The coronavirus pandemic has affected just about every aspect of people’s lives with face-to-face services taking the biggest hit over the past two years. In turn, this has had a big impact on the delivery of interpreting and translation services.
At the start of the pandemic in 2020, interpreters found themselves applying for unemployment as businesses and organizations across the globe shut down. The biggest impacts were seen in the hospital and travel industries.
Hospitals relied heavily on face-to-face interpreting services. But with the overwhelming number of COVID-19 cases, cutbacks and layoffs occurred so as to not risk the safety of interpreters.
The travel industry also took a big hit when countries shut down and airlines canceled flights across the globe. This created less of a need for in-person interpreting services.
However, the need didn’t completely diminish. The U.S. Department of Defense utilized interpreters to convey important information and instructions regarding the virus and testing. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the top three requested languages for these services have been Spanish, Vietnamese, and Arabic.
Well into the pandemic, hospitals and other impacted industries began to adapt and turn to remote interpreting services.
This adaptation led to a rise in the demand for remote translation and interpreting services. Industries responsible for the demand included e-commerce and other online services due to many populations’ “stay at home” orders. Telehealth is one area where these remote interpreting and translation remain valued.
Over time this has created a shift in the markets for interpreting and translation services. Online businesses and healthcare have shown the biggest increase in need while travel has now become the lowest in demand for these services.
Language services have been negatively impacted by the pandemic, like most things. But on the positive side of things, it has led to innovation with the installation of new equipment, systems, and methods.
In addition to reopening for in-person interpreting and translation work, Teneo Linguistics Company has adapted amid the pandemic and offers remote services. This can be anything from a virtual doctor’s appointment to training videos, telephone interpreting, online document translation, and remote website localization.
TLC also implemented its own online interpreting management platform. Customers can now easily schedule their own face-to-face interpreting service over the phone or using video through the platform.
To learn more about TLC’s language services and how they are offered, visit www.tlctranslation.com.
Professional interpreting is a much-needed component in the global marketplace and can typically be grouped into two categories — Consecutive Interpreting and Simultaneous Interpreting. Both play an important role in society and it’s interesting to turn back the clock and see how each was introduced.
Consecutive Interpreting
Consecutive Interpreting is when an interpreter conveys the message after a person has finished speaking. This type of interpreting can be seen in smaller meetings and legal proceedings.
The most prominent example of one of the first uses of consecutive interpreting took place in 1919 during the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I. There was no ability to hire professional interpreters before this event. Because of the numerous languages present at this meeting, a formal service had to be used.
The League of Nations was then established in 1920 with the mission of maintaining world peace. Two of the more famous consecutive interpreters were Andre and Georges Kaminker who worked for the League of Nations, the United Nations, and the Council of Europe. Andre was noted as having a photographic memory and held the world record for interpreting a speech that was two and a half hours long without interruptions.
Simultaneous Interpreting
Simultaneous Interpreting is when an interpreter listens and conveys the message in the target language at the same time as a speaker. This type of interpreting is most suitable for large conferences, lectures, and/or presentations, and usually requires the use of equipment.
The Nuremberg Trials — which uncovered the German leadership that supported the Nazi dictatorship — in 1945 are noted as the first use of simultaneous interpreting. The former interpreter for General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Colonel Leon Dostert, had been charged with discovering the method which became known as simultaneous interpreting.
Using this method, interpreters sat directly beside the accused during the trials to convey what was said in four languages, English, German, French, and Russian. Although the equipment hadn’t yet been developed, the judges of the Nuremberg Trials agreed that it would have been impossible to move forward without the method.
Dating back to ancient times before any equipment was developed, the primitive form of simultaneous interpreting was called Whispered Interpreting or chuchotage, the French word for “whispering.” This form of interpreting does not require any equipment and therefore is still utilized to this day. However, it can only work between two people or in very small groups and therefore isn’t feasible for most business matters.
Other modes of interpreting have risen to popularity over the years with the advancement of technology, including telephone interpreting and video interpreting. But all started out of the methods of consecutive interpreting or simultaneous interpreting.
Teneo Linguistics Company provides both methods of interpreting services and delivers these in-person, remotely, and by utilizing an online interpreting platform. TLC also offers its high-quality, professional interpreting equipment for rent.
The linguists of TLC are certified through education that includes gaining knowledge of languages and cultural sensitivity, learning the ability to express thoughts clearly and concisely, gaining skills in specialized note-taking techniques, and developing short and long-term memory skills.
Learn more about TLC’s interpreting services or get a quote by visiting www.tlctranslation.com or call 817-441-9974.
It can be difficult to grasp just how important professional interpreting and translation services are until taking a closer look at what mistakes have resulted in.
No matter how “small,” one error may lead to a disastrous, or near-disastrous, outcome as the examples listed below will show. These examples are some of the more notable interpreting and translation mistakes in history.
At the end of World War II, a misinterpretation may have added to the decision of bombing Hiroshima, killing more than 70,000 people. Following an ultimatum that was given to Japan to surrender, a response by Japan’s Premier Kantaro Suzuki of “no comment” meant for reporters was turned into the literal translation of “Silence.” The U.S. saw this response as hostile and 10 days later, the atomic bomb was dropped.
• In 1956, a speech by Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev gave a speech during a time when tensions were rising between the Soviet Union and United States. In the speech, Kruschev was misinterpreted as saying “We will bury you,” when in reality what he actually said was “We will be present at your burial.” The mistaken phrase was published on magazine and newspaper covers, which didn’t help the situation. The interpreting mistake could have led to nuclear war and is said to have escalated the Cold War.
President Jimmy Carter gave a speech on his visit to Poland in 1977. Carter said he was happy to be in Poland, but the interpreter mistakingly said “he was happy to grasp at Poland’s private parts.” During the same speech, Carter’s interpreter also turned “I left the United States this morning” into “I left the United States, never to return.” Needless to say, Carter hired a new interpreter after the debacle.
• The mistranslation of the Italian word “canali” launched a theory of intelligent life on Mars back in 1877. Italian astronomer Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli was mapping Mars and dubbed areas on the planet’s surface as “seas” and “continents.” He labeled using the word “canali” and sadly, his peers mistranslated this as meaning “canals,” which then led to the theory.
In 1980, an 18-year-old man named Willie Ramirez became a quadriplegic when an interpreting mistake led to bleeding in his brain. Ramirez was in a coma when he was admitted to a Florida hospital. A Spanish word was misinterpreted to “intoxicated” and caused Ramirez to be misdiagnosed as having a drug overdose. Following the error, Ramirez received a settlement of $71 million.
Interpreting and translation errors happen, sometimes on a large scale, so it’s important to ensure the hiring of a certified, professional interpreter when conducting crucial business.
Teneo Linguistics Company’s interpreters and translators are certified, experienced experts with a vast knowledge of languages and cultures. TLC provides language services to a variety of industries including government, medical, education, and legal institutions.
Translation 360 is another service offered by TLC, which combines advanced translation management technology, consulting services, and deep personalization. This streamlines services into a single, compliant solution.
Learn more about TLC’s interpreting and translation services by visiting www.tlctranslation.com.
Whether you are a lawyer or an individual seeking legal services, hiring a certified professional translation provider is essential in guaranteeing high-quality and accurate results.
While English continues to be the primary language spoken in the United States, there are more than 350 languages spoken in the country. And according to the Center for Immigration Studies, 67.3 million residents in the U.S. spoke a foreign language at home in 2018. That number continues to grow each year.
This means lawyers represent a large number of Low English Proficient people in the US.
Some of the biggest questions attorneys ask themselves before looking into professional translation services are:
Is the translation provider certified?
How many years of experience does the provider have in legal translation?
How quickly will documents be prepared by the provider?
Does the translation services provider have a good reputation?
To answer these questions, TLC has translators with legal backgrounds and continually educates its linguists to guarantee the best quality possible. TLC also utilizes the right blend of technology and human talent to increase productivity. Processes are ISO certified, predictable, and repeatable and TLC has achieved 100% satisfaction rates from its legal customers. TLC uses a secure customer platform for file exchange and ordering of certified legal translation or interpreting services.
Partnering with a professional translation services provider is not only important in due process, but can also improve the relationship between the attorney and client.
When it comes to an individual seeking legal translation, utilizing online translation tools may work in personal cases but for legal documentation, a professional translator is the way to go.
It’s also important not to risk being turned away because a family member or friend inaccurately translated, for example, immigration documents. And when any legal document is translated, many courts and government organizations require those documents to be certified for accuracy.
Teneo Linguistics Company provides certified translation for contractual documentation, patents, expert witness testimony, and licensing. In addition, TLC offers interpreting for depositions and meetings as well as audio and video transcription.
Hire TLC for your next legal translation project and experience translation the way it should be: easy, fast, effective, and with unparalleled customer services. Learn more by visiting www.tlctranslation.com.
Companies and organizations miss out on valuable website traffic when web users prefer to search the internet in their native languages. But Teneo Linguistics Company is here to help by offering professional website localization.
Teneo Linguistics Company’s website localization creates another language version of a business’s existing website. TLC considers cultural context and target audiences as well as stylistic issues, legal considerations, and multilingual Search Engine Optimization. The content is also adapted to the local market and TLC plans for space issues as well as provides ongoing updates for the localized website.
It’s not ideal to rely on machines or online translation tools for a multilingual website. These will never be able to replace human translators as they do not take broader context and idiomatic language into account. They simply replace words with impromptu translations that are selected based on statistical methods.
It is important to partner with a language services provider that works with translators and interpreters who are native to the region a business is targeting. TLC’s expert linguists and their cultural context expertise allows them to accurately translate the intent of the website.
Utilizing professional translation services ensures accuracy and saves a business time, so the focus can remain on everyday operations. And TLC provides these services the way they should be — easy, effective, and economical.
Having a multilingual website results in increased traffic and sales by reaching new audiences and markets. It also puts a company ahead of its competitors while expanding brand awareness and trust, internationally. TLC provides translation in more than 150 languages, the most frequent being Spanish, German, French, Chinese, Italian, Arabic, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, and Russian.
Expanding internationally is a high-profit opportunity. Language is entrenched in every culture and partnering with a language services provider is the smartest way to ensure that cultural nuances are understood.
Teneo Linguistics Company is a language services provider that offers a variety of customizable services to fit clients’ individual needs. Industries that TLC provides translation and interpreting for include medical and life sciences, manufacturing, education/e-learning, legal, business/e-commerce, and more.
Learn more about TLC’s multilingual website localization services by visiting www.tlctranslation.com.
In the manufacturing industry, nothing is more important than efficiency and accuracy. According to a report by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, nearly one in four employers acknowledge losing or being unable to pursue a business opportunity over the lack of foreign language skills. Exporters are more reliant on foreign language skills and are more than twice as likely to lose business if language barriers are present.
Teneo Linguistics Company offers customized bilingual staffing solutions that include full-cycle recruitment and industry knowledge to make high-quality placements. This will not only benefit the business long-term, but will allow for a diverse team with different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences.
Communication is key in managing a manufacturing workforce and miscommunication within the industry leads to inefficiency — the inability to collaborate effectively and a decline in productivity.
If a significant portion of a company’s workforce speaks another language, another good option is to hire a professional interpreter in order to conduct important training and meetings successfully.
TLC also provides error-free, technically accurate translations while meeting stringent regulatory requirements and tight turnaround times. TLC’s goal is to anticipate a manufacturer’s needs, make recommendations, and continually refine and improve processes.
Providing diversity and communication training is beneficial when language barriers are present. Hosting this type of training puts employees on the same page.
TLC translates training and safety manuals, compliance documentation, Standard Operating Procedures, assembly and product instructions, operator and maintenance manuals, and a variety of other documentation related to manufacturing.
TLC assists with the specific challenges and cultural dynamics associated with each market. Industry leaders that utilize the TLC approach will experience increased accuracy, simplified workflows, lower costs, and superior data security. To learn more about what services TLC provides for the manufacturing industry, visit www.tlctranslation.com.
Language barriers can make their way into any situation, one of the most prominent ones being healthcare.
The National Library of Medicine cites that language barriers have a major impact on the cost and quality of healthcare. These barriers result in poor health outcomes due to a decreased follow-up rate, which in turn leads to reduced patient and medical provider satisfaction.
Teneo Linguistics Company offers language services to healthcare organizations that will help break through those barriers. TLC supports these organizations and their priorities through each step of their journey — patient-facing information (written translation) and communication (interpreting), as well as culturally appropriate translation for research, training, legal affairs, and marketing.
A 2020 study done by the NLM found that 66.7% of Limited English Proficient (LEP) patients had a barrier to accessing healthcare, 20% of LEP patients did not seek healthcare for fear of not understanding and 70.7% of LEP patients reported limited availability to interpreter services.
However, LEP patients who used interpreting services received more inpatient services and office visits. The NLM study shows that communication between patients and healthcare providers is at the heart of effective healthcare.
TLC understands that its healthcare clients save lives and that requires the utmost care and attention to detail. Therefore, TLC makes it a mission to use the same care and urgency in the language services provided in support of healthcare.
TLC is the prescription for all your organization’s translation headaches. Contact us today and visit our life sciences webpage for more information.
Barriers can be difficult to overcome in a world with thousands of languages, but a mistranslation could be costly.
Language barriers are the most common communication barriers, which lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations between people. Causes of language barriers include difference in language, accents, and dialect, lack of clarity in speech, use of slang or jargon and word choice.
In 2018, 67.3 million U.S. residents spoke another language other than English in their homes, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
There is a wide span of government agencies that must effectively communicate with the public, which includes the Limited-English Proficient population. When language barriers exist, the ability of those agencies to articulate information is hindered. This results in revenue loss and diminished engagement of the LEP population in public services.
Having a professional translator or interpreter on-hand is valuable in addressing these barriers for government agencies and improves the delivery of public services to the LEP population as well as builds trust within the communities the agencies serve.
Teneo Linguistics Company, LLC offers a full suite of translation services in more than 170 languages and translates millions of words annually. TLC takes a holistic and technical approach to language services, designing processes uniquely tailored to your needs.
TLC has worked with a number of agencies of the federal, state, and local governments. Being proficient not just in the language needed but also in the exact needs of each government client is important. TLC has built a reputation of both outstanding quality service, as well as customer service that is unparalleled in the language services industry.
TLC is your ticket to addressing language barriers by providing over the phone interpreting, website localization, document translation, and community interpretation services. Visit our website for more information at tlctranslation.com and get a free quote for your project.
Are you blessed with a superpowered bilingual brain?
Does your gift of language bring you joy, and a different perspective of the world?
If you feel your polyglot powers bring you extraordinary advantages…YOU ARE RIGHT!
And here are just a few reasons why:
1. Remarkable Cognitive Ability
If you have been bilingual since childhood, chances are you have heightened cognitive skills.
As a child, the process necessary for a bilingual brain to switch from one language to another, and even to determine which language is appropriate for the situation, fosters the development of improved problem-solving abilities and multitasking.
Studies conducted on multilingual preschoolers showed that they were much faster at sorting puzzles, categorizing shapes by form and color, and had an easier transition between tasks than their monolingual peers.
What does this mean for a bilingual adult?
Well, you probably have an easier time focusing on tasks and working through problems in all aspects of your life. Awesome!
2. Exceptional Creativity
Researchers at the University of Mashad studied a population of advanced language learners ages 16-18 and compared their creative thinking ability with their monolingual counterparts.
The study revealed that the bilingual language learners scored higher on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, which measures originality, fluency, elaboration, and flexibility.
This is attributed to the bilingual individual’s constant awareness and vigilance in ensuring that the two languages do not interfere with each other in any particular situation.
Learning a second language also exposes one to cultures and customs that are different from one’s own. Having that different perspective provides an incredible creative advantage over monolinguists, who have the perspective of only one language.
3. Impeccable Memory
Do you remember details in a conversation or meeting that others do not? This is not a coincidence.
Studies show bilinguals have higher information retention than those that are only fluent in one language because they have had to memorize vocabulary and grammatical structure for two languages.
Growing up bilingual gives you a head start in memorization skills starting in early childhood, which comes in very handy as a bilingual adult.
So, be grateful for your awesome bilingual superpowers!
They bring you success in brilliant – and often unexpected – ways.
As a healthcare professional, what’s your top priority?
Of course, it’s to provide the best care possible to all your patients.
That should include patients Limited English Proficiency (LEP), right?
And as you know, clear communication between you and your LEP patients is critical in building the best care plan possible.
How do you ensure effortless communication?
US law requires healthcare facilities to offer qualified interpreters to LEP patients, but it can be time-consuming to schedule in-person interpreters for every single appointment.
Plus, it is nearly impossible to schedule an interpreter for last-minute appointments or emergencies.
Moreover, in this time of social distancing, scheduling in-person interpreter services can be risky.
Fortunately, there’s a solution that makes it easy to access qualified medical interpreters on-demand, and without risk: Over the Phone Interpreting (OPI).
OPI services give you on-demand access to vetted, qualified interpreters in seconds, improving patient care one call at a time.
Here’s how.
1. Provide Better Access to Care
Your patients come to you for a reason: to receive quality care and guidance from you, their chosen healthcare provider.
They trust you to listen to their medical concerns, answer their questions thoroughly, and to provide an effective treatment plan.
With a professional foreign language interpreter on the line, you both can be confident that your messages transmit seamlessly because over the phone interpreters are experienced, vetted, and specialize in medical terminology.
Best of all… nothing gets lost in translation.
It’s simple. If LEP patients can communicate with you, they will have access to better care—your care.
2. Increase Patient Trust
Patients trust you with their lives, their care, and their wellbeing.
Using OPI services allows you to easily connect with LEP patients on a personal level while building trust and rapport.
Talking through a language professional naturally puts both you and your LEP patients at ease because communication is effortless.
With substantial language support, LEP patients are more likely to continue receiving care from you and more likely to recommend friends and family to your practice.
3. Better Communication, Better Treatment
Clear communication with your patients will always result in better treatment.
Without it, your patient cannot inform you of their symptoms, which could lead to a misdiagnosis, health complications, or a possible lawsuit against your organization for not providing adequate language support.
Unfortunately, many patients and healthcare providers think using bilingual persons to interpret during appointments (like family members or bilingual medical personnel) is adequate for communication.
Let’s get one thing straight. Bilingual isn’t enough.
Why? Because professional interpreters are language experts, and bilingual persons are not. It’s that simple.
Take the tragic story of 18-year-old Willie Ramirez, for example.
Willie’s family took him to an emergency room in south Florida after he suddenly fell into a comatose state.
With no family members proficient in English, they brought in a bilingual family friend to help communicate with medical staff about Willie’s condition.
Unfortunately, the friend misinterpreted the Spanish word “intoxicado” (feeling sick from ingesting something) to “intoxicated” in English.
The incorrect translation led to the medical staff wrongfully diagnosing and treating Willie for a drug overdose, instead of the intracerebellar hemorrhage he was actually experiencing.
Willie developed quadriplegia because the medical staff didn’t treat the hemorrhage quickly enough, and he and his family successfully sued the hospital for $71 million.
Don’t take the risk. Use OPI services, so nothing gets lost in translation.
4. HIPAA Compliant
OPI platforms, websites, and portals are HIPAA compliant, and all medical interpreters are HIPAA trained.
All information entered into the OPI platform, and all communication through the over the phone interpreter stays confidential and secure.
And you can breathe easy knowing you and your patient’s information are protected—a win-win.
5. Cost Effective & Easy
OPI platforms take just minutes for initial set up and are easily accessible through a phone, tablet, or computer.
You pay only for the minutes used, with no minimum fees, making it significantly more cost effective than in-person interpreting.
With OPI services, you’ll spend less money and less time scheduling interpreting services – all while improving your patients’ care with ample language support.
Offer OPI services and show LEP patients you care.
