Double talk:
For some translators, the obvious language isn’t so obvious
It’s one thing to go through your high school Spanish classes with a lackadaisical attitude. But to show indifference to learning Spanish at home? That might be another story.
“I grew up in a house where my parents spoke Spanish to each other all day long but they always spoke to their kids in English,” says John Abrego. “And I was the youngest of four so by the time they got to me, they might as well have been Mike and Carol Brady when it came to language.”
John Abrego, a Chicago painter-turned-home-inspector, speaks fluent Polish, thanks to a decade working with Polish painting crews and language lessons from his wife. “I worked with some good guys but they didn’t care I didn’t speak Polish,” Abrego says. “They’d talk to me like they’d talk to the other guys on the crew – Polish only, so I picked up a bunch. Then I began dating a woman — now my wife — and she would teach me Polish all the time.”
Abrego says he picked up the language pretty quickly, even enough to visit potential customers to provide estimates. “Most of my business was on the Northwest Side,” Abrego says. “They’d see this Mexican guy walk in and then I’d start speaking Polish and they would just stare at me, like a dog whistle went off or something.”
Translators in demand
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, jobs for translators and interpreters are expected to grow by nearly 20 percent through 2031, much higher than the average job projection. “It’s a good time to know a foreign language, particularly in Spanish, Chinese or German,” says Anna Paynter, a job analyst for the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. “There continue to be opportunities for translators in Japanese and Russian, as well.”
The role of the interpreter or translator can vary, illustrated by where they work. “You’ll likely find interpreters anywhere you have a need for human interaction,” says Paynter. “They’re in schools, at the DMV, in emergency rooms and in social service offices.”
They also work in call centers and customer service centers.
Julie Hirota says her family — her mother and father were born in Japan — find it amusing that she’s so proficient in Spanish but can barely speak Japanese. “I grew up in Joliet, Illinois, where there weren’t a lot of Japanese Americans but that’s no excuse because I lived with people who did,” says Hirota, who works for a law firm. “I just didn’t want to bother. It’s embarrassing I never learned my parents’ mother tongue.”
Fighting words
Pia Capriano has a similar story. “I studied in Brussels for a semester in college and fell in love with it,” says Capriano, a 35-year-old attorney in Rochester, New York. “I knew so little about Belgium before I left, I thought everyone spoke German. When I got there, people spoke French or Dutch, so I started studying both.”
Capriano kept doing so throughout college. “No one offered Dutch, really, so I took classes in French and did a bunch of CD programs for Dutch,” she says. “I’m probably more proficient in Dutch these days but I can speak fluently in both languages.”
Neither of which impresses her mother. “She’s mad about the fact that I don’t speak Italian,” she says. “I mean, mad, like her face gets red when someone brings it up.”
Capriano, who grew up in Long Branch, New Jersey, says her mom and dad were born in Italy but never spoke Italian at home. “I think that’s why my mom gets so mad. I tell her it’s her fault. She should have taught me,” says Capriano, who insists she speaks some Italian. “‘Family-party Italian’ is what me and my cousins call it. If it’s Christmas or Easter, I can speak enough Italian to say hello to my aunts and uncles or tell someone to shut up and get out of the way if they’re blocking the TV, but that’s about it.”
Capriano says she recently represented a client from Canada who was involved in a case in the United States. “I’m the French-language expert at work,” she says. “I’ve had some clients from Montreal who want to tell me everything at once in French. If they have to say it in English, they feel like they’re going to use the wrong words and that we’ll get it wrong. I understand. If there’s money at stake, you want to make sure you’re coming across loud and clear.”