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Omaha: Translate language skills to job

Approximately 100 translators and interpreters are meeting at Bellevue University this week during the Nebraska Association for Translators & Interpreters 10 annual regional conference.

“Some of them are professionals already working in the field, some are interested in the field, and others are people who work with interpreters -- the administrators and so forth,” said conference coordinator Janet Bonet.

Legal and medical topics, civil rights and language access, community interpreting and law enforcement interpreting will be covered during the three-day event, which also features a keynote speech tonight by Holly Mikkelson, director of the International Interpretation Resource Center (IIRC) at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in Monterey, Calif.

“She's one of the founding mothers of translation-interpretation as a profession in the United States,” Bonet said. “She's done seminal work on the theory of translation, linguistics and translation.”

Mikkelson also will help registrants prepare for state certification for court interpreting.

Guest speaker Jerome Kills Small will speak Friday on “The Language of the Drum,” understanding Lakota culture through language.

Bonet called it a fabulous time for to explore interpretation and translation as a career option.

“We're really pushing for young kids who are bilingual at home to formally study their heritage language . . . They will have at least 25 percent better income if they're fully bilingual and educated in both languages.”

Registration remains open for Friday and Saturday for the event at Bellevue University's Margre H. Durham Student Center. For more information on registration, go to www.natihq.org.
 

Topics:
  • Civil Rights