Talkin' About Talk Date Archives

What does it take to be an interpreter?

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I'm always impressed when I see someone standing behind the President, interpreting a foreign visitor's comments into his ear. What talent it takes to translate one language into another -- listening and speaking at the same time! You can't pick up a dictionary. And you can't just spit out words like a robot. The interpreter's job is to convey meaning. And since a lot of meaning is expressed by tone of voice or the nuance of words and phrases, his job is far more than translating word for word.

And what responsibility! Imagine the defendant in a court case who doesn't speak the language of the judge. If an interpreter gets it wrong, will justice be done? Not everyone can move easily between two languages, but somebody better know how. The "somebody" is -- or should be -- a professional interpreter.

The same holds true for translators; and here I'm defining interpreter as someone who deals with spoken language and translator as someone who deals with the written word. Think about how important the choice of words or phrases is in, let's say, a business contract. Or on the famous "hotline" between the White House and the Kremlin, which is not -- as many people think -- a bright, red telephone on the President's desk. It's an encrypted high-speed data link, providing a written, rather than a spoken, message -- and requiring a translator, rather than an interpreter.

So what does it take to be a professional translator or interpreter? And let me emphasize the word "professional." Because knowing two languages isn't enough. It's just a starting point. Beyond skill in a second language, an interpreter needs to know the two cultures involved, the use of slang or dialects of the languages, and the subject matter to be interpreted.

And if she's good at it, she'll have an exceptional memory -- and a lot of training in the art of interpreting.

A translator needs somewhat different skills. But again, strong knowledge of two languages is just the beginning, because translating can get very complicated. There's the question of technical terms. Lawyers file writs of mandamus. Physicians treat hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The terminology can be pretty daunting, and for translation you need to understand what it means. Because, like interpreting, translation isn’t about words. It's about what the words are about. Simply looking things up in a dictionary isn't enough. Not even close.

So how do you get into the profession? Well, it's best if you've already had training in the field you specialize in, maybe engineering, medicine or finance. It probably helps to be born somewhere like Belgium, where virtually everyone grows up with two or more languages. But if you're bilingual or close to it, the rest is mostly a matter of training and practice. You'll need a minimum of a master's degree -- two years in the US; 3 years or more in Europe. And you'll have on-the-job internships before you're turned loose on society. Then the final step is certification by an organization like the American Translators Association.

Yes, it takes some time. But translation and interpreting are exciting and often lucrative careers. The language services industry is valued at $11 billion in the U.S. alone. And with the birth of the European Union, with easy movement of people, products and ideas across borders, there's huge demand for certified interpreters in Europe. Training programs for translators and interpreters are on the rise all over the world -- and that's a good thing, because there are severe shortages of qualified interpreters and translators in every field.

There have been interpreters for as long as people have spoken different tongues; and translators for as long as there has been writing. Contrary to the myth that everyone speaks English, as the world grows smaller, we need translators and interpreters more than ever before.

That's the linguistic thought for today, which comes from Kevin Hendzel, national spokesman for the American Translators Association. And this is the Five-Minute Linguist at the College of Charleston, in cooperation with the National Museum of Language. Visit our website at www.cofc.edu/linguist. And keep in mind that wherever you are, and whatever you do... language makes a difference.

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Posted by: Chris at October 9, 2005 02:11 PM

Who speaks what languages in the US?

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It always strikes me as peculiar, that the U.S. is often described as a monolingual English-speaking place, when tens of millions of people in the country speak so many other languages. Did you know that people in Idaho speak over three dozen languages other than English? That over 86,000 people speak Polish in Chicago? Or that almost half of New York City's residents don't speak English at home?

We're not doing well at matching that capability with the country's language-related jobs, so ironically there are language shortfalls in some places -- but that's a different issue. The fact is that only the less populated or rural areas of the country are exclusively English-speaking, places like Appalachia, Deep Dixie and parts of the Midwest. In most of the country, and especially in the larger cities, multilingualism is the rule.

How do I know that? Because the Modern Language Association has given us a way to find out what languages are spoken where -- at the touch of a button. With data from the 2000 Census, they created interactive maps and tables that show the linguistic composition of the entire U.S., state by state, county by county, city by city -- down to the neighborhoods defined by a zip code.

You can see how languages are distributed across the country, and zoom in on places that have speakers of a language you're interested in. You can call up tables that rank the fifty states according to numbers of speakers for each language. If, for instance, you want to know where Vietnamese is most spoken you'll see that California, Texas, and Washington are the top three states.

If you look at Minnesota, which you probably think of as full of Scandinavians, you'll find Spanish, German and the Southeast Asian language Hmong as the most spoken languages -- three times as many speakers of Hmong as there are speakers of Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. You could look up Androscoggin County in Maine and find that there are 13,951 speakers of French and 271 speakers of German -- not to mention almost 30 other languages. You can compare the number of Yiddish speakers in New York with the number in Miami. The Map even gives a breakdown of speakers above and below the age of 18, which may be a clue to a language's future or a clue to whether new immigrants have come to stay and brought their families.

There are dozens of ways that planners, academics, corporations, librarians or just plain folks can use this information, now that it's in the form of an electronic map. Marketers who want to reach speakers of Urdu or Korean can find the ZIP codes where a mass mailing might be most effective. Government agencies can use it, let's say, for providing social services, or for disaster preparedness. If you're the Department of Justice, the Map can tell you in which languages to inform new Americans of their rights and responsibilities. If you’re the Office of Trade and Information, it can help you tell a company with interests in China where to find Americans who know the language. And think of this: if you're learning a language: you could find a place to practice it, without spending money to go abroad.

Although there's a wealth of information at the Census Bureau, the Bureau didn’t at first publish all the details about language. The MLA's contribution was to get the detailed information, make it easy to find... and easy to use. And that was a marvelous gift for the rest of us.

What the Language Map shows is that the U.S. is far from being a place where languages other than English go to die in the melting pot. If you still think the U.S. is a vast island where English is essentially the only language spoken, go to www.mla.org, click on Language Map, and type in the zip code where you're hearing this program. That's mla.o-r-g. You may get a surprise.

That's the language thought for today, which comes from David Goldberg of the Modern Language Association. And this is the Five-Minute Linguist at the College of Charleston, in cooperation with the National Museum of Language. If you have a question about language or just want to make a comment, visit our website at www.cofc.edu/linguist. And keep in mind that wherever you are, and whatever you do, language makes a difference.

Do you have to go abroad to learn a language?

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Are you one of those language learners who loves to be plunked into an ongoing stream of talk, soaking it up, mimicking what you hear, unruffled if you don't understand what's being said? Or are you someone who needs more structure, who wants to know what each word means before you try it out, frustrated when waves of incomprehensible speech wash over you.

As a language teacher, I often hear people say: "the only way to learn a language is to go abroad." Well, that's not strictly true. And it's particularly not true if you're thinking that by being in another country, you'll automatically "pick up" the language. I actually hate that term "pick up a language" because it implies that language learning somehow happens without effort. Not so. It does take effort, and we probably all know people who have spent 2 or 3 years in a foreign country and came home monolingual.

Learning styles vary, so a good way to think about learning a language abroad is from the point of view of readiness. For most people, parachuting into a foreign culture with no previous study of the language, no preparation at all, is not only disorienting, it's inefficient. With no framework to help make sense of what you're hearing, progress is slow. Readiness differs from one person to the next, but for most of us, it's best to have some formal study of a language -- before you pull the ripcord. And once you're on the ground, it's best to enroll in a structured learning experience, a language class of some kind. You take the class to get knowledge about the language, then use the streets and pubs and clubs of the community as your lab.

The great advantage of studying and living abroad is that you can experience the language in its cultural context. Words and phrases that you hear in a sometimes "sterile" classroom come alive, even change meaning, when you hear them coming from a native speaker over drinks in a cafe. Or when you join the crowds in a soccer game. Or deal with the local bureaucracy.

When a friend of mine was a junior in college -- after a couple of semesters of Spanish -- she signed up for a program in Spain, her first experience with language study abroad. After orientation on the first day, the instructor shifted to Spanish and told fifteen nervous Americans to take the "no English" pledge. From then on she was immersed in a dialect of Spanish that she slowly adopted as her own. She spoke almost no English for five months. She didn't hang out with Americans. She watched Spanish TV and movies (with no subtitles), and spent as much time as she could with locals. At first she spoke really broken Spanish; but by the end of the semester, she was using the language comfortably, expressing herself at an advanced level. That was total immersion in the culture. All of her waking hours, 7 days a week, speaking or thinking exclusively in the target language.

It's fatiguing at first to be confronted with a foreign language, because you're constantly listening, concentrating, trying to make sense of what you hear. And because it takes effort, it's easier than you think to spend a long time abroad and still come home a monolingual. If your goal is to learn a language abroad, try for linguistic isolation. That means: avoid the cell phone, the Internet, satellite TV from home, and opportunities to speak your mother tongue. Even a little before you think you're ready, take an oath to communicate only in the target language, and do it as much as you can -- around the clock. Study abroad by itself is not the key to learning a language, but the combination of a structured class and total immersion can't be beat.

That's the linguistic thought for today, which comes to us from Sheri Spaine Long at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. And this is the Five-Minute Linguist at the College of Charleston, in cooperation with the National Museum of Language. Visit our website at www.cofc.edu/linguist, where you'll find hundreds of opportunities for total immersion. And keep in mind that wherever you are, and whatever you do... language makes a difference.

What does language have to do with national security?

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You may not have thought about it before, but knowledge of languages is always a part of national security. Think of how many people in America and western Europe learned Russian and other languages during the Cold War. Wherever there's international tension, there are language needs. Because, if you want to know what the other side is up to, you have to know what he's saying, or thinking. And language is the key.

The US intelligence community -- at places like the CIA, FBI, DIA, and NSA -- is no doubt the largest consumer of language skills in the world. It has huge numbers of translators and analysts -- and ideally translators who are themselves analysts -- for whom language skill is indispensable. They spend most of their time pulling threads of information out of haystacks and weaving intelligence out of them. Some of them watch foreign news broadcasts and read newspapers. Others eavesdrop on phone conversations, peek at e-mail, or analyze documents from caves in Afghanistan. Some take part in interrogation of foreign nationals. And they do it all in a language that isn't English.

Obviously, they're listening a lot to Al-Qaeda these days. And it's a challenge. The Arabic of Al Quaida's leadership tends to be saturated with religious references, so it can be hard to distinguish religious dialogue from battle plans. Or they may speak a dialect that's very different from standard Arabic. Al Quaida volunteers include non-native Arabic speakers, who may pronounce things differently or make grammatical errors. A document may be torn or blurry, in bad handwriting, or -- in one case -- reeking of gasoline. The work is often messy. And you have to know the language extremely well.

Language experts don't focus just on what people say, but how they say it. For instance, an analyst might notice that someone's talking in a more formal way because he's dealing with a superior. That might shed light on an organization's command structure. An analyst might notice that a speaker sounds stressed or nervous, which might be a clue to a big event about to happen.

Some analysts are also technical experts who have the task of checking material to see if it's about, say, building bombs. And if it is about making bombs, they want to know how close the enemy is to building them. So the analyst needs expertise in a narrow technical field as well as fluency in a language.

All this is why foreign language analysts are in short supply. It takes years for someone to develop proficiency in a culture as well as a language, and maybe in a technical area as well. In fact, it takes so long that some experts are planning their retirement by the time they become fully useful.

You may be wondering why the government doesn't rely more on computers to do jobs like this that are so hard for humans. Well, it does. Today's machines do triage on texts, sorting the worthless from the promising. Online dictionaries and vocabulary databases -- that work like glorified spell-check programs -- can also help. They take some of the burden of brute language work off the humans' hands, so the humans can do what they really do best: analyze intelligence.

Machines will do more as analytical software gets better, but national security can't wait. For now, the U.S. is keeping humans at the center of its intelligence work, and not trying to replace them with machines. So, to paraphrase the old recruiting slogan: "Uncle Sam is looking for a few good linguists."

National security is one of the most unusual uses of language I know of. It's both fascinating and frustrating. As one linguist put it, "it's like looking at the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle without the boxtop that shows what the picture is supposed to look like." It's not easy, but the cost of not doing it -- can be very high.

That's the language thought for today, which comes from Michael Erard, linguist and freelance writer in Austin, Texas. And this is the Five-Minute Linguist at the College of Charleston, in cooperation with the National Museum of Language. Visit our website at www.cofc.edu/linguist. And keep in mind that wherever you are, and whatever you do... language makes a difference.

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Posted by: Ron Wolf at December 7, 2005 05:57 AM