Workforce Language Services

A fascinating article in AZ Central’s online newspaper describes the history of movie dubbing and voice overs and how Mexico City is no longer the nexus for this field.  Mexican Spanish has long been lauded as being the most “generic” with regard to accent and speaking conventions.  This, along with Mexico’s rich movie and TV history, had once made it the capital of the dubbing industry.

But now the world’s second-biggest metropolis is losing this distinction. More and more, studios are sending work to other countries, drawn by lower costs and a new generation of Venezuelan, Colombian and Argentine actors who have mastered the generic Spanish accent.

From 1999 to 2004, profits from Mexico’s dubbing industry fell 73 percent, from $11.2 million to $3 million, according to government figures. Although Mexico is still the location of choice for film translations, TV work is going elsewhere, said Magdalena Questa, managing director of Grabaciones y Doblajes, S.A.

The article also highlights some of the challenges to dubbing films, how Mexico has lost a good deal of dubbing and voice-over business, and the countries which have been picking up this work in recent decades.

To read the entire article, click here.

Language Lines is often mentioned in articles about strategies for working around language barriers.  But this particular article about Pasco County’s demographic shift shows the impact that Language Line has had on communicating with non-English speakers at County offices. 

The article also provides a brief history of Language Lines Services and how heavily it’s currently being used:

Language Line Services, based in Monterey, Calif., has been around since 1984. The company’s first client was the police department in San Jose, and it has had cops and courts as clients ever since. Language Line now has approximately 25,000 clients, according to spokesman Dale Hansman, including hospitals, airports, grocery stores, credit card companies and 75 percent of the Fortune 500 companies. The company has 5,000 translators who speak 176 languages.

The economy is hurting. Not Language Line. Language Line is growing. The number of calls is going up. The number of clients is going up.

“It’s not a novelty,” Hansman said last week. “It’s a necessity.”

In Pasco, public transportation uses language line, the libraries use it, the 911 call center uses it, the sheriff’s office uses it.

To read the entire article from the St. Petersburg Times, click here.

Most high school grads have taken at least a couple of years of foreign language coursework.  Most have spent those years watching DVDs specifically made for language instruction and listened to their teachers’ careful, proper pronunciation.  But the thought of actually speaking to a native speaker strikes fear in the hearts of those who learned a language at school. 

Only the most intrepid can access opportunities for speaking a foreign language in the States, even one as popular as Spanish. 

But a high school Spanish teacher in Wichita has created opportunity for her students to practice their Spanish in real-life situations, volunteer for the Salvation Army, and gain an understanding of Hispanic culture.

LaVoie requires her advanced Spanish students to work a shift at the Salvation Army. They practiced all semester, LaVoie said.

“It’s the best opportunity I can provide,” she said. “There’s a huge accountability factor. If they screw it up, there could be a little kid that doesn’t get a gift.”

The Salvation Army shifts began about seven years ago, LaVoie said. Her class tried to sponsor a family, but there were none left. Instead, Salvation Army officials said the class could meet their need for translators.

I just love this idea.  What a great way to get youth who are learning Spanish to see how it’s actually spoken and get them to make personal connections with people from a different culture.

To read the article, click here.

If you google “bad translations,” you are guaranteed to get a few belly laughs out of what you find.  Some are so deliciously absurd, you may think that they were made up.

In an effort to reach out to non-English speakers, many novice “translators” end up causing more confusion and giggles than increased understanding.  A light-hearted article in Coloradoan.com points out some of the gaffes that occur when people use machine translators or forget about the importance of proofreading:

According to at least one astute reader, Americans are also error prone when we try our Yankee hand at translation.

English-to-Spanish conversions tend to have a lot of incorrect and misplaced accent marks, and it turns out that if you try to wish someone a “Happy New Year” in Spanish but don’t manage to put a tilde over the “n” in “año” (Spanish for “year”), you’re wishing them a happy new something else, and it’s quite impolite. Oops again.

To read the entire article, with examples from other language pairs, click here.

In April, the Workforce Language Services blog posted an article about how language barriers at pharmacies can prove dangerous for non-English speakers in New York City.

CVS and Rite-Aid recently announced that they will provide translations into six major languages of prescription information.  The Newsday.com article mentions the probe that the Mayor’s office launched along with an advocacy organization:

 Cuomo’s office launched an undercover investigation after Make the Road by Walking New York, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that advocates for low-income New Yorkers, complained that pharmacies “routinely fail to advise non-English-speaking customers in a language that allows them to understand the purpose, dosage and side effects of their medications,” according to the release.

State law requires pharmacists to “personally provide information about prescription drugs to all patients, orally and in writing,” the release said.

The article also mentions that “spoken translations” will also be provided in these six languages.  Unfortunately, there are no further details about exactly how these spoken translations will be disseminated.  Will they have recordings?  Increasing their bilingual pharmacy staff? 

A Wisconsin Law Journal article nicely outlines the process for becoming a certified court interpreter.  Dawn Maldonado shares her experience in becoming an interpreter:

It took Maldonado several months to crack the regular rotation of interpreters in Milwaukee and she along with others involved in the profession suggest that while the “freelance” job can be lucrative, it takes more than a bilingual tongue to succeed.

“It is your own business and it is up to you to (find) your clients and make them happy,” said Maldonado, who has provided Spanish interpretation since 2001. “But I think it is tough and a lot of people fall off because they don’t understand the legalese, which is a big part of the job.”

This article points out a few of the stumbling blocks to becoming a Spanish-English court interpreter: there are far more Spanish-English interpreters in Wisconsin than there are cases; many candidates will need advanced study in not only interpreting but also legal terminology; and the freelancing aspect of the work may make it difficult to make a living interpreting.

I’m pleased to see Wisconsin’s certification process clearly described.  I also find it refreshing that this article is a bit more tempered than others that I’ve seen, many of which make it seem that there is an unfilled need for Spanish-English court interpreters.

Click here for the entire article.

A recent Chattanooga Times Free Press article discusses the barriers to accessing the services of financial institutions for Latinos, 56 percent of whom are currently “unbanked”:

Building trust between the community and financial institutions is one of the main priorities of those working with Hispanics, financial officials say.

“We want them to trust financial institutions so they will feel comfortable coming to our credit union and eventually to other institutions,” said Stacy Johnson, Hispanic member development director with the Holston Methodist Federal Credit Union.

From June 2007 through the end of October 2008, the credit union opened 191 accounts, most for Hispanic clients, Mrs. Johnson said.

But the increase of Hispanic clients at other banks has not been as dramatic, said Keith Sanford, executive vice president with First Tennessee Bank.

The article states that First Tennessee Bank started offering Spanish classes to its staff, providing translated materials, and hiring bilingual staff in an effort to reach more Hispanics.  But to truly overcome the trust issues that make many Latinos wary of banks, these institutions need to do more community outreach and one-on-one financial literacy.  And even more important, when providing financial literacy education to new customers, institutions should be very careful about not pushing their products and services under the guise of educating. 

To read the entire article, click here.

The YMCA is nothing short of a community institution in many cities and towns.  I’ve long been a member of an urban YMCA because of the wonderfully diverse and accepting environment.  While at my YMCA, visitors mostly hear Cape Verdean Creole, English, and Spanish, the Allston-Brighton YMCA in Boston has members from dozens of countries. 

A recent Boston.com article talks about cultural misunderstandings and celebration of diversity at this Y.  The article opens with an amusing incident in the steam room that resulted in cultural lessons and deepened understanding between members and staff:

Shortly after Jack Fucci became executive director of the Allston-Brighton Y, he found himself embroiled in a tempest in a steam room. 

In the tradition of their homeland, some Russian-born members were sweating it out in the nude. They would no more wear a bathing suit in the steam room than in the shower. Y rules, however, require a bathing suit, not for reasons of modesty - the sexes are separated - but of hygiene.

Fucci tried explaining that to the Russians. Using an Internet program to translate the policy into Russian, he posted it in the locker room. Within hours after the notice went up, the front desk was besieged by, well, steamed-up bathers. Something got lost in translation.

Fortunately, a Russian-speaking staff member saved the day, and Fucci can laugh about the mix-up today. It was just one of the challenges running a YMCA that really ought to be spelled with the letters U and N.

I only wish they had included more details about the translation gaffe.  And imagine that the ED learned his lesson and in the future will ask his multilingual staff to check any translations!

To read the entire article, click here.

While interagency cooperation and support is standard and even welcomed in law enforcement, what happens when a fed is called in to assist a state cop and then finds that a federal immigration law has been violated?  Well, the Border Patrol gets to arrest them, even if they were detained for a routine traffic stop in Washington!  Since there are currently no Spanish speaking cops in Jefferson County, the police department will call in federal immigration agents if they need assistance with Spanish translation.

 Hernandez said that after the deputy completed the traffic stop, the Border Patrol agent interviewed the driver, determined there was a federal immigration violation and detained the person.

Said Brasfield: “Sgt. [Andy] Pernsteiner made a routine traffic stop as noted in the incident. We do not have any trained law enforcement personnel that speak Spanish.

“Knowing that there was a multilingual Border Patrol officer on duty, they were contacted for assistance and provided translation services.”

While spokespeople from the police department are careful to say that they are not doing the job of federal immigration agents, I wonder why the Border Patrol agent found it necessary to continue the interview with the person after the traffic stop had been completed.

Furthermore, will the use of federal immigration agents for interpretation purposes make people not call the police to report crimes for fear that their immigration status will be questioned?

To read the full article with more details about how agencies are negotiating their relationships in Washington, click here.

Maryland DMV patrons pointed out inaccuracies in Spanish-language signs posted at statewide offices.  The brief article notes that a third-party translator was paid nineteen cents per letter, which is quite a high rate, especially if the translation is egregiously bad.

“They were taken down today,” Coyle said Tuesday. “They should have been taken down a while ago … not all branches got the correct message to take the signs down.”

The MVA posted the signs at 10 locations that process out-of-country applications for driver’s licenses, she said. Under federal law, signs, forms and other materials must be translated into languages spoken by at least 3 percent of the population, Coyle said.

It’s quite surprising that the DMV actually paid someone for such a painfully incorrect translation.  In my experience, inaccurate translations usually come from people who don’t charge for their services, but are asked to do it by their employer without having any special translation experience or education.

To read the entire Watchdog column, click here.