Arizona Will Soon Require Court Interpreters To Know Law.

Foreign language interpreters are now being subject to further their education beyond the boundaries of language interpretation. Arizona will soon require court interpreters to know the law, and this makes perfect sense. Having a clear and concise knowledge of the industry in which you are interpreting for is paramount for a successful scheduled courtroom interpretation.

There are many cases where a slight miscommunication has had detrimental effects, and we have spoken about some of them in previous posts. In this blog post, one simple misused word led to the defendant thinking he had done much worse than a traffic violation. Here is another article, in this situation, the scheduled phone interpreter misinterpreted, and what was a bleed in the brain was treated as a drug overdose. Arizona requiring their interpreters to gain a further understanding of law is a great thing, peoples lives are on the line and no chances should be taken.

The Arizona Supreme Court recently announced it will require all 100 interpreters on staff and the 500 more who are contracted throughout the state to go through a credentialing program by 2019. The goal is to ensure they all meet a baseline knowledge of not only interpreting skills but also of the legal concepts and ethics that guide their work.

So what does this mean for language service providers (LSPs)? It shouldn’t mean too much of a change in their operations provided they have a dynamic intelligent system in place to cope with the changes in compliance. Interpreters will now have to get further education and receive the correct credentials to allow them to be eligible to interpret in a court hearing. LSPs using a system like Interpreter Intelligence can just edit their HR and compliance requirements with the option to attach a photo/scan of a certificate, then once this requirement is met, interpreters will be able to see the jobs as normal and not much will have changed from the LSPs day to day operations.

If you’re interested in learning more about Interpreter Intelligence’s industry-leading Scheduling Software or our VRI software in development we’d love to discuss how we can help you transform your business by contacting our support team.

Technology plays a great role in courtroom interpretation!

Technology plays a vital role in today’s courtrooms. This is especially relevant in Utica where there are more than 50 languages spoken. Having such a diverse language span, sometimes language service providers are unable to provide a simultaneous interpreter in person. So this means the courts have to turn to technology, which is a good thing, however, the platform they are using is off the mark completely.

While researching this topic, I came across an article where, Michael Klein, district executive for the Fifth Judicial District Court of New York State said, “We use remote interpreting through Skype”. In the same article, Tony Colon, a Spanish interpreter said “Judges don’t like it and it’s a very difficult scenario,” he said. “When you’re going to the city court here in Utica you’ll see the screen set up for Skype.” Not only is this method unprofessional but using a third party software that is not specifically designed for a scheduled court interpretation could have some serious security ramifications.

Within the same article, Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees Executive Director Shelly Callahan said that “We’re seeing growth in video interpretation,” and that Medical Video Interpretation used to be the main scheduled appointment type but in recent times courtroom interpretation is certainly growing. So now is the time for Utica courts to adopt an interpreter schedule software that supports video remote interpreting (VRI), this way they are efficiently managing their interpreters, while also using a platform specially designed for courtroom interpreting.

An interpreter scheduling software is what these courts and other courts in similar circumstances or with similar requirements could greatly benefit from. There are between 800 and 1,000 scheduled interpretation appointments per month, both simultaneous and video. With Skype being used it is very easy for the language service providers to lose track and mismanage all the scheduled appointments and list of interpreters.

Also, another feature that Utica could benefit from is Interpreter Intelligence’s feature of calculating mileage, as it says in this article, “if it isn’t possible for interpreters to travel to the area for a legal proceeding, video interpretation is a tool that cuts down on transportation costs.” If cutting costs is a factor in deciding on an interpreter, then Interpreter Intelligence is the solution. If there are no interpreters within a select distance, then the interpreters group within the court or the language service providers can choose our (soon to be released) VRI option instead.

If you’re interested in learning more about Interpreter Intelligence’s industry-leading Scheduling Software or our VRI software in development we’d love to discuss how we can help you transform your business by contacting our support team.

5 Multilingual Celebrities That Might Surprise You!

Being in the language access industry we often only think of the importance of providing limited English speakers, deaf and hard of hearing patients with with access to healthcare, legal and government services through the use of interpreters.

Once we take some time to look beyond the day to day necessities of language access it becomes apparent how diverse a society we live in. It amazes me the hidden polyglot talents that people possess. I’ve done some research and found a few notable celebrities that are multilingual, some of which will surprise you! Actors and actresses can be described as intellectual people, their ability to memorize and improvise massive scripts under extremely tight schedules proves to be a daunting task. However, many of the well-known actors and actresses gain recognition from their English-speaking roles in their movies and not their ability to speak another language. You might be surprised to learn that Mila Kunis’ first language is Russian and can speak it flawlessly! Let’s take a look at other bilingual celebrities.

Actress Sandra Bullock speaks fluent German. Her mother was a German opera singer and at the time her father met her while stationed in Nuremberg! In 2000 Bullock won a Bambi award which is the German equivalent to the Oscars. You can check out the video of her acceptance speech here!

Natalie Portman is quite the linguist. Not only is she fluent in Hebrew, she is also fluent in Spanish, German, Japanese and a little bit of French. Portman was born in Hershlag, Jerusalem but she moved to Washington D.C. in 1984 with her family due to her father’s medical training and career advancements. Check out this video of Portman speaking Hebrew in a few interviews.

One of my favorite actors, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, loves French, And he can speak it fluently too. And he even managed to fit in French classes into his busy class schedule while attending Columbia College. He felt that the French classes were more “interesting”. Have a look at this video of Gordon-Levitt in a French interview back in 2005.

Last and most certainly not least, Johnny Depp. Depp lived in Paris for over a decade with his former partner Vanessa Paradis. Not only are they both fluent in French, both of their children are bilingual also! This is quite impressive since Depp was born and raised in the United States.

It’s amazing to think that many gifted actors and actresses have such impressive hidden lingual talents. This was just a short list of my favorite actors and actresses, here is where you can find a larger list of bilingual celebrities. It’s safe to say that interpretation industry would get an influx of interpreters if there was ever a disaster to happen in the film industry!