TRANSLATIONS
Do you know how to say “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!” in a different language than yours?
Our Homeland Language Services interpreters can help you with that! You will find here this winter greeting in 16 different languages!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 🥳🎄
Since 2020, world communication has transformed so differently due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It became too much online: from doctor’s appointments to school lessons and business meetings. This period and special circumstances changed our communication fundamentally. We are spending much more time on our smartphones and online calls from laptops or computers. Communication changed for the Deaf or hard-of-hearing communities as well. Even before the pandemic, this segment of the population had obstacles to getting complete services, communication, and care. Fortunately, American Sign Language helps Deaf or hard-of-hearing people to receive access to all interactions they need with the help of video connection or onsite meetings.
Homeland Language Services has an experienced team of American Sign Language interpreters. They provide services both onsite in schools and healthcare institutions. Together with that, we can provide interpretation services online with the help of video calls. This way the American Sign Language interpretation is available to everyone in any part of the world.
American Sign Language (ASL) is a primary language of communication in Deaf or hard-of-hearing communities. About one million people in the USA use ASL as their primary means of communication. Meetings or appointments, accompanied by American Sign Language interpreters, signage, and verbal approaches right on point, the communication can be timely and concise.
Best practices for onsite American Sign Language interpreting:
– One of the most essential things for onsite ASL interpreting is to ensure that the interpreter can be in the position directly in the line of sight of the Deaf or hard-of-hearing client. The ASL interpreter clearly should override everything else.
– The interpreter should be aware of the nature of the client’s visit. The client can be in a psychiatric crisis or under COVID-19 or similar precautions, so he/shewould require the interpreter to maintain more physical distance from the client.
– The client should tell his preferences for interpreter gender because some healthcare conversations are sensitive.
– The video device should be set up so the client/patient can see the screen and their hands clearly.
– Take into account, that Deaf or hard-of-hearing clients may also have visual impairments, so the screen should be positioned appropriately.
– During the video call eliminate background noise, and make sure that the room has enough light.
– The English-speaking representative should speak directly to the Deaf or hard-of-hearing client, not the interpreter. The English-speaking representative should speak at a normal pace and tone.
– In case there will be printed documents or written material at the meeting, there should be copies for all participants.
Homeland Language Services has a professional team of translators. For more than 6 years they provide our clients with high-quality translation. We definitely know what skills a good translator should have and our translators have these skills!
Translators don’t just convert words from one language to another. They are working with the meaning of the text, considering the specifics of the industry and the culture of the original and target languages. So, the basic translator’s skills are:
It is an obligatory skill for language specialists. The ability to speak and write fluently in at least two languages is the main characteristic of a translator’s profession. The best specialists are usually bilingual.
Studying languages: translators are studying cultural peculiarities as well. It helps to understand and translate idioms, references, and slang from one language to another language. The cultural awareness of the translator makes communication smoother.
Writing skills have a few components: grammar, punctuation, and style. Grammar and punctuation rules are different in various languages, that’s why good translators should study them carefully. And in terms of examples of writing styles, there are descriptive, persuasive, narrative, and argumentative.
The translation requires research all the time. The translator should be very confident during the word conversion from one language to another. That’s why he or she should confirm the rules for different languages and the meaning of different cultures.
Translators generally use several computer programs to work on their projects and be organized. Among them are Microsoft Word, Adobe InDesign, and CAT tools. CAT or Computer-assisted translation tools are used to refine the pre-final translation. There are different types of CAT software, such as Language search engine software, Terminology management software, Translation memory software, Interactive machine translation software, and Text alignment software.
This skill can boost translation skills. Translators should have a deep understanding of the text they are translating to optimize text value correctly.
“Details make the difference”, that’s why they are so important. Accuracy is one of the top-skills of a good translator. He or she should be eager to avoid even small errors in their translations because sometimes can cost a life, especially when we are talking about medical or judicial translations.
Industry specialization comes along with cultural awareness and accuracy. The best translators knows the particular industry and the better quality he or she performs in their projects. The majority of specialized translators have degrees in their fields of expertise. Homeland Language Services gets the largest amount of requests for translations in the medical, business, and legal industries.
The day to honor whom all served.
On behalf of Homeland Language Services, we express our respect and admiration for all veterans and our Co-founder and COO Ernesto Lanazca.
Ernesto Lanazca, Homeland Language Services Co-founder and COO:
“Veterans day is a time to reflect on the sacrifices that our veterans have made for our country. You are a part of history, and your bravery will never be forgotten or underestimated. Thank you for leaving a safer world for your children and grandchildren.
To all my comrades, Happy Veterans Day!”
At Homeland Language Services, we are sure that we need to give a voice to our employees. This way, we want to show our values not only in the corporate presentation or on our website but from real people who work in our company.
Recently, our Business Support Coordinator Kseniya talked to Spanish-English Over-the-Phone interpreter Camila Rivas about her interpreting career.
Camila Rivas from Argentina started working at Homeland Language Services in April 2022. Her native language is Spanish. Camila mentioned that she didn’t know a lot about Homeland Language Services, but she liked the onboarding process very much. The HR team answered all her questions and gave a clear understanding of the job.
The first thing Camila enjoyed was not a thing. She likes our team, our people.
Camila didn’t have experience in interpreting. She worked as a simultaneous interpreter one day. But she had all the skills to get the job at Homeland Language Services and be successful.
Camila happily recommends our company as an employee and as a language services provider. Why? Watch the interview with her and discover why:
This day aims to raise awareness about the abuse and illegal killing of animals around the world and highlight how important it is to protect them and assure their welfare. It is our responsibility to make sure that both wild and domestic animals are kept safe in their habitats.
Our Homeland Language Services Team adores animals. That’s why we share this video with you with our pets! We love them, treat them, and thank them! They help us to be happy and many times, they help us reduce our stress during busy times. And sometimes they help us to work during the meeting, while we are providing the best interpreting and translating services 🙂
Corporate pets in the video from pet-friendly language services provider:
September 30th is a special day for our team of translators and their team leads. International Translation Day is an opportunity for us to pay tribute to the work of language professionals, which plays an important role in bringing nations together, facilitating dialogue, understanding, and cooperation. We are proud to have such strong and high-skilled language specialists on board. With their help, we provide high-quality translation services in the USA and worldwide.
We talked to our Translation Department team to discuss why this day is so important for them.
Florencia Gomez, Localization-Translation Department Supervisor:
“Today we celebrate the International Translators’ Day in reference to St. Jerome, a priest who translated the Bible from Hebrew into Latin.
His journey in translation could spread the word into all different cultures and make it accessible to a wider audience.
Translators play a fundamental role in bringing the world together, from Peace Treaties to your favorite Pop Song; they make science available to different countries so everyone can access all the most advanced literature.
That’s why, as the Project Manager and Translation Department Supervisor, and translator myself, in Homeland Language Services, I would like to congratulate our staff on their day and remember that your role is greatly appreciated in bringing peace, knowledge, development between nations and cultures all around the globe.”
Martina Viegas, Linguist Quality Specialist:
“As translators, we have a huge and important responsibility and we are liable for our works. We’re living in a globalized world and that’s where our role lies. We connect cultures, we build bridges between cultures and people for them to communicate, we make it possible. We must have the ability to transform everything so nothing changes, what an irony, right? And to be where we are, all of us experienced situations that -good or bad- strengthened our powers.
Personally, becoming a translator was not easy at all, but acting as a professional translator when graduating was the difficult part, almost the most difficult part of my life! (The most difficult was to study translation while being a single mom of a disabled child). Anyway, at college you have your guiding people, but after that, you’re left alone in the world. Fortunately, I soon became part of this amazing Homeland Language Services team and I love it. And it doesn’t matter if you’re working freelance or in-house, but you love so much what you do that you wake up happy thinking you have to work, this is called passion. This profession requires passion to succeed, and of course lack of sleep and tones of coffee. I had to fail to succeed, make a mistake to learn, fall to stand up. I could tell many stories to demonstrate it’s not a fairy tale, but each of us has to pave our own way.
In my experience, every time I had to make a hard decision and I said NO, something better came to my life. So don’t be afraid of valuing yourself and valuing and honoring our profession, happy day for all translators who make the world a better place!”
Homeland Language Services’ translators have enormous experience working with different types of texts. With their help, we gathered some tips and advice for novice or freelance translators to become successful in their job.
Any professional translator can’t be excused from learning to use new tools and studying new techniques to provide better translations. In Homeland Language Services the translation process involves several stages that freelance translators are often not aware of.
There is much more to translation than simply typing in a foreign language and using CAT tools or translation memory tools. A professional translation service typically requires both a revision (or edition) and proofreading. These are two essential stages that need to take place before we can say that a document is ready to be delivered to the client.
In other words, the professional translation service includes the Quality Control stage in the process. The final text is read (or proofread) additionally before sending it to the client. Of course, we have a team for this, that’s why one document is translated and checked by several specialists. If you are a freelancer, you should implement the quality control stage in your working process. You should never send a project to your client without additional checks and reading it beforehand.
Nevertheless, it is not the only piece of advice we want to share with you. Familiarize the following list:
