{"id":10784,"date":"2022-11-16T08:12:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-16T13:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=10784"},"modified":"2022-11-07T14:47:35","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T19:47:35","slug":"making-sure-nothing-is-lost-in-translation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2022\/11\/16\/making-sure-nothing-is-lost-in-translation\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Sure Nothing Is Lost in Translation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Illustration by Jenny Kroik <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A woman\u2019s face is elated as an ultrasound tech waves the wand over her pregnant belly, explaining the baby\u2019s anatomy on the screen at their side. \u201cThose are always cheerful appointments,\u201d says Gary Martenson \u201995.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An hour later, a man\u2019s face falls as a doctor explains a late-stage cancer diagnosis, followed by a long list of next steps. \u201cI have to coach myself through those situations,\u201d Martenson says. \u201cThis is a little heavy, and this is a little difficult, but I want to help them through the moment as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it\u2019s a time of great joy or pain, as an interpreter, Martenson is by the patient\u2019s side, ready to explain what\u2019s happening. \u201cI can\u2019t be with them 24 hours a day, but I can help them while they\u2019re speaking with the doctor about some pretty serious things,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Martenson, the inspiration for helping others communicate dates back to his time abroad. Martenson\u2019s communication work started long ago when he moved to Japan to teach English as a second language (he took Japanese, French, and Spanish courses at Colgate). Then, he earned a bilingual MBA from Escuela Superior de la Administraci\u00f3n y Direcci\u00f3n de Empresas<\/em> in Barcelona, where he became a near-native Spanish speaker. \u201cLet\u2019s just put it this way: I\u2019ve been the foreigner in the other country many times,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He eventually moved back to the United States, where he tried out different jobs with foreign language components, but none that focused on work he was passionate about. \u201cIt was like project management plus interpretation, or sales plus translations, some sort of combination like that,\u201d he says. (Note: The difference between translation and interpretation lies in the medium. Translation is written, while interpretation is spoken.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2006, Martenson relocated to his hometown of Fort Wayne, Ind., to be closer to his parents. He was in between jobs, so he decided to get formal training in interpretation and enrolled in a course at Purdue University. \u201cIt brought everything together,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Martenson owns his own translation and interpretation business, In Current Parlance. A day at work could mean spending hours at his desk translating a legal document from Catalan to English. Or, it could mean interpreting for an Indiana Department of Child Services investigator interviewing a child about a sensitive subject \u2014 \u201cThere is a lot of \u2018stuff\u2019 to work through in those scenarios … but I persevere because I know they are important,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The majority of Martenson\u2019s work comes from insurance companies or health care networks hiring him to provide interpretation in hospital settings. He was working overtime in year two of the COVID-19 pandemic when the Indiana State Department of Health, in partnership with FEMA, hired him to interpret at vaccination clinics. \u201cI have a skill for Spanish, so I\u2019m happy if I can use it in my work and help people,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That act of service is what gets Martenson out of bed every day. \u201cI am getting to know a lot of people in an intensely personal way,\u201d he says. \u201cSometimes, it\u2019s only for a few minutes, sometimes, it\u2019s for a sequence of appointments, but I get to learn a lot of stuff, good and bad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interpreter, Gary Martensen \u201995 assists with bridging the language gap in medical and legal situations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1222,"featured_media":10786,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[1247,1246,1248,529,285,799,1245],"coauthors":[168],"class_list":["post-10784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni-spotlights","category-alumni-updates","tag-bilingual","tag-communication","tag-interpretation","tag-language","tag-medicine","tag-translation","tag-translator"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-2NW","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2022\/11\/TranslationFeature.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10784"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10909,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10784\/revisions\/10909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10784"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=10784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}