Labor Day Language Challenge
Interpreting Names of Trades & Professions
by Irene Radillo & Yvette Citizen
How do you celebrate Labor Day? In the USA it’s celebrated on the first Monday of September. Most of the rest of the world celebrates it in May. A lot has been written about why the US celebrates on a different day – might be fun for you to research it.
This Labor Day, we at The Confident Interpreter would like to pay homage to all those who helped professionalize the interpreting profession and those who continue to work very hard to get us better wages and working conditions. In that spirit, we invite you to take our Labor Day Challenge Exercise. Interpreters are frequently thrown off by job titles during jury selection and also during depositions for injured workers and presentence interviews.
Your challenge is to see if you can translate the following job titles into your working languages.
1. IT Specialist
2. Senior Software Engineer
3. Slumlord – This one came up in a different context. We had to look that up on the fly and ended up saying Arrendador de infravivienda o vivienda de mala calidad. We also considered Arrendador explotador andCasero explotador.
4. Senior Research Scientist
5. Quality Assurance Engineer
6. Janitor / Superintendent (of a building)
7. Deputy in the X County Sheriff’s Office
8. Housekeeper in a hotel
9. Certified Home Attendant
10. Bakery Confectioner Specialist
11. Receptionist
12. Administrative Assistant
13. CEO / CFO
14. Coach (sports)
15. Coach (life/professional)
16. Phlebotomist
17. Stylist / Barber
18. Dog Walker
19. Veterinary Tech
20. HVAC Repair Specialist
Let us know which ones tripped you up or if there are other trades and professions that you find tricky.
And of course, don’t forget to check out the Free (and the not free but affordable) resources in this website.
As always, feel free to re-post as long as you give us credit.
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