An Interpreter to the Rescue!

These past few weeks have been very trying for me. My anti-depressant was taken away and I fell into a deep somberness. Crying for now reason, calling out to God to please help me get through this. And, of course, He did. One of the things I wanted to try was to attend church with my family. They go to church every Sunday, but there’s no interpreter for me. I could go to a different church, but, instead, I had gotten in the habit of just staying home. However, while I was truly struggling with my depression, I decided to do a search to see if anyone would be willing to come to my church and interpret for me. So, I sent the request to the head of the interpreter training program at a local college and found one wonderful student willing to take the bite.

Imagine how she felt…second year ASL student, never interpreted before outside of internships at college. She walks into this rather large church and shakes my hand. It was wonderful that she was willing to do this and I knew in my heart that, no matter what happened, we would forge through this day together.

Linda seemed a bit nervous when I saw her in the lobby, but I, too, was a basket of nerves. Not because I had an interpreter coming to church, but because I hadn’t been to church in years and I remembered no one. If you know me, though, you know that I’m always nervous and I have no short term memory whatsoever (my long-term memory ain’t that great either).

We only did Sunday School that day instead of both SS and church. I felt a little overwhelmed and thought it best to sit back in church and just read along with some of the pastor’s notes. SS was enough though for Linda, I’m sure. Picture an older gentleman, interacting with the class and reading Biblical scripture at the speed of rabbits. Linda basically took the reigns and held on. I was so impressed with her.

Sure, there were parts that were missed (so I was told), but none so much that it lost it’s meaning to me as she translated for me. I was dressed in this stupid pants outfit that made me feel like Liberace and I had forgotten shoes, so I finished off the outfit with some black, fluffy slippers. LOL Not the best church outfit, if you ask me.

Anyway, the point of the post is that Linda did a great job and I was once again reunited with the congregation my family has come to love and be attached to. She’s interpreting again on Easter and I’m very excited about that. Thanks, Linda. This really means the world to me!

I WANT TO BE AN INTERPRETER…TOMORROW!

As a sign language teacher, I get contacted by many people who want to learn ASL as quickly as possible. Some want to learn just for the fun of it; others, so they can cuss out the people who make them mad without it resulting in them getting their face smashed in; still others are homeschoolers looking for a foreign language credit. But one of the most popular reasons for coming to Deaf Expressions to learn to sign is so they can become a professional interpreter.

This is a very admirable reason. The world would be a much brighter place if there were more certified sign language interpreters out there. But what most potential ‘terps don’t realize is that being an interpreter takes serious study and a good amount of time. Oh, sure—I’ve had my share of interpreters who went from knowing nothing about ASL and the Deaf Culture to trying to interpret in such places as the church service at my church in a matter of weeks or a couple of months. But trust me, these were scary experiences.

There are a lot of people who also don’t realize the difference between church interpreting—where anyone can get up there and wiggle their hands around—and professional interpreting—where you actually have to take a few challenging and in-depth exams (written and performance) and become certified before you can go out and wiggle those hands around for pay. NOTE: This blog post is not to encourage any old person to get out there and start signing sermons. The whole purpose of doing so is to attract deaf people to attend the service, not to confuse them and create a large amount of reluctance and hesitance to attend.

The thing you gotta remember is that ASL is not simply “English on the hands,” and learning ASL is not about being good at charades or mime. ASL is a foreign language—a complete language just like German or French—and is by no means easy to learn.

It’s also important to realize that, even if you do learn to sign and become pretty darn good at it, signing is by no means the same as interpreting. If you don’t quite understand my point, turn on your TV set to the local news and attempt to sign what the newscasters are saying as they are saying it. Be sure to keep up. Sign as they’re speaking and don’t fall behind. Sound easy to you? Show me. I have serious doubts, unless you’ve been signing for a long time, that this task is conquerable.

So, when people ask me if they’ll be certified to sign after my eight-week class (or even my 28-week course), it can become a little tedious to explain the path a wanna-be professional interpreter must take. I mean, really: Do you think if you took one semester of Japanese in college, you could go out and become a professional translator? Of course not.

But don’t let this stop you if ‘terping is what you want to do. We want you—we need you—but expect the road to be a bit bumpy and even winding. Expect to take your time. Expect to study for years. If you do that and you push yourself through the ups and downs, expect your career to be rewarding and fun. Adventurous even. It’s worth it. Just don’t be in such a hurry.