ALS Multilingual Court Interpreters: how many words can they get right?
Every single day in court means more sickening stories about incompetent linguists ALS keep on sending to Courts across the country. A few colleagues reported from Courts in London: Yesterday an ALS contractor attended a Magistrates’ Court in London but his Romanian was so poor that half of the words he used were left in English. He was, in fact, one of the 3 interpreters booked for the day and all came after 2.30 pm. Some savings!
A wrong interpreter (from Iraq) was booked for an Arabic speaker defendant in a Crown Court, but most of his words were in English or other various languages. So many like them managed to become so-called interpreters although they seem to be able to speak only a few words in the languages in question.
If I wanted to call myself a Chinese interpreter, I take it ALS would not put obstacles on my way or check whether I can speak the language or I just know two-three words, in fact. We knew they were not qualified to do any interpreting but they also seem to have no bi-lingual skills whatsoever. It looks like they get registered with any languages they might dream of, and, when in Court, they use English or any other language they might like. Who cares about the poor defendants? They are just some foreigners who may have broken the law (innocent until proven guilty).