Minnesota Valley Action Council Head Start
by Tessa Donato
Professional Spanish Interpreter
8-11-2010
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Word-for-word
What you think it should be
What you don’t think it should be
Just using the dictionary to look up the word
you do not know.
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Does anyone know?
Interpreting the meaning of what someone is
saying
Looking for equivalents NOT to be confused
with false cognates
We can’t interpret OR translate something
that we do not understand.
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Understanding a message when it is not for
us personally….
I.e. Meeting someone for the first time and
interpreting for them. You have no idea what
their medical needs are. You have no
background information and you do not know
the person personally.
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In what ways is the word ‘cold’ used?
In what ways is the word ‘hot’ used?
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What are some others?
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Before the interpreting assignment
*Request a briefing
*Gather information in both languages
regarding the medical issues
*Talk to the person over the phone to get an
idea of their way of talking
*Ask the person if it okay for you to interpret
for them.
*More suggestions…
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Refers to facts, ideas, information and other
objective material verbally spoken
*I.e. “Tom has a brown four door”
What do you hear?
What does it mean?
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What are the facts?
What are the ideas?
What other information is there?
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Listen for IDEAS….not words.
Ideas take longer to express.
Listen for patterns.
Use prediction to help you remember how to
interpret the ideas.
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Is an idea, thought, or concept.
A sentence may include several:
I.e. “Tom has a brown four door”
1) There is a car
2) The car is brown
3) The car has four doors
4) The car is owned by somebody named Tom
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How many ideas do you hear?
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Pick out the ideas you hear…..
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Every time we speak there is a reason why we say
what we do…
Think about when you speak to your child
*when you speak to your spouse or boyfriend
*to your elders
*to a stranger
Why is the person speaking? What is their/his/her
purpose?
To make us laugh?
To instruct?
To manipulate?
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Is a variety of things….
---special vocabulary ⇨ slang/colloquialism
---intonation
---facial expression
---gesture
---syntax (i.e. the car hat is on.)
1. the grammatical arrangement of words in
sentences
2. a systematic orderly arrangement
3. studies of the rules for forming admissible
sentences
Frozen – Something that can only be said
one way
--Miranda rights,
--prayers,
--poems,
--clichs,
--idioms,
--riddles,
--rhymes
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Formal
---lecture – large college classes
---speech – Ex. Abraham’s famous speech
---sermons – religious
---legal settings – highly formal, structured,
predictable
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Consultative
---general every day talk, calling a person by
name (not nickname—that’s informal); can
also be informative
Example:
Ladies, ladies…please. Myt mother always
taught me not only that I have a right to
disagree, but that I should always be polite
when doing so.
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Informal
---speaking to friends
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Intimate
---conversation with spouse etc.
---basically for closer relationships
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Affect
---is the emotion and toneconveyed in the
text
Via
*volume
*stress patterns
*vocabulary choices
*linguistic and paralinguistic clues given by
speaker