So, let me ask you a question. Would you rather have someone who really cares about a patient but has a 5 yr old's vocab translate (but a doctor's intellect, lol) translate or would you rather have the complete stranger over the phone do it?
I suppose I should be practical and say "complete stranger over the phone," but, in all honesty, I'd probably prefer the person who really cares about the patient.
Using a translator phone never seems to make the patients more vocal and they seem just as quiet as when you were bumbling through the interview.
In any case, the point about my mother was that I hated it when they told us in class that "family members should NEVER translate for you!" I used to do it all the time, and I never felt bad about it. I mean, I understand the concern and all that, but it's not a hard-and-fast rule.
It's not the accent, but the vocab differences. Patients use different words for the same meaning, you know? For example, my friend was in Peru last year and she knows Mexico Spanish and they did not understand the word she was using for sweatshirt.
That's true - although I've encountered that problem generally only in informal settings. In terms of formal, medical settings, the vocabulary is pretty similar, and I haven't had much of a problem.
In any case, a lot of the vocab differences are "inside jokes" among Spanish-speakers anyway, and they tend to know when they're using a local phrase that other people are unlikely to understand. It's like the fact that most Americans know some British words and their American equivalents (ex: cookie = biscuit, elevator = lift, etc.)
It's not much of an impediment, and it should almost certainly not be an impediment to a telephone translator (who is usually a native speaker).
😉 The only word that I avoid using is "coger" since I can never be sure how it will be received by others. In some countries, it means "to catch" - as in catching a bus or a cab. In other countries, it means...something else. Something that might cause you to end up on L&D.
😀
Just because I will be the only person with any Spanish proficiency seeing patients. The other doctors all have no Spanish skills, so they get the priority for interpreters.
Ohhh...eek. That's tough. Good luck on the trip - I hope you have fun!
But actually one of our regular male interpreters refuses to interpret any female related complaints anyways (he just leaves the room, sigh...), so I guess I was better than him. Cultural boundaries can be a problem...
Exactly. Which is why it irritates me when the medical Spanish club at my school hired an American to teach Spanish. She might speak it well - but can she teach anything about the cultural nuances, and the differences between the Mexican vs. Puerto Rican vs. Colombian cultures? That's just as important.
