Living in multilingual countries, dealing with non-English languages is an unexpected activity that we all have experienced every day. Assistance from non-English speakers, such as employees, interpreters, interpretation service companies, or sometimes friends, is regularly required. There is no doubt that we expect these helpers perform the work with a conscience and without errors, since faults in communications will seriously affect the outcome of the discussion, and sometimes our reputations. Unfortunately, the expectation while using language helpers cannot be warranted since most of us don't know how to identify the helpers' mistakes; or evaluate their language proficiency and skills. We let the interpretation process advance in hopes that the main purpose of the conversation or interview shall be reached. However, adverse effects caused by the errors occur and can possibly, one day, ruin our lives. The problems become more serious in the context when interpretation and translation services are involved, since it determines the end result of legal cases, the comprehension of the law, scientific discoveries, business affairs, medical services, and more in other areas. To solve these issues, this book gives the keys: 1) to evaluate a person's level of foreign languages and whether that person is qualified to perform the work necessary, 2) to recognize concealment of foreign language deficiency, 3) to locate the errors in interpretation; 4) to select qualified interpreters, 5) to control interpretation sessions, and 6) to prevent other problems even though we don't speak the necessary foreign languages. Speaking and writing a foreign language are two different processes. This volume specifically focuses on speaking skills and how to manage resulting issues. Evaluation of writing skills and how to solve relevant problems will be discussed in Volume II: Managing Translation. Comparisons made in the book are based on English, French, Russian, and Vietnamese languages. Particular terms used in this book and all opinions are those of the author. The scenarios are true and from the author's experience, but the names of the people, where and how the incidents happened have been changed to respect the confidentiality of those referenced. However, the author has taken literary license with some of the examples. Because the author is feminine, the pronoun "she" is used to generally refer to a language helper, an interpreter or an interpretation candidate instead of "he" or "she" to simplify the text. Any questions or concerns can be sent to interpretation.issues@aba-us.com. The answers may be directly addressed in the future revisions of this book.
Author Biography:
The author was born in Can Tho, a small and peaceful city in the south of Viet Nam, attorney Camlinh Nguyen Rogers, JD studied the French language at 12 years old, and became a private French instructor at 18 to support her family after the Viet Nam war. Through volunteer work as an interpreter for exchange students, Nguyen Rogers acquired the knowledge and experiences in the interpretation and translation field at the early age of 23. Camlinh secured an under-graduate degree in the French, Russian and the Vietnamese languages as a college major in Viet Nam. She improved her skills in the French language in France, and English in law school in California, United States. Currently, she is an attorney, a member of the California Bar Association, a member of the American Bar Association, and owns and operates an immigration and social security disability law firm in the State of Florida. As commonly understood, to protect the public interests the law requires attorneys, medical doctors, and some other professionals to pass an exam and annually take certain hours of education to obtain and maintain their licenses. However, these rules don't exist in the interpretation and translation field. The facts of minimal rules allow many interpreters to maintain the same knowledge of terms learned in past years. They are not required to further their education, to improve English or the target non-English languages terminologies, nor enroll in classes to learn the proper interpretation and translation techniques and rules. The relaxing of the authority's attention also permits the number of interpretation service providers, who fail to perform properly the recruitment duty, grow rapidly without intervention. The lack of regulation and knowledge of how to evaluate foreign language proficiency and skills cause the public at large to innocently suffer from the mistakes of the language assistants, and/or interpretation services. During more than 25 years of working in management, business operations, and interpretation and translation, Camlinh observed this unacceptable gap. She wouldn't close her eyes and let this problem continue to develop and operate. She will disclose these issues and how to solve them in this first "errors proof jacket" so that the interpretation service users can protect themselves individually. And as a result, lack of knowledge of any foreign language will no longer bar them from securing their interests.
