Demand grows for interpreters

Demand grows for interpreters Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 10/23/06 BY BILL WOLFE GANNETT NEWS SERVICE http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061023/BUSINESS/610230406/1003 While working on her Spanish minor at Centre College in Danville, Ky., in 1997, Terena Bell wanted to study abroad. The closest she could get to a Spanish-speaking country under the school's study-abroad program at the time was Strasbourg, France. Bell "fell in love with the language" there and changed her minor to French. Nine years later — after following a path that included jobs at three television stations, additional travel to France, two-and-a-half years in sales at Mall St. Matthews and a crash-course master's degree in French at the University of Louisville — Bell has transformed her passion for things French into a career as owner of In Every Language, a year-old translating and interpreting company. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Want more direct clients join my yahoo group I will alert you when there is new tip posted in my blog. To subscribe just send a blank email at TipsforTranslators-subscribe@yahoogroups.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Nothing in my life has ever been the straight path. I've always kind of taken the roundabout way to get anywhere," said Bell, 29. But Bell believes she has found a field ripe for expansion — and officials involved with immigration and international business agree. The need for people skilled in the use of foreign languages, they say, is only going to grow. "This morning I fielded a call from someone who was looking for a Hindi interpreter," said Omar Ayyash, director of Louisville, Ky.'s Office for International Affairs. "Yesterday it might have been Spanish. The day before it might have been Arabic. "There are more businesses that are doing business all over the world," Ayyash said. "As the world becomes more flat, the need to understand and speak other languages becomes crucial, becomes a must." The international affairs office refers calls for language assistance to services like Bell's or to individual interpreters and translators listed in a "community language bank." "There are all kinds of translation issues that companies need help with," said Susan Cook, senior trade specialist with the Kentucky World Trade Center's Louisville, Ky., office. Cook said she speaks French and is able to provide some help directly. Another trade specialist can assist with Mandarin Chinese. So who needs translating and interpreting services? "It's everybody," Bell said, from farmers working with Mexican laborers to teachers who need help communicating with an immigrant student's parents or companies that must translate their product manuals for international markets. "It's phenomenal just how large the increase in the need for these kinds of services is. It just blows me away." Bell is In Every Language's only full-time employee, but she works with hundreds of contract interpreters and translators representing 60 languages in 53 countries. Fees for translators and interpreters vary widely. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the median hourly pay for salaried workers was $16.28 in May 2004. The highest 10 percent earned more than $27.45 per hour. Business clients sometimes balk at paying professional providers. But people who aren't experienced in translation and interpretation might not know slang and informal expressions from another language, she said. "It is a profession," Ayyash said. "I am fluent in Arabic, as well as proficient in German and in English, but I've never been professionally trained as an interpreter and I've been put in a couple of situations — particularly in legal situations — where I had to do interpreting, and quickly realized I was not qualified for it. "Just because you have a bilingual employee in your department or your organization or your business, that does not necessarily qualify them to conduct business in that language," he said. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com