IW 184: InterpreTips: Every Interpreter Needs an Interpreter Sometimes
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00:00:02 Tim
Good morning, good evening, good afternoon. Wherever you are, this is the Interpreter's Workshop podcast. I'm Tim Curry, your host. Here we talk everything sign language interpreting the ins, the outs, the ups, the downs, the sideways of interpreting. If you're a student, a new interpreter, experienced interpreter, this is the place for you. If you want to know more, go to interpretersworkshop.com.
00:00:28 Tim
Let's start talking... interpreting.
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00:00:34 Tim [ONLY TIM SPEAKS IN THIS EPISODE]
And now the quote of the day by American soul and R&B singer-songwriter Bill Withers.
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“Sometimes in our lives, we all have pain.
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We all have sorrow.
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But if we are wise, we know that there's always tomorrow.
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Lean on me when you're not strong.
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and I'll be your friend.
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I'll help you carry on, for it won't be long till I'm gonna need somebody to lean on.”
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This song is filled with emotion and gives us a lot of feelings that are strong.
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But the song for me doesn't just mean we need help, we need support during those extremely rough times.
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But it also means those less extreme times in our lives when we just need a friend.
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Today, we're going to talk a little bit about that.
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How as interpreters, as individuals, we need to lean on someone.
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And as professionals, we definitely need support.
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What does that look like?
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Well, let's get started.
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It's 2026, a beautiful time.
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It's the beginning of the year.
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It's usually the time when we think, what am I going to do differently?
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What will I accomplish this year?
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What are my New Year's resolutions?
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And how long will I keep those resolutions?
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Okay, we normally don't think about that.
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We normally just stop doing them.
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What is your resolution?
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What are you focusing on this year?
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Does it matter?
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Is it important?
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I don't think our lives are set in stone where we have to plan it like a business plan.
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I think it's more about what is our purpose?
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What is my life principles?
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This is who I am.
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I'm going to be like this.
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I do this.
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I like doing this.
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I enjoy being this.
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That's really what we all need rather than, I'm going to lose weight this year.
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I'm going to exercise more.
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Well, instead of planning like that, we should think more about who are we as a person.
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I'm the type of person who does this.
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This my lifestyle or my life goal.
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This is the way I am.
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I enjoy being with these people.
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That's about habits, but habits that are part of who you are.
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That's something that can be sustainable rather than checking off a list until we forget the list and stop doing it.
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How does that connect with having support?
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As professionals, it takes us back to the beginning of sign language interpreting as a profession.
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After my interview with Jiří Janeček, the founder of the Chamber of Czech Sign Language Interpreters, it made me think more about why we are a profession and what that means.
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Having a professional organization allows us to have a community of interpreters.
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We talk about the Deaf community or the hearing community, but we need to focus more on the interpreting community and what that means for us.
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When we became a profession and we individuals became professionals, that means we need to look at ourselves differently.
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What is an interpreting professional?
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How does that work in our daily lives?
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What habits or style, lifestyle as a professional do we continue to do to keep us going?
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We talk about imposter syndrome.
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We talk about burnout.
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We worry if the profession is sustainable.
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Well, I think it has to do with how we perceive our profession.
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It's easier to burn out when you're alone, when the feelings or the emotions or the challenges, the problems, the dilemmas, if you keep those in your head all by yourself and you just think through them over and over again, you're not getting out of yourself.
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You're not seeing it through other eyes.
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It's harder to understand it.
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It's harder to feel differently, and it starts to become overwhelming.
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And that's where burnout can start.
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Doing the same routine and no one else knowing what you're going through, no one else seeing what you're doing.
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Most of us as sign language interpreters work alone, and that has benefits, but it also has negative connotations for our well-being.
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So that's why, as professionals, we need to be like other professionals.
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A professional organization allows us to consider that community and what it does for us.
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A community of professional psychiatrists, each individual psychiatrist, can look to another psychiatrist or a therapist can look to another therapist for support, for help, to talk through what they go through every day when they're working alone.
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Doctors usually don't do surgery on themselves.
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They usually don't diagnose themselves.
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They go to another professional.
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They get a second opinion.
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As sign language interpreters, we can go to other professionals, other sign language interpreters because they can give us that extra pair of eyes to see what we are overlooking or misunderstanding.
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But it does a lot more than that.
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It does a lot more than helping us with those dilemmas, those challenges, those emotional moments that we have to bear.
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It does more than that.
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Just a regular routine of meeting with other professionals, discussing things with other professionals, just being with another professional who understands what we go through gives us an outlet, a way to breathe.
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Because when you're with someone who knows and understands and is empathetic to what you do because they do the same thing, it gives us a level of comfort because that person knows what we're saying and they understand it without us explaining it.
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That's a level of comfort that can help with so much.
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It also gives us reassurance that we are not alone, that we are not feeling something that we're making up.
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It's something real, that we're not thinking or feeling something inappropriate or misguided.
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It is truly there and others have experienced the same thing.
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That reassurance helps with the comfort level, and it helps relieve some of that feeling of overwhelming, which can calm the burnout.
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00:08:04
The IW Community, a community of professional sign language interpreters from around the world, comforting, reassuring, and giving solutions.
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Join today.
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Thank you.
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Click on the links in the show notes.
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Now let's go back.
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Being with other professional sign language interpreters, we see that mutual support, that empathy, that understanding, when we just say one little thing, they get it.
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We can laugh together at our mistakes, at the situations that aren't just mutual, the experiences that comfort us because we share the same experience, because we understand and share the same feelings about certain situations.
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And what's even better is that many times these extra pair of eyes can give us those solutions that we need.
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We may have had the same situation happen, but another interpreter somehow found a solution, something that worked for them in that moment.
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And it makes us see the whole thing from a different angle and think, “huh, that might work here for me.”
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Using that support group of community professionals is what it's all about.
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That's why we have professional organizations, not just because society will now view us on a professional level.
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It allows us to actually charge a little bit more.
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We have an organization that will advocate for us on the government level, on the legal level, in the community, but we also have each other.
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And I think that's much more important to our lives as professional interpreters to have that mutual respect and that connection, the reassurance, and even solutions for the challenges that we face.
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I encourage all of us to find a group that you can lean on, a group where you can soothe your burnout, get the comfort and reassurance that you need,
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not just for the extreme occasions, but start it as something you do, the professional you are.
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Make it a habit.
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Make it what professional sign language interpreters do.
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They listen.
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They give the mutual support; have empathy and understanding for one another, share solutions, and be the professional for the professional.
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Not just a mentor, but a friend, a colleague, a true colleague, working together, working through what needs to be worked through, sharing a tea, a coffee, a laugh, and a smile about what we do and who we are.
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So, 2026 awaits.
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Until then, keep calm, keep leaning on interpreters.
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I'll see you next week.
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Take care now.
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