[My Opinion Here]

From The Trenches
[My Opinion Here] I've been teaching Simultaneous English to ASL this semester. I have twelve students and this is what I can say about all of them:1. They have learned to trust me, to trust that what I tell them is what I truly believe will work.2. They are willing to make changes in how they think about language, culture and interpreting.3. They all want to "convey the message faithf...
Sun, Oct 31 2010

You're either IN or you're OUT!
[My Opinion Here] Being an interpreter makes you a part of a language community. Make that...being an interpreter "should" make you a part of a language community, since my previous statement assumes that you use the language in social situations as well as business.Using ASL simply as a source of income is, in my opinion, an abuse of a privilege and is,in essence, exploiting a languag...
Wed, Jul 28 2010

I say 2 + 2 = 5!
[My Opinion Here] Oh, wait...IT DOESN'T??!! Well, my friend said it did and he knows math. And it totally could be 5, if you think about inflation. Okay, maybe it's not five, but I think you understood what I meant...I meant 4. Also, 5 is very close to 4, isn't it?------------------------------------------Rarely in math is there room for discussion regarding addition, subtration, multi...
Sun, May 16 2010

Q: How Long Have You Been Doing This? A: Not Long Enough
[My Opinion Here] As I approach my thirtieth year of national certification, I wonder if, truly, I can claim all thirty years. When I tell someone "I've been interpreting professionally for almost 30 years", does that mean I'm 30X better than someone who has been interpreting for one year? Have I grown as an interpreter and signer each and every year? I don't think how long you have do...
Tue, Mar 23 2010

Prosody (and other 50 cent words)
[My Opinion Here] Be patient with me, gentle reader,through this little linguistics lesson. Prosody can be simply defined as the patterns of stress and intonation in a language.Prosody is what helps us know whether the speaker (or signer) is asking a question, giving a command, being sarcastic or angry. Prosody is not about vocabulary and not about grammar. (Wait...isn't that what is t...
Mon, Mar 15 2010

Spotted! The Missing Link (in Voice to Sign Instruction)
[My Opinion Here] More on Interpreter Training First you learn ASL* Then you learn to interpret from Spoken English to ASL.** *Okay, not totally learn it but you have the basic vocabulary down and you have a sense of the grammatical features. **Yeah, you've worked some on consecutive Voice to Sign and you might have English Intrusions, but I know how to sign while someone is talking....
Wed, Feb 24 2010

Learning Sign-to-Voice Interpreting: MIND THE GAP!
[My Opinion Here] Here's three steps to becoming an awesome sign-to-voice interpreter: 1. Always look at the deaf person 2. Understand everything he or she signs 3. Say it in perfect English. That's it. Now go out and conquer the world. But wait, there must be more to it than that! In the typical sign to voice class. all too often the student is asked to do step 3, before he or she ca...
Thu, Feb 18 2010

Celebration of Mediocracy, Part 2
[My Opinion Here] Spoken language interpreters would so much rather work from their second language to their first. It makes perfect sense. Sign language interpreters rarely want to work from sign to voice. That also makes perfect sense, in a non-sensical way. From my perspective, when you stand in front of an audience of one and you are signing away who knows if you are making full s...
Tue, Feb 16 2010

Interpreting Today -- The Celebration of Mediocracy
[My Opinion Here] In any field or profession, there will always be those who excel beyond the expected, out-perform the crowd. Not everyone has to be a superstar; it is also okay to be qualified, skilled, able, competent and clear. What is see in the intpreting world right now though, is an abundance of "GOOD-ENOUGH." There's so much of that around, that I believe more people have forg...
Tue, Feb 16 2010