New York courts grapple with shortage of interpreters, the ‘ears and voice’ of non

In the New York state court system, the people translating for non-English speaking litigants are called interpreters for a reason.

“They are doing more than just repeating,” said Ann Ryan, a career interpreter who now heads the court system’s Office of Language Access as its statewide coordinator. “They're taking those concepts and converting them into the same concept in another language. And that is a thoughtful but very rapid process.”

To the untrained eye, interpreters can seem to provide a seamless transition between languages, but that overlooks the challenges they face that transcend linguistics. They must also navigate cultural barriers, idioms, nonverbal cues and colloquialisms.

“How do you interpret when the DA references a television show to a limited English speaking court