Gaucha Translations is a language services company founded and owned by me, Helen Eby. I am certified as a translator by the American Translators Association in Spanish to English, by Washington State DSHS from English to Spanish, and as an interpreter (Oregon Court and Oregon Medical). Through my company, I set up teams to work on [...]
I am often asked for guidelines to translate documents to submit to the courts. Rather than write my own explanation, I will provide resources to two authoritative sources: Guide to Translation of Legal Materials, prepared by the Professional Issues Committee of the Consortium for Language Access in the Courts in 2011. This document lists details [...]
In the Pacific Northwest, and specifically in Washington State, two translation certification programs are relevant. The American Translators Association is a professional association that certifies members who are translators. The Washington State Department of Social and Health Services has a Language Testing and Certification Unit that has been certifying translators since 1996. This certification program [...]
Airplane pilots have checklists and follow them carefully. One of them reads items off the list, according to popular belief, and the other one says “check”. This way, both pilot and copilot verify that everything is in order. What happens when there is a “check” that isn’t said? “We would like to inform our passengers [...]
Translators and interpreters face a common problem: lack of clarity in the source message. Interpreters have a standard formula for addressing this: “the interpreter requests clarification”. Although translators deal with the same issue, a standard formula is missing. We deal with acronyms that are company-specific, missing terms, etc. and clarify them with clients over email. In the [...]
This presentation was prepared for two school Districts in Oregon. Recently, some Oregon school districts have made the news because they have had multiple Title VI complaints. The language access principles presented here should help school districts implement policies that enable them to use their funds effectively and avoid these problems. Schools base their language [...]
CLAS Standard 7: Competence of interpreters – Ability to communicate in all registers and at varying levels of formality What is a “register”? The “register” is the variety of the language we use in a particular social setting or for a particular purpose. For example, we speak differently at a doctor’s office, our friends’ living [...]
The National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act (NTTAA) was signed into law March 7, 1996. The Act made a direct impact on the development of new industrial and technology standards by requiring that all Federal agencies and departments shall: Use technical standards developed or adopted by voluntary consensus standards bodies if compliance would not be [...]
The following are three different ways to define cultural competence or competence in intercultural communication. In today’s environment diversity training is very common, and it is important to understand what aspects of this are relevant to interpreting. In this blog post, I will focus on aspects of cultural competence that lead to developing better communication [...]
This week I was reading the CLAS Standards. CLAS stands for Culturally and Linguistic Appropriate Services. I went to the Blueprint on the CLAS site, and downloaded the Blueprint. The full Blueprint is available for download here. EnhancedCLASStandardsBlueprint Standard 7 reads: Ensure the competence of individuals providing language assistance, recognizing that the use of untrained [...]
