Over time, that belief became a body of real work—interpreters stepping into hospitals, conferences, community events, and live situations where clarity truly matters. In those moments, language is not abstract; it is urgent, emotional, and deeply human.

A single sentence can carry relief, confusion, hope, or fear—and interpretation becomes the bridge that makes understanding possible.

But just as importantly, the company has always carried a second heartbeat: culture, celebration, and connection.

From holiday greetings and cultural festivals to team gatherings, music, and shared moments of joy, Monterey Language Services reflects the full range of human experience—not only the serious and high-stakes, but also the warm, expressive, and communal.

This same spirit flows through its growing archive of 90+ videos, capturing both critical real-world interpretation work and the lived culture around it.

What has been built is more than a language services company—it is a record of human connection in every form, and a foundation that blends professional expertise with genuine cultural life.

The untold stories of medical interpreters: Courage, Compassion, and Connection:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO-QGEbwcTr2GRCtm5U6yonnL_e6hj_en&si=0z_JL70pKBssc6k9

★Major Playlist

Our Work in Action: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO-QGEbwcTr1i2DMoYWim6SbHeROKNqXX&si=3SEjeLcffgexBSh9

Multilingual Localization: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO-QGEbwcTr2wkV_G7CLhoSINDOXe1pKj&si=ClzGP-3Gg7umHUSj

Global Family Celebrations: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO-QGEbwcTr32m8jh4UgmCEInXVan-bLI&si=4ugEd-9QKmLbOXiS

Translation and Interpretation Services: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO-QGEbwcTr3VduLMGzD9UGzQZ5ZVfoGO&si=G15LG9oTInQurc6Z

Chinese Localization Sample and Case Study: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO-QGEbwcTr14xqfiR38Mp-EhHAmclsUY&si=rd3Xocb0Ud9nWNc1

Interpreters and Voices: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO-QGEbwcTr2MdhbLPPGszMw8Rdc5J9aI&si=HbiwF9bT4zr6S3hd

Mood Booster: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO-QGEbwcTr3OJJh-NjBcMrvH9VCN0fsi&si=EFMYK_1Ai1UzvcDR

★Featured videos About Us

Interpreters and Music: https://youtu.be/yl0vHQPHXA8?si=PygDRdShZgsLiGRR

When it comes to professional copyediting, the conventional wisdom is that professional translators and editors generally perform better than AI. However, we may find striking similarities between an AI’s output and the professionally edited version.

Recently, we experienced an intriguing situation: after copyediting and publishing a text on our website, we later asked an AI to edit the same raw text. Please see one example below.

Raw version: The video is aimed to relax people, not speed them up,

Professionally edited version: The video is aimed to relax rather than energize,

AI edited version: The video is intended to relax viewers, not energize them,

How does AI ‘write’?

Large language models (LLMs) have been trained on a massive collection of text from books, articles, websites, and other published materials. Over time, our blog could be among those texts included in the training materials.

Generative AI “writes” or “edits” texts by using statistically common phrasing and word combinations that frequently appear together.

However, as more AI writing is created and published on the web, more and more of the training data will be AI generated text.

This may result in degrading performance over time, as more low quality LLM-generated content enters the pool. In writing, this could look like an overrepresentation of certain phrasings that sound awkward to the human reader, “hallucinations,” and other distortions.

A professional, human editor can easily identify these issues. If you use AI as a writing aid, a professional editor can add value by introducing a human element that will make your content stand out.

Our experts can help you stay ahead of the curve. Below are some examples of our professional copyediting. Feel free to contact us for full copyediting services in all languages.

Examples of Professional Copy Editing

Conciseness

Raw version: Layla thought the English translation is poetic, so she read the English lyrics as a poem. She has a gentle and clear voice. Her tone is soothing, and the poem is relaxing. Shreya immediately suggested these all work perfectly for ASMR.
Human Edited version: Layla thought the English translation was poetic, so she performed a reading in her clear and gentle voice. Her soothing tone inspired Shreya to suggest creating an ASMR version.

• These sentences were reworked from 41 words to 29 words.
• Redundancies were removed and similar ideas were combined for a more fluid reading experience.
• The tense was also made consistent throughout the passage.
• Word choice and phrasing were adapted to a more formal register.

Word Choice

Raw version: The video is aimed to relax people, not speed them up, so instead, we slowed the animation down, reducing its speed to half its normal speed, and like magic, all of a sudden, everything became seamlessly in harmony.
Edited version: The video is aimed to relax rather than energize, so we decided to slow the animation down, reducing the speed by half. The effect was immediate and magical. The animation was seamlessly integrated into the rest of the video.

• “Speed [people] up” sounds a little unnatural and might have unwanted connotations. “Energize” is more appropriate in this context.
• “All of a sudden” was replaced with “immediate” to describe the change more clearly.
• “Seamlessly in harmony” was revised to “seamlessly integrated” to fix the grammar of the sentence.
• The long, run-on sentence was broken up into multiple sentences. Varying sentence lengths makes for a better reading experience, and a shorter sentence between longer ones helps add emphasis.

Style

Raw Version: Some words such as the “jiangnan” area were not possible to include. It is a word that can evoke so much imagery to a Chinese listener, but there was not anything appropriate that fit and could evoke the same imagery to an English speaker.
Edited Version: On the other hand, we omitted the reference to the Jiangnan region altogether. As Jiangnan’s literal meaning is “south of the river,” we gave up geographic specificity but kept its romantic associations by using the word “enchanted” in the same line.

• The copyedited version explains the meaning of Jiangnan and elaborates on the trade-offs in the translation. Instead of stating that nothing could evoke the same imagery as the Chinese words to the English language audience, the copyedited version clarifies that translation strove to preserve its romantic associations at the expense of geographic specificity.

Conclusion

Copyediting is especially important in today’s digital landscape, where AI-generated writing is becoming more common. Over time, if the training data pool becomes more saturated with AI-created content, there is concern that the current performance state of AI will be negatively affected.

Therefore, it is essential for the AI industry to utilize human experts to improve on AI generated text. We as language professionals can stay ahead with our unique and creative perspectives.

A professional copyeditor can polish your content to present your ideas in their best form. Having your work edited by a natural language expert will keep it sounding fresh.

Professional copyediting may be even more valuable if performed by an editor who can provide a fresh perspective. Consider hiring an editor outside of your team!

It may be easy to overlook the importance of having your content professionally copyedited prior to publication. Below are some reminders for today’s fast-paced digital world.

• Copyediting tightens up the message of your content and improves readability.
• Expert advice can help your work attain its maximum potential.
• A creative human touch can take your content beyond AI’s limitations.

An Example

Imagine an elderly woman being brought to a hospital, accompanied by her grandson. The family has only recently moved to the USA from Oaxaca Mexico, but the elderly woman’s first language is Triqui Bajo, an indigenous Oaxacan language. While her grandson understands his grandmother’s speech and can communicate with her, his native language is Spanish.

If an Triqui Bajo interpreter were not provided, the woman would have to speak to her grandson in Triqui Bajo about the pain in her stomach, the grandson relaying her words to the best of his ability in Spanish to the interpreter or hospital staff. Like the children’s version of the “telephone game,” there’s a high chance that some, if not much, information will be lost. As the grandson was not well versed in Triqui Bajo, he may be missing critical vocabulary, such as anything from “fracture” to “pneumonia,” “hernia,” and beyond.

What this Means

This lack of a matching language pair can inhibit the service that a client receives. In severe cases in a medical setting, this can be a matter of life and death. This case study highlights the importance of translators and especially interpreters who are fluent in minority languages. It’s critical to find people with knowledge of these languages. If due to the last minute nature, an in-person interpreter is not available, remote interpretation methods should kick in.

Imagine that they were able to get an interpreter for Triqui Bajo and English; this would allow for a direct flow of communication between the elderly woman and the hospital staff. Response time for treatment would subsequently be quicker, and the woman might therefore feel more comfortable and confident that she is receiving adequate care. While the grandson might need his own English/Spanish interpreter to understand fully the treatment decisions, that could easily be delegated to another interpreter and not require a stretched out “telephone game” where meaning can be lost.

Monterey Language Services provides translation and interpretation services for all languages and is very strong in providing Triqui Bajo interpretation Services. Every day, we send Triqui Bajo interpreters to cover medical interpretation assignments or IEP (Individualized Education Program) assignments. There have been some high profile Triqui Bajo legal interpretation cases served by Monterey Language Services as well.

In Word, there are many different functions that can be used to speed up translations. Macros, for example, are a great way of simplifying and standardizing repetitive phrases or formatting. Macros take some knowledge to implement, but they are very useful for all translators. For instance, if there is a specific phrase that is continuously used over the document, then you can create a macro so that you can just press a button every time you need to insert that word or phrase. Imagine the amount of time you can save by instead of typing out a full word every time, you just press a button and the entire word or phrase comes out.

Some translators also prefer to use voice to text programs to do their translations. The advantage of voice to text is that it is overall faster than typing. If you have a long document, you can get through it faster than if you were typing. Voice to text does come with some disadvantages though. You will need to make sure that you have a good microphone so that it can clearly pick up on your voice. You will also need to make sure that you speak clearly so that it does not mistake any of your words. You will also have to get used to the voice controls and customize it so that it fits your work habits. However, there are some programs that you can use to help fine tune the listening so that it captures exactly what you’re saying even if you aren’t speaking clearly.

In terms of programs that can be used, if you are not looking to spend too much money, there are free options like Google Docs that have a decent voice recognition system. Microsoft Word also has a dictate function that its users can use to type out their translations with their voices. Then there are more premium options such as DRAG0N which have built in AI that can learn from your voice patterns, or can learn from your direct input. Many translators who use voice dictation and get used to it tend to not go back to just typing out their translations.

For Asian languages such as Japanese, there are also programs such as ATOK that can automatically convert the text you are writing into the appropriate characters. Instead of manually having to sift through characters, the program will learn and recognize when certain characters should be used rather than others and then enter them for you. It can save a lot of time for translators not having to take the time to look for the appropriate character every time they translate.

For the best results when translating, it is important to always think about the context in which the source text was written and how it might be perceived if brought to the target culture. What this means is that language and culture are always very tightly intertwined with one another, so what one language might find normal, another language might find abnormal or outright offensive. For example, in the Hopi Indian language, there is no word for time, so their understanding of time is very different from most of the world where there is a defined word and definition for time. Similarly, divorce does not have its own native word in most Indian languages, and they instead use the English word “divorce,” if they ever want to get a divorce. However, divorce rates are much lower than they might be in other places in the world, due to their culture seeing marriage as a lifetime commitment. These kinds of cultural differences is why you have to do a little research when you are translating.

Similarly, in Japan, they have adapted a lot of English words into their own language and use them on a daily basis, but if an English speaking person heard these words, they might have a different idea of what they mean. For example the word “lamp” might mean a kind of light that you might find on your desk or in the room, but in Japanese, it is used almost exclusively for indicator lights. So when you translate languages that use words that appear in the target language as well, be sure to make sure that they have the same meaning in both languages.

Another thing you should be careful of is avoiding idioms altogether if you can help it. Idioms are commonplace in any language, but there will not always be an equivalent idiom in the target language. Unless the idiom is very essential to the translation, you should try to figure out a different way of phrasing it. For example, the phrase “two birds, one stone.” There may be equivalents to this in some languages, but if the target language does not have an equivalent, then you could instead say “accomplish two things with one action” or something of the sort.

While translation can be a fairly straightforward process of just taking the source words and then convert it into the target language, it can often be much more complex than that. While fields such as technical and patent translation might encourage a more one to one translation, there are some styles, phrases, and references that just won’t translate if you adapt a one to one style. That is where some creative liberties come into play where the translator tries to find replacement words or phrases that won’t always have the exact meaning of the original, but will be able to give the same nuance or elicit the same kind of reaction as the original did in the source language.

Insurance Companies

Insurance companies are being pushed out of business, and reacting with panic. In particular, Worker’s Comp providers have been hard hit as it becomes increasingly difficult for companies to rule out or prevent employees’ exposure to Covid-19. Some providers have begun cancelling Workers Comp coverage at just the suggestion that employees could be at risk of exposure.

Media

In a situation like the current one, it’s important to stay up to date and have access to information from trusted news sources. Unfortunately, media outlets are not immune to the effects of the outbreak, and in its wake publishers across the country have been forced to reduce their print schedule, or stop printing altogether. According to the New York Times, local media outlets in particular have been crippled by the outbreak.

Translation and Interpretation

The effects of the outbreak on the T&I industry have been unmistakable to both translators and interpreters themselves, as well as language service companies.  With business across the country screeching to a halt, and more and more areas ordering citizens to shelter in place, last week saw a string of cancellations from clients across the board – depositions, business meetings, tech presentations, medical appointments have been postponed indefinitely, and freelance translators and interpreters face an uncertain future.

We are all being affected by the outbreak of Novel Coronavirus, and for our part, Monterey Language Services will continue to keep an eye on developments across industries as the situation progresses. Stay safe and keep healthy!

Energy from Colleagues

In a language services company, every day is quite busy, and we must balance between different translation and interpretations projects and our constant development work. No matter what the day looks like, we collaborate and communicate with our colleagues to figure out the work to be done. Our colleagues are clear minded, organized in their thinking and their actions, and handle things efficiently and effectively. This pace and rhythm gives us more energy.

Energy from Projects

When it comes to translation and interpretation projects, we have strategies to help us keep our energy up. If there is any confusion, we clear it up right away. By not letting things sit and wait, we keep our momentum and our energy going. This also frees up more time and energy to focus on important new requests that come in every day.

We also take our time to capture important details of new projects. This helps us decide how to proceed, and let us create a comprehensive plan, and foresee any potential issues before they occur.

Thinking energetically gives us a clear outline, which in turn gives us the energy we need to move things forward. This energy helps us deliver high quality translations and interpretations.

Energy from Clients

Our clients also energize us. We respond to all of our client requests with enthusiasm, whether we receive the request a several weeks or a single day in advance. We often receive last-minute requests from clients. When we do, we work quickly to figure out what needs to be done and who can do it. For example, when we received a request for an interpreter at 11am for an event happing that same afternoon, we immediately began reaching out to a very large pool of interpreters and selected one who is most suitable for the job. It makes us happy to be able to help our clients who are in a bit of a pinch, and the desire to help people in turn helps us stay energized and excited about completing rush projects. When a client is understanding and a pleasure to work with, that gives us even more energy.

Ultimately, passion is the driving factor behind our energy. All of our team members have a deep personal interest and passion for languages and communication; we all speak at least one additional language and understand the power that language can transmit. We love to help people communicate with others in all situations, so we feel a great sense of satisfaction every time we complete a project. When you work with your passion like we do, it is refreshing and easy to stay energized!

What moves Monterey Language Services forward every day is exactly this: providing translation and interpretation services to serve local, national, and global communities.

Community interpreting in a very basic sense already involves a lot of different settings, including public hearings, community workshops, doctors’ visits, parent school meetings, legal communications between lawyers, the court, and witnesses, and so on. Monterey Language Services serves Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito Counties and beyond.

Monterey Languages Services also covers all of California, including major cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, San Jose, and San Diego. We also often provide services in smaller communities, like West Goshen, Alpaugh, Allensworth, Le Grand, El Centro, and many others.

Our service areas continue across the country as well, to Idaho, Texas, Michigan, Washington, D.C., New York and more. When we receive translation and interpretation requests from around the globe, for example from Italy, Japan, Korea, Latin and South America, it’s a real thrill and creates a great sense of contributing to global communication! Our role and mission in this profession have been completely fulfilled.

At Monterey Language Services, translation and interpretation services are offered in all languages, so we can always help make sure communication happens between people who need it. When we serve communities, we believe it’s our responsibility to send the best interpreters possible, based on their skill, experience, credentials, professionalism, and passion to serve.

It’s human nature that people are community-minded, and we all want to cooperate and serve to work towards a better world. That’s why we treasure each and every opportunity to serve communities, and it’s an honor to do what we are doing as a service provider of translation and interpretation!

Monterey Language Services is committed to bridging the world’s languages by providing quality, professional and efficient translation & interpretation services in over 175 languages. Please feel free to request a quote from us.

WordPress is one of the most popular CMS (Content Management Systems) available today, and with good reason. It’s versatile, well-indexed on the internet and SEO-friendly, so it is widely used by everyone from startups to tech companies to multinational corporations like Best Buy and Coca Cola to create their sites.

At Monterey Language Services, we offer full service (one-stop solution) to turn a monolingual website into a multilingual one for you.  No longer do you need to worry about technical details, such as extraction of content or implementation of translation, or even concern yourself with choosing a plugin for the creation of multilingual sites.

Instead, we will take care of it all.  The completed translation including Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in the tags will appear on your WordPress website, ready to propel you into international markets and draw in new customers for you.

Our globalization localization platform is integrated with WordPress, which facilitates and simplifies the WordPress website translation and localization process. It also allows us to monitor any new content you add and have our translators update the translation accordingly.

We will take care of translation and localization in all languages for all the WordPress pages, posts, tags, categories, and custom fields. So you, as the client, are free to relax.  Want to convert your WordPress website to a multilingual website? Just simply let us handle the entire process, hassle-free.

Send in your request! We will deliver a fully translated multilingual website, and make you ready to shine in the world!

Monterey Language Services strives to provide the highest quality of translation and interpretation services. Please feel free to contact us for a quote.