Migrants urged not to use relatives as interpreters in hospital

Danik 2014 wrote:

The article may be right but migrants very often don´t have enough money. If they have they sometimes have to save it for other expenses as they don´t know what kind of situations they are going to encounter.

James Sutherland wrote:

The phrasebook Sylvia linked to looks like a very useful tool for this, and I hope it helps people - Sylvia, it's not mentioned in the list of problem languages at the top, but I see the Hindi column of the health phrasebook is blank at the moment, does it still need contributions? (My grandfather spoke it in India for a while and did some translation work - and I'd make him promise not to translate अतिसार as 'constipation' this time, knowing it means exactly the opposite...)

Silvia Di Profio wrote:
A volunteer group based in Berlin are launching a "Refugee phrasebook" to cope with the refugees emergency.

James Sutherland wrote:

Yes, a bad translation could be worse than no translation at all - so of course a technical term like "diabetes" or "epilepsy" could cause serious problems. However, a basic translator who knows their limits would be better than nothing, I think: "he has a sore foot", "he's been sick", "he can't see clearly, everything is blurred"...

Samuel Murray wrote:

I would have hoped that professional medical interpreters would know how to deal with inaccurate responses from their clients, but the example videos about this on e.g. Youtube don't paint a pretty picture. For example, I see a lot of medical interpreters who assume that the client knows that the interpreter is a neutral party in the conversation, but clients in these situations often regard the interpreter as an expert communicator, and so they sometimes let their responses be guided by the non-verbal cues from the interpreter. What's more, the interpreter is often in a position of authority, and clients from some more polite cultures may not speak out if they think that the interpreter misunderstood them or if they think the interpreter is trying to shut them up.

In conference interpreting, the interpreter can be reasonably certain that the client knows what he's talking about and will use fairly precise language, i.e. the interpreter can trust the client and accept what he hears at face value. But in medical interpreting, the client is often asked very difficult questions and his responses are sometimes vague, verbose and descriptive... and simply translating those responses into the target language literally may not necessarily be sufficient.

Danik 2014 wrote:

The article may be right but migrants very often don´t have enough money.

Unos compadres se van a Houston de mojados y no hablan Ingles. Llega uno de ellos todo torcido por el viaje en la troca y se queja con el otro compadre:

- Oiga compadre tengo un dolor pero perrón en la muñeca que se me sube pa'rriba hasta el conejo, luego como que se retacha pa'tras y pega en la paleta y de ahi pa'rriba hasta las sienes compadre.

El compadre contesta:

- Untate mentolato y no estés fregando. ....

El compadre insiste en que lo lleve al doctor porque el dolor esta muy severo y el compadre más o menos habla Ingles.

Llegan los compadres al Merciful Hospital y se entrevistan con el Dr. Expliquele mi dolencia - dice el compadre adolorido- Uste si habla algo de inglich compadre....

El compadre leido, inicia la explicación:

- Look Doitor, aqui mi withfather tiene un pain bien doggy que begun in the left doll and then run up to the rabbit. And from the rabbit como que take pa' la backward until the lollipop y luego agarra, pesca y get pa'rriba and finish in the "one hundreds" the los dos lados...

El doctor en tono molesto le reprende:

- You are mental retarded.

Y el compadre leido le explica al otro:

- ¿Ya ves compadre? Que te pongas mentolato reti'arto...