#Interpreters

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Gustavus Hindman Miller - 10,000 Dreams Interpreted - Aquarius - 1975 (cover illustration by Gillian Hills)

[gayanddeaf]

had a dream where i bumped into an interpreter who i haven’t seen since i was like ten. as we were chatting, one random stranger passed by and complimented me on my outfit, and the interpreter interpreted that one sentence. she then proceeded to bill me for the service. while confused, i still paid for it, not paying attention at all to the price.

when i saw the receipt, she had charged me $669 for interpreting a single line of compliment. oh i was so livid and was so prepared to sue her.

[lifeinacartoon]

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A post shared by Take That (@takethat)

So beautiful to see Take That recognising Deaf and Hard of hearing community <3

[united-nations-headquarters]

we briefly interrupt our regular UN content to appreciate this UN interpreter's amazing hair

[theothersarshi]

I have interpreted for free as someone with no training a few times and oh my god i had respect for the job before but even more now. Not even just how exhausting it is to do over longer times but also how fucking unhelpful some people are when you're there to translate for them.

Oh, definitely.

I mean, it's always difficult to estimate how difficult a job is, especially if you've never done it before, but some people really expect some jobs to be super easy.

I once interpreted for someone I knew on a whim, because he didn't understand English very well and things were going far above his head - and, I don't know, it seemed like the proper thing to do? It wasn't a very long exchange, anyway.

So afterwards he said, "Wow, you really suck at translating, don't you?"

Me, "?!?!"

Him, "You were going "um" and "err" there. If you knew English very well, you could do it properly and just repeat what they say."

Like. Dude. Your English is so bad. You're basically monolingual. I was doing this. Because you were left out. Also. How would you like. A kick to the shins.

[seniouesbabes]

Lily Maymac 🌸💋🍒🌸 Seoul sisters 🇰🇷 @_mij

[that-1-url]

Interpreters?

I have been searching for answers to this question and haven’t found anything, so I thought I would just ask. I am writing a story with a mute character who uses sign language to communicate. Since most people aren’t fluent in asl (or other sign languages) I was thinking of giving him an interpreter. In my research I realized I wasn’t sure if there were interpreters for m/Mute sign language users but when I tried to search to see if that was a thing, only d/Deaf / HoH as well as spoken language interpreting came up, with no mention of Mute people. Is it a thing for m/Mute sign language users to have interpreters? Sorry if this is a stupid question

(also apologies for any spelling mistakes it is not my strong suit)

[sadclowncentral]

i had a dream that time travel was invented and too many people choose to travel back in time to save the titanic from sinking (the question of whether unsinking of the titanic deserved so much attention in the face of human history was the subject of both heavy academic and online discourse), which caused a rift in the space-time-continuum that led to the titanic showing up indiscriminately all over the world’s oceans and sea in various states of sinking.

this caused a lot of issues both in terms of fixing said space-time-continuum and in terms of nautical navigation, and after a long and heavy battle in the international maritime organization it was decided that the bureaucratic burden of dealing with this was to be upon Ireland, much to their dismay. the Irish Government then released an app for all sailors and seafarers so they could report titanic sightings during their journeys, even though they heavily dissuaded you from reporting them given the paperwork it caused.

anyway i woke up with a clear image of the app in my head and needed to recreate it for all of you:

[eagleeyethree]

[gayanddeaf]

some people in the community are so anti hearing it’s kinda weird. some to the point where they don’t even want interpreters interacting with us since they’re “infiltrating the Deaf community”. (i personally think this mindset is absurd)

yes i understand that hearing people have constantly oppressed us. heck, i even got points removed from my grade cuz the professor went past the class time and the interpreter had to leave so i did. i was once constantly fed false info from a project partner all because he didn’t want to put in effort to communicate with me. i get it, i do have trauma associated with hearing people. hearing people can be awful.

key word: can. not always.

but i think what they don’t understand is that hearing people are the ones who decide whether a Deaf child gets access to community, not us. shouldn’t we at least try to educate them, at least maintain a positive relationship. of course, no one community is a monolith, and ours certainty is not. but first impressions do matter.

if hearing people were to meet someone who’s anti-hearing, they get turned off and as a result, if they were to have a Deaf child, that child might suffer language deprivation. there’s a lot of domino effect involved.

[sabertoothwalrus]

something something the soul is an egg

[fanaticalthings]

Bruce Wayne except he texts like an ominous boomer

wdym you can't tell if he's threatening them?

Based on this post by @mysterycitrus :)

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Bonus:

Happy birthday, Tim 🥰

[theothersarshi]

I’m a public defender in the U.S. and have had a good number of clients who don’t speak English. And omfg translators should be paid a million dollars. I can’t imagine the skill it takes to listen to someone talk and immediately repeat it accurately in another language. Especially when people talk over each other and don’t understand that they need to break up their sentences so the translator can translate!!! Google Translate or whatever would NOT cut it even a little bit.

Hi!

First of all, thank you so much for the really neat ask! <3 It made my morning.

People who can do that are indeed amazing - but while they're often called translators in current speech, they're a distinct group: interpreters!

There's a distinction between translators, who work with written texts, and interpreters, who work with speech, because while both require a good command of two languages and the skill to render meaning from one language to another, there are some skills which don't overlap.

Interpreters are amazing for the exact reasons you describe - I'm in awe of them, too. They're quick thinkers, articulate, capable of focusing and doing their job on the spot. Whoosh! You say it, they render it. They're lightning and their working memory and pool of on-hand knowledge need to be awesome!

Translators like me are slow creatures. We work with text, and it needs to be perfect, or close enough. Sure, I can tippity-tap on my keyboard at a million miles per hour if the text is easy (I kind of miss my early days of literary translation because it flowed so smoothly), but if you're a good translator you need to stop and take it slowly.

I verify grammar a lot (yes, even in my native Romanian; IRL I have the privilege to use regional/non-preferred forms, at work I don't). I double check to make sure that a certain word means what I think it means. I run odd phrasings through the Urban Dictionary. I need to be proper and accurate.

I also convey the style of the author and work with what they intended to make sure the text sounds as if they'd prepared it for Romanian. I can do fun things like add puns, make things rhyme, give 'em an old-style-y polish. I can also pretend I'm invisible when writing troubleshooting instructions, or writing finding brief translations for UI buttons.

You'll indeed have some people who are both translators and interpreters and I have mad respect for them and the fact that they can work both quickly and slowly, that they can both interpret on the fly and take their time with researching and rephrasing.

I, alas, am only a translator. Typing, patience and perfectionism are my things. Quick reactions and choosing options that are good enough? Less so. Accurately understanding what strangers say? Hit and miss (even in Romanian; it takes me a short time to decrypt new people properly). I can relay some things on the fly if really needed because I do Know Words, but I couldn't do it like an interpreter would.

[wasabi-gumdrop]

local ladies man’s signature move totally useless against autistic monster enthusiast. more on Kabru’s fumble era at 6