I’m a talker: I’ll have a conversation with anybody. But as a professional French-English interpreter working in the criminal justice system, I can be a different person’s voice every day. I’ve translated for murderers
+
murderers:
asesinos
and suspected terrorists.
I remember my first job in a crown court
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crown court:
tribunal penal
. I was twenty-seven, in the dock
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dock:
banquillo de los acusados
with a drug smuggler
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drug smuggler:
traficante de droga
who had been paid to carry cocaine in her suitcase
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suitcase:
maleta
from South America. She was about my age, with a child. I could feel my heart pounding
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to pound:
latir
before I opened my mouth. She was found guilty
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guilty:
culpable
and sent to prison. Every case I’m involved in hangs
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to hang:
colgar, depender
on the accuracy of what I say; when someone’s life or freedom is on the line
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on the line:
en el alambre
, I feel additional pressure.
I translate verbatim
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verbatim:
textualmente
and in the first person. To add or omit anything would distort the dialogue. I have to find the right words and register, but I’m also required to mirror
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to mirror:
reflejar
emotion and intonation. Silences are important, too; they are all part of how we converse. The way words are delivered
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to deliver:
pronunciar (lit. entregar)
changes a whole message. You feel a bit like an actor at times. I once spoke for a doctor accused of manslaughter
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manslaughter:
homicidio
who was so desperate to prove his innocence. For that day, I felt that I became him.
Cultural nuances
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nuances:
matices
can be crucial. We understand ‘mon frère’ to mean ‘my brother’. In African cultures it can be ‘my friend’, too. Whether a brother or friend arranged
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to arrange:
arreglar
to get someone out of prison can change a whole asylum
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asylum:
asilo
case.
It’s not just about being bilingual; I work with different lexicons
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lexicons:
vocabularios
. Communicating court terminologies is different to speaking for an asylum seeker in counselling
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counselling:
asesoramiento
, or a child in speech therapy, where a professional relies on
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to rely on:
confiar
my exact delivery to form a proper opinion.
I did a French degree
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degree:
grado
followed by a Masters in translation and a diploma in public service interpreting, which trains
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to train:
preparar
you to speak in police, local government, health or legal settings
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settings:
ambientes
. One day, I can be interpreting at a Premier League
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SPEAK UP EXPLAINS
"Premier League". La English Premier League es la máxima categoría del fútbol inglés, un campeonato creado en 1992 y en el que compiten veinte equipos. Sustituye a la Football League First Division (literalmente ‘primera división’) fundada en 1888 y que hoy en día es el nombre que se le da a lo que equivaldría a la segunda división en la liga española. En inglés, el término premier indica el primer puesto en una clasificación, además de ser sinónimo de Prime Minister.
football club, translating for a footballer receiving a drugs ban
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drugs ban:
suspensión por dopaje
; the next, I might be sitting in a high-security prison.
The criminal stuff
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stuff:
materia, asuntos
is really my bag
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is my bag:
lo mío
; a world that’s not my own. I love being a fly on the wall
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a fly on the wall:
mosca en la pared
. I spent two days in a police control room listening in to a wiretap
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wiretap:
escucha telefónica
in a high-profile unsolved murder case. In reality, there was a lot of him turning on
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turning on:
encender
his TV and flushing the toilet
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flushing the toilet:
tirar de la cadena
, but it felt like a civic duty
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duty:
deber
.
The conversations I am part of are confidential and often traumatic. I have repeated explicit sexual assault details, spoken for a teenage girl who had been trafficked into prostitution, and translated for a torture victim — but I can’t discuss any of it with a friend on the way home. I have to deal with
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to deal with:
afrontar
them in my head, which can be hard.
Everyone has their limits. I find the health stuff hardest
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hardest:
más difícil
, particularly where children are involved. I had to tell one lady that she had cancer. It was the only time I’ve cried in a job. But these conversations are a privilege, too. I have acted as a birthing partner
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birthing partner:
acompañante durante el parto
for women who are otherwise
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otherwise:
de lo contrario
alone. One lady, an asylum seeker, asked me for baby names during labour
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labour:
parto
. I had watched Peter Pan that weekend; she called her daughter Wendy.
I’m not the doctor, the police officer or the judge in these rooms; I’m just somebody who did a French degree and loves languages. I feel honoured to be part of those dialogues. These conversations couldn’t take place
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to take place:
tener lugar
without me.
• As told to Deborah Linton
