Did you know that being a court interpreter is more than just being bilingual?

Being a court interpreter is a real challenge!

There are some skills that you need to learn to be able to work with a high level of professionalism in a Brazilian Criminal Courts.

It part of your duty to be sitting side by side with your "court customers", which means, working direclty with international (unfriendly) offenders who were arrested for committing international crimes in a foreign country, and they are not fresh from the shower as you can imagine!

It is important to know the "juridiques", all the "ultra formal" legal terminology used by judges, public prosecutors, chief police officer, federal police agents and general federal attorneys in court. And, for that, you need to like to study legal glossaries on a regular basis! Consequently, you need to spend many hours studying specific terminology.

You should be a "slashie": translator/interpreter or interpreter/translator, because there are moments of "prima vista interpretation" during a hearing, for instance.

The translator/intepreter needs to be confident to get some papers and read them all, whenever requested by the competent judge.

So, if you can translate a written document, you will be able to read a similar one whenever requested to do so, loud and clear (and recorded to be sent to superior court in case of an appeal!)

The differences that we need to consider is that, working from home (translator), you will have time to look up for a word on internet, dictionaries and make sure that the correct word to be used was chosen precisely for your written translation.

In court, if an interpreter is requested to "translate" the judge´s decision in an official written documentation to be sent to another country, the translation needs to be effective and precise.


Example: an offender that declares that he needs to take a certain medication prescribed by a psychiatric to avoid his suicidal tendencies in prision cannot wait for the translator to get home, it needs to be done immediately once a certain medication needs to be taken as soon as possible.


Another situation, an African woman who states that her five girls are with the criminal organization (mafia) would be another situation that the interpreter/translator needs to guarantee that the Republic of Africa understands this life-risk scenario and these kids are safe as soon as possible, so we need to have high accuracy skills in a judicial setting and be prepared at any time.

The role of the interpreter/translator needs to professional, done with confidentiality and precision.

Some colleagues recommend that the note-taking should be using symbols, in a blank paper and from the top to the bottom yada yada yada... In my opinion, the most important thing is that all the symbols, words or notes that the interpreter/translator wrote down have to be thrown away! (tear them down, of course for obvious reasons).

So, we do not take the "heavy" emotional part with us back home. These "stones" stay in court. We need to make a professional and more rational work, in a neutral way.

Becoming a court interpreter is a big decision and demands a high level of responsibility.

Finally, it is a profession that we must be "invisible": we do not cry, we do not laugh, we do not give our opinions, we do not accept any gifts from anyone, we do not help anybody (impartiality is essential) and we do not have memories!

Our bad memories cannot cannot last forever...

Our bad memories should be left behind in the court room...

Sad memories should be deleted for good...

We are just court interpreters and we need to feed our minds with positive thoughts and there is no point in worrying with things that we cannot control!

Court translators/interpreters are not responsible for other people´s actions or choices!

Do your best!

cést la vie!