On April 24, former MATI president and current Vice President of the NCIHC Enrica Ardemagni presented for the fourth of MATI’s Brown Bag Webinar Series for medical interpreters. Her presentation was titled “Interpreting: A Lifelong Learning Experience.”

Ardemagni began her presentation by contextualizing lifelong learning historically, as well as by clarifying how the topic fits in with formal education and training. She went on to discuss the characteristics that define the deliberate learning inherent in formal education, including a focus on intention and outcomes and an understanding of the specific reasons for working to obtain a skill, with the goal of retaining and using learned skills. However, since the field of interpreting is still viewed by many as a fall-back profession for bilinguals, Ardemagni notes that most professionals rely on organized adult education for training, which lacks in the deliberate learning structures of formal education that would identify the many competencies required for interpreting, along with the structure within which to obtain all of those competencies.

According to Ardemagni, lifelong learning in interpreting therefore requires professionals to pursue and organize their own continual learning in order to continually respond to changes in language, cultural, technology and societal institutions. This is especially true since the failure to actively pursue lifelong learning may lead to declines in skills or the fossilization of incorrect language use or professional behaviors. To continually achieve lifelong learning, Ardemagni suggested the pursuit of courses or degrees, on-site trainings and webinars, along with reading and listening in a professional’s working languages.

As far as developments in lifelong learning, Ardemagni noted that many questions remain, including the impact of this pursuit at home and abroad, how to recognize the various forms of learning, time and money investments to be made and additional research upon which instructors can draw in the formation of training programs. What is certain is that lifelong learning requires self-motivated learners, the creation of educational material, time, support from employers and stakeholders (not to mention the identification of stakeholders), along with funding and salaries that match professionals credentials.

As stated above, Ardemagni’s presentation was the fourth in the MATI Brown Bag Webinar Series. This webinar was offered free to MATI members and non-members alike and was very well attended, with over forty registrations. MATI is currently seeking future presenters for the Brown Bag Series. To suggest a presenter or propose a topic, please email matiemail@gmail.com.

MATI Member Spotlight: Meet Our Treasurer Kate Jankowski!

Kate Jankowski is an English to Polish translator and interpreter. She holds Master’s degrees in English Philology and in Public Administration, along with a Certificate in Paralegal Studies. Jankowski is also an ATA certified English to Polish translator and a Wisconsin State Certified Court Interpreter. She is MATI’s current treasurer as well and has been a member of the organization for over five years.

Where do you live and/or work?

I live in the western suburbs of Chicago, and I have a small office in Addison, IL, from where I run my company called PLUS Professional Translation Services, LLC (www.plustranslations.com).

How did you acquire your B language(s)?

I was not aware of it, but I was exposed to foreign languages from early childhood. I come from the part of Poland called Upper Silesia. My grandmother spoke Polish with a Silesian dialect and was fluent in German. I went to grade school in Poland at the time when Russian was the only foreign language taught at school. My neighbor found an English tutor but could not afford one-on-one lessons. Although reluctantly, my parents eventually allowed me to join the neighbor, and I started learning English when I was about 11. I was able to get into a high school that offered English and then graduated with a master’s degree in English from the Silesian University in Poland. Most of my instructors spoke British English, and the first English speaking country I visited was Ireland. I ended up getting a scholarship in the US. I was an exchange student at the Southwest Texas State University (now called Texas State U.) in San Marcos, TX. I went back to Poland to graduate and then returned to Chicago, where my husband was finishing his studies at that time.

I believe that keeping up with my native language is equally important to mastering my B language. Polish spoken in Chicago uses a lot of borrowings from English, so I travel to Poland at least once a year to get a booster of current Polish--only to find out that it assimilates more and more words from English, just in a different way.

How long have you worked in your field? How did you get started in the field of translation and/or interpretation?

I was still a student when I was hired as an in-house translator by a company which was in charge of a pesticide hazardous waste cleanup program. It was in the early 1990s and a lot of technology, equipment and procedures were new and coming to Poland from the Western countries--all written in English and needing to be translated into Polish. Some funding for the program was provided by the European Union. The sponsoring agency wanted to know how its money was used, so I also translated progress reports and communications with the agency. The field was new, but I had unlimited access to source texts and colleagues who had specialized knowledge in the scientific fields that I needed, including chemistry, hydrology, and environmental engineering.

I did not have a computer back then. I was handwriting the translations and giving them to a lady that would type them for me on a typewriter. No, she did not know English, so spelling mistakes were frequent and my handwriting had to be very neat and clear for her.

The advent of the Internet was another blessing for me. I was still able to work for the company while I was in the U.S. Our (mine and my husband’s) decision to return to Poland was taking longer than expected, so I decided to go back to school. Because of the field that I was working in, I went for the Public Administration Environmental Management program at Roosevelt University in Chicago, IL.

Long story short, we decided to stay in the U.S. The company was no longer my employer but became my client. I had to find more customers, but my field was very narrow, and I had to see where else I could offer my services.

While settling in Chicago, I was seeing doctors and attorneys and I figured these would be two groups of professionals for whom I could interpret. I remember doctors’ appointments being emotional and sad: every patient had a story to tell, but no one had the time to listen. I was once asked by a friend to come to a court hearing with her to interpret. I thought I got it, but oh my! Was I wrong! I did not know when to approach the judge, when to begin speaking, and when I finally figured it out, I understood what he was saying but did not have the Polish vocabulary to say it to my friend. Embarrassment only begins to describe how I felt. I began to look for courses in court interpreting in my language pair, but could not find any. I found paralegal studies to be the closest useful thing and decided to give it a try. I thought, if not interpreting, I would at least get familiar with the US legal system.

In the meantime I was also working on my professional credentials. In 2003, I became a “sworn translator” registered with the Ministry of Justice in Poland. In 2006, I was certified by the ATA and recently became a translator and interpreter for the U.S. Department of State, along with getting my court interpreter certification from the state of Wisconsin.

It took me a while,but I think I found my specialty in the legal field. My job offers quite an interesting mix: I do both translation and interpreting, go back in time, but also assist people with their present-day needs. My day usually consists of a court hearing or deposition, translating and meeting with people with fascinating stories. I work with Polish Consulates in the U.S. and help people to get their Polish citizenship, recognize their marriages, divorces, or register births in Poland. My typical customer is a third generation Polish-American, whose grandparents fled Poland during World War II, briefly stayed in another country and then immigrated into the U.S. Some families have documents from several foreign countries, so I collaborate with a lot of translators from other languages.

Throughout the years, I received a lot from others. It is time to give back. MATI is one of the organizations I volunteer for. I am also a member of the Leadership Council for the ATA’s Slavic Languages Division and have been the Board Secretary at a local Polish school for over a decade.

 

What continues to inspire you?

Those who have stuck through the toughest of times and continue to smile.

How to Manage Your Association Across State Lines

On Friday, January 17, 2014, Indiana MATI members and friends joined together for a post-holiday party and to ring in 2014. Braving the cold snow and chilling winds, approximately 13 guests met in downtown Indianapolis at BARcelona Tapas Restaurant where they shared great food, conversation, and a chance to meet and greet old and new MATI members. This year several new faces were seen, there was an equal number of both interpreters and translators, as well as representation from some translation agencies and several professors in translation and interpreting from Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. While sharing tapas and enjoying some exotic drinks, past MATI president Enrica Ardemagni spoke about the origins of MATI and encouraged everyone to attend the American Translators Association which will be held in Chicago in 2014 with MATI as the host chapter. Indiana looks forward to great programming and events from MATI in the upcoming year. 

          

Looking for the perfect gift for that translator or interpreter in your life (or for yourself)? The NCIHC 2014 #LanguageAccess Calendar would make the perfect gift! The calendar features winners of the NCIHC 2014 Photo Contest and includes important dates for the medical field, like National Breast Cancer Day, along with other cultural recognition days. Visit the NCIHC's facebook page to see the photo for each month, and order your calendar at NCIHC's website! All proceeds from calendar sales will go toward financing NCIHC activities.

As a courtesy for our members, we would like to pass along the following information from the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, which is the state body currently making a renewed attempt to implement court interpreter certification through the consortium here in Illinois. Please read below for more details and for information on participating in one of the upcoming meetings to get input from stakeholders taking place throughout the state in January. 

 

You will also find the dates of each regional meeting posted on the MATI site calendar.

 

Susan Schweigert

MATI Board Member
 

I am writing to let you know that the AOIC will be hosting six regional meetings across the state in January for judges, court personnel, and any other interested stakeholders. I have attached a Save-the-Date with location information and an agenda. Feel free attend at a date and location that is convenient for you and extend this invitation to your contacts.

 

The regional meetings will give everyone an opportunity to discuss challenges in addressing language access in the circuit courts. We will also discuss creative approaches undertaken to meet those challenges in other counties in Illinois and other states, and implementation solutions for the Language Access Plan template that was approved by the Supreme Court. The template was distributed in the past several weeks to the circuit courts and we are currently in the submission process for county-specific plans. Our hope is that the meetings will provide our office with a better understanding of how we can assist the circuit courts, and provide a starting point for greater cooperation across the state.

 

We kindly request that all attendees RSVP to sakbar@illinoiscourts.gov by January 3, 2014 so that our office can plan for space and refreshments accordingly. If you are attending the meeting in Chicago, John Marshall Law school requires our office to send a list of first and last names prior to the meeting for entrance security purposes.

Our office has already extended the invitation to court personnel responsible for arranging for interpreters in each county, and I requested that they bring their Language Access Plans and any related questions, examples of translated court forms, brochures, or other language assistance resources already in use, and a list of interpreters used by the court. Please feel free to bring any materials that would contribute to the conversation.

 

Thanks and hope to see you there.

 

Sophia N. Akbar, J.D.

Language Access Services Specialist

Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts

222 N. LaSalle Street, 13th Floor

Chicago, Illinois 60601

 (312) 793-2013  (phone)

 (312) 793-1335  (fax)

sakbar@illinoiscourts.gov

 

Many thanks to Carmel Capati, Wisconsin Court Interpreter Program Manager and Director of State Courts Office of Court Operations, and Joanna Garber, author of the below, for allowing us to reprint this article from the Fall 2013 edition of the Wisconsin Court Interpreter Program (CIP) Newsletter, which can be accessed here.

Moaning about late-paying clients, wondering whether to do a free translation test for an agency, fretting about how you reacted when a doctor told a patient that there was no connection between her newly acquired cough and her new blood pressure medication, trying to understand how to file for CCHI continuing education points, venting about a non-native-English-speaking direct client who wants to ‘touch up’ your English, exploring the personality traits of a translator versus an interpreter, comparing notes on the advantages and disadvantages of various CAT tools, or reporting on a intriguing new article or book you stumbled across. These are some of the things that enter into discussion when, as translators and interpreters living or working in the Madison, WI area, we gather monthly at a local coffee shop or restaurant. For every question, there is a colleague to shed a little light on a conundrum or provide a complete or partial answer. For every complaint, there is someone who has gone through a similar experience and has terrific advice or knows someone who can help us out. For every frustration, there is commiseration, support, and encouragement.

 

We find plenty of cause for celebration too: when a colleague earns a certification or award, graduates college, gets a promotion, passes a major exam, has a baby, publishes a book, becomes a citizen, or ‘survives’ her daughter’s wedding.

 

And we evidently find much to laugh about. At our recent October 16 meeting at Panera, the manager presented us with a large bag of cookies for this very reason. He said he just doesn’t hear people laughing enough anymore (excluding tailgaters from his tally, he stressed).

 

Although we have no organizational ties or any political or religious affiliations, the group was an outgrowth of the September 2010 MATI conference in Milwaukee, where three of us from the Madison area first met and decided we’d like to have an opportunity to get together with our fellow translators and interpreters on a more regular basis.

 

The numbers: While we generally have only half a dozen to a dozen at any one meeting, our email list has expanded to nearly 50 (plus another 5 “corresponding” members in other cities). Nearly half give Spanish as their working language, but another 17 languages are also represented (including Portuguese, French, Italian, German, Russian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Farsi, Hindi, Bengali, Mandarin, Japanese, Vietnamese, Catalan, Korean, and Nepali). About thirty of our members are medical interpreters, while around twenty are translators – bearing in mind that some wear both hats. About half a dozen do legal interpreting, and we have a few conference interpreters as well.

 

The group has a Facebook page where anyone can post information on local events, course offerings, job opportunities, links to an article or blog post, or share any other information of professional interest.  Our mailing list also serves as a way to keep each other up to date on professional happenings in the area.

 

Wondering if you would have anything to gain by starting a similar group close to you? Here’s what participants have to say about why they attend these regular meetings:

 

I like to come to our meetings because I enjoy getting out of the office and socializing with people who share my love of words and diverse cultures!
- Sylvia, Italian>English legal translator

 

I look forward to our get-togethers every month.  I love it because we get to hear and share tips, ideas, and experiences from other translators and interpreters. We also get to learn from different cultures and languages. But most importantly, I love it because we have fun, and laughter is always one of our most important guests. :)

- Rosy, English>Spanish translator and interpreter

 

I attend because it is fun to meet with other interpreters and it gives me a sense of community.

- Susan, English<>French medical interpreter

 

Besides being fun and relaxed, our local group meetings are a nice way to exchange experiences and network. We share what’s going on, what’s new, or what’s working well for our colleagues. Our meetings are the only occasion I have personal, face-to-face interactions with other interpreters and translators, and that helps me keep in contact with the "real world" in that area.
For me, these meetings are also a source of good advice and encouragement, which are very much appreciated!

- Thaís, master’s candidate in translation (English>Portuguese)

 

Take a peek at the latest postings on our Madison group’s FB page:

https://www.facebook.com/MadisonAreaInterpretersTranslators

 

article by Diane Grosklaus-Whitty

MATI Member Spotlight: Tom Bonsett

Tom Bonsett is a German > English translator and has been a MATI member for nearly 10 years. He has an extensive background in engineering and translation, including a BS in chemistry, a MS and a PhD in electrical engineering, along with a BA in German and an in progress BA in translation studies (German to English) at IUPUI in Indianapolis.

Where do you live and/or work?

I live and work in Indianapolis, Indiana.

How did you acquire your B language(s)?

I grew up in a home that was bilingual – my mother spoke German with me while I was growing up. In high school I took four years of German.  Later, after moving back to Indianapolis from Arizona, I started taking foreign languages classes at IUPUI in Indianapolis. I received a BA with a major in German in 2001. I then started working on another BA degree at IUPUI; this degree is in translation studies (German to English). IUPUI has an excellent translation program. I have not only benefited from the German translation, grammar, and literature classes that I have taken, but also from the classes that dealt with translation in general in which practical issues (such as how to estimate a translation job) were addressed. Another very useful class dealt with the theory and practice of editing.

 

How long have you worked in your field? How did you get started in the field of translation and/or interpretation?

I have been active in German to English translation for about ten years.  I took early retirement from my position as an engineer in 2011. Since retiring I have been working to complete a BA in Translation Studies at IUPUI in Indianapolis. My goal is a second career in German to English translation.

What inspired you to get into your field?

My mother did translation work, so she had a major influence on me to develop an interest in translation. While working on my first BA degree I found that I really enjoyed the classes dealing with translation. I have three technical degrees (in chemistry and electrical engineering). I worked in the field of turbine engine instrumentation for about 24 years, being employed by two different turbine engine companies. I enjoy all types of translation, but given my background, I put an emphasis on technical translation.

 

What continues to inspire you?

I think that what inspires me is simply the fact that I enjoy doing translation.

 

What program/tool/dictionary couldn’t you live without?

I am a bit old-fashioned in that I prefer real books to electronic dictionaries. That being said, I find the BEOLINGUS (TU Chemnitz) and the LEO on-line dictionaries to be very useful. For general purpose dictionaries I use “Cassell’s German Dictionary,” the Oxford Duden “German Dictionary”, and the Collins “German Unabridged Dictionary,” in that order. For technical dictionaries I use the “Wörterbuch der Technik” by Girardet, the “Pictorial Oxford-Duden German-English Dictionary”, and the “Wörterbuch der industriellen Technik” by Dr. Ing. Richard Ernst, in no particular order. For finance and business dictionaries I use “Wörterbuch (Handel, Finanz, Rechts) by Robert Herbst, the “Grosswörterbuch Wirstschaftsenglisch” by Hamblock/Wessels, and the “Wirtschafts Wörterbuch” by von Eichborn, also in no particular order.

 

Why do you think it’s important to belong to professional organizations like MATI?

I think that belonging to MATI is important because it provides a way to connect and interact with other translators in the Midwest. Translation is usually a somewhat solitary endeavor, but without the interaction with and feedback from other translators it is too easy to become complacent and to lose one’s translation competence.