How to Evaluate a Person's Foreign Language Proficiency Without Knowing the Language Volume I: Managing Interpretation

Living in multilingual countries, dealing with non-English languages is an unexpected activity that we all have experienced every day. Assistance from non-English speakers, such as employees, interpreters, interpretation service companies, or sometimes friends, is regularly required. There is no doubt that we expect these helpers perform the work with a conscience and without errors, since faults in communications will seriously affect the outcome of the discussion, and sometimes our reputations. Unfortunately, the expectation while using language helpers cannot be warranted since most of us don't know how to identify the helpers' mistakes; or evaluate their language proficiency and skills. We let the interpretation process advance in hopes that the main purpose of the conversation or interview shall be reached. However, adverse effects caused by the errors occur and can possibly, one day, ruin our lives. The problems become more serious in the context when interpretation and translation services are involved, since it determines the end result of legal cases, the comprehension of the law, scientific discoveries, business affairs, medical services, and more in other areas. To solve these issues, this book gives the keys: 1) to evaluate a person's level of foreign languages and whether that person is qualified to perform the work necessary, 2) to recognize concealment of foreign language deficiency, 3) to locate the errors in interpretation; 4) to select qualified interpreters, 5) to control interpretation sessions, and 6) to prevent other problems even though we don't speak the necessary foreign languages. Speaking and writing a foreign language are two different processes. This volume specifically focuses on speaking skills and how to manage resulting issues. Evaluation of writing skills and how to solve relevant problems will be discussed in Volume II: Managing Translation. Comparisons made in the book are based on English, French, Russian, and Vietnamese languages. Particular terms used in this book and all opinions are those of the author. The scenarios are true and from the author's experience, but the names of the people, where and how the incidents happened have been changed to respect the confidentiality of those referenced. However, the author has taken literary license with some of the examples. Because the author is feminine, the pronoun "she" is used to generally refer to a language helper, an interpreter or an interpretation candidate instead of "he" or "she" to simplify the text. Any questions or concerns can be sent to [email protected]. The answers may be directly addressed in the future revisions of this book.