The Mexican government officially recognizes sixty Zapotec dialects, and since there can be so much variance between them, it can be difficult for different dialect speakers to understand each other. However, most Zapotec speakers know Spanish as well, so they are still able to communicate with each other.

4. Purepecha/Tarasco
This is an indigenous language that is centered in the northwestern region of Michoacan, Mexico with a total population of about 141,177. In the United States, you can find most speakers in California, Oregon, and Washington. Purepecha is considered an endangered language due to the rate of speakers becoming bilingual rising with less than 10% of speakers being monolingual. Tarasco is another name for Purepecha, which comes from the fact that Tarasca is an exonym for Purepecha culture.

5. Nahuatl
This is a language where most of the speakers are in Central Mexico, but there are speakers of the language in the United States as well, primarily in California where it is the fourth indigenous language of Mexico, trailing Mixteco, Zapotec, and Triqui. The communities that speak the languages are mostly scattered and in rural areas, but there are over a million speakers, most of whom are Mexican immigrants from indigenous communities and Chicanos. Overall though, the exact number of speakers is unknown.

6. Chatino
Similarly, Chatino is another subset within Oto-Manguean languages, and it also originates from Oaxaca, Mexico. Chatino is at a high risk of disappearance, with between 30,000 and 45,000 native speakers. There are three languages that are a part of Chatino: Zenzontepec, Tataltepec, and Easter Chatino. Overall, the Chatinos have cultural and linguistic ties with Zapotec and is recognized as a national language in Mexico.