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I know, I know, we just talked about this last week.

Devoid of accent, if you were reading a transcription of a conversation and told it happened somewhere in America, you might still be able to figure out where. How? Regionalisms. They’re those seemingly insignificant words that creep into your vocabulary after living in an area for a while. You pick these colloquialisms up to talk with your neighbors and friends in a sort of short hand. Often, it is only when you travel somewhere else that they become apparent to you again.

A DesMoines area woman says she was having trouble understanding doctors’ instructions because she’s deaf. Her daughter Addison was at the hospital after being referred to have her tonsils and adenoids removed, and the staff was instructing the mother what to do to prepare the girl for surgery.

New feature coming to the Affordable Language Services blog: a monthly video round-up!

Why Get Certified – Thomas Johnston’s Story

If you’ve ever tried to translate something online, you know how frustrating that can be. Some words translate flawlessly, others translate verbatim but don’t seem to fit in the sentence, and others don’t translate at all. Why is it all so hit or miss?

This month we’re honoring Maryem Rah as Interpreter of the month. Maryem is a Qualified Medical and Legal Interpreter at Affordable Language Services, and also takes on Educational and Social interpreting roles. She’s always willing to juggle her schedule to accommodate a heavy load of interpretation jobs. We feel we’re truly sending one of our most capable interpreters when we assign her to highly specialized requests that demand someone with vast experience and knowledge.

It sounds nearly impossible, right? How could one language be implemented across cultural divides to encompass each culture’s unique linguistic needs?

It may sound like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, but that’s exactly what happened on the day after Thanksgiving 2009.

Going into a medical setting can be a difficult job for an interpreter. There are added legal restrictions that must be kept in mind to protect the patient’s privacy, high tensions surrounding diagnoses, and the ever-watchful eyes of friends and family. Sometimes, the patient may not “get it” the first time, so as an interpreter it is incredibly important to synthesize the information. The following article by Dr. Paul J. Dorio demonstrates the difficulty doctors have effectively communicating to their patients, regardless of whether they’re speaking the same language.