How to avoid court interpreter mistakes

Court interpreting has to be one of the most stressful language jobs out there and it's not just because of the possibility of making court interpreter mistakes.

Court interpreters have to be ready to translate full tilt and it can be hard to be 100 percent correct at all times. Even interpreters are human!

Different types of interpreters
One of the problems with court interpreting as it is now is that there isn't really a standard for interpreting inside a courtroom. Yes, there are more standards and regulations now than there used to be for federal interpreters (and even state ones), but there are still too many court cases than the current number of qualified interpreters can handle.

Because of this lack of professionals, a lot of times what happens inside the courtroom is that a relative ends up interpreting for the person on the witness stand. While it's good to have an interpreter (and the witness on the stand obviously has the right to know what is being said), this can often lead to problems and different types of court interpreter mistakes.

Types of interpreting mistakes
So what kind of court interpreter mistakes can be made? Well, when a relative is used as an interpreter, he/she is usually not qualified to interpret and has probably not had too many opportunities to interpret before then. Interpreting is super challenging and asking someone to interpret in that kind of situation when never having done it before can be incredibly daunting.

In addition to this, there are mistakes often made when the interpreter doesn't know a specific word or know how to interpret a specific phrase. This can be difficult because court interpreting usually happens at a constant pace and interpreters usually don't want to interrupt the proceedings.

So how do you avoid court interpreter mistakes?
With a lot of preparation, you can avoid a lot of the easy mistakes that can befall a court interpreter. Instead of listing everything you can do, I'll just refer you to a great page I recently ran across outlining step trial lawyers can take when working with interpreters.

It's great for interpreters who are looking into court interpreting and I highly recommend reading it and implementing the suggestions.

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