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Gavel resting on a desk with a book and balance in the background to illustrate our Court Interpreter Workshop

27 Complete Summer Court Interpreter Workshop

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The Tennessee Language Center’s Summer Court Interpreter Workshop had 27 participants from 16 different counties and two states (TN and MS). Our students included a Metro Nashville Police Department officer who wanted to improve his interpreting skills in order to better assist the Hispanic community he serves, an Afghan refugee currently working as a Dari interpreter in community settings who wanted to expand his services to the legal field, and a polyglot African student who speaks English, Swahili, French, and Portuguese, who also wanted to take his interpreting skills to the next level. TLC’s Court Interpreter Workshop is an approved training program for court interpreters in the state of Tennessee consisting of 14 hours of training on the Tennessee court system, ethics and standards of practice, and interpreting skills.

 

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3 New Project Managers Join ITS Team

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We are so excited to welcome three new Project Managers to our Interpretation and Translation Department. ITS Project Managers serve as the point of contact external clients for interpretation and/or translation projects.

Headshot of woman with long curly hair Eileen Bernstein has served as a translator with TLC since 2020. She has a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from the University of New Hampshire and a master’s degree in political science from George Washington University.

Headshot of a woman in blue shirt with dark hairMahasweta Panigrahy has most recently worked as an early learning project coordinator at First Presbyterian Preschool in Franklin. Mahasweta holds degrees from Berhampur (India) University and the University of the Cumberlands.

Headshot of a woman with dark short hair and glassesAdrian McDaniel is a former program manager for International Scholarship and Tuition Services Inc. Adrian holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations with minors in French and Spanish from Middle Tennessee State University; as well as a master’s in international business from Southern New Hampshire University.

Welcome, Eileen, Mahasweta and Adrian!

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TLC Provides Interpretation for TIMES Reporter Doing COVID-19 Article

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TLC Project Manager and Interpreter Richard Ponce de Leon assisted TIME Magazine journalist Abigail Abrams interview six Spanish-speaking migrant workers in East Tennessee. Abrams was writing an article on COVID-19 vaccine rollout across the nation. The workers harvest and process tomatoes at Jones & Church Farm in Unicoi, Tennessee.

Read the published article here.

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21 Students Complete First Step in Court Interpretation Certification

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Congratulations to the 21 Court Interpreter Students who completed the TN State Court Interpreter Ethics and Skills Building Workshop at the Tennessee Language Center on June 7, 2021.  The workshop is the first requirement to becoming a Certified Court Interpreter in the State of Tennessee.

The students were from the U.S., Spain, and Mexico and representing the following languages: Spanish, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Arabic, Portuguese, and French. These students will now be put in direct contact with the TN Administrative Office of the Courts , which will guide them through the remainder of the court interpreter registration and, eventually, certification process, after which they will begin interpreting in courts and attorney offices statewide.

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Municipal Court Clerks in TN Learn about Importance of Accurate Interpreting

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Some translation mistakes can have a lasting, if mostly harmless, impact. Like early Biblical translators thinking Moses was “horned” instead of “radiant,” leading to some really interesting sculptures, statues, and illuminations of Moses with horns on his head. Or people thinking that Mars had manmade “canals” on it instead of erosion-created “channels” due to a translation error. But other translation mistakes can have lifelong, or even deadly, consequences, as Richard Ponce-de-Leon Monosalva, Interpretation & Translation Project Manager, illustrated during his presentation “Language Access in the Courts” at a recent MTAS Conference for Municipal Court Clerks from across Tennessee on May 21.

TLC provides certified court interpreters, and also offers training for court interpretation throughout the year.