Community events foster a sense of togetherness and responsibility, spurring community members to keep the community safe, inclusive, and welcoming. This is especially important when the community is made up of people from all walks of life, from younger to older, different genders, different cultures, and across languages.

California especially is home to people from many different countries and backgrounds, including first- and second-generation immigrants, and others whose preferred language isn’t English. Diverse backgrounds bring fresh perspectives to community events and planning, which is why we were so excited to provide interpretation services to the recent Hilby Avenue Traffic Calming Project on May 17^th.

The interpreter we provided has a great many years of experience, even in other traffic-related projects. We prepared our interpretation equipment, made up of portable receivers and headsets that have an incredible range of use. Our client let us know that the portable equipment was a “great approach” for their walking tour around Hilby Avenue, and was quite happy with our mobility and flexibility in helping.

The event was a great success. We helped to welcome incoming community members, letting them know that interpretation services were available. The headsets allowed for the Spanish participants to understand the presentation, Q&A, and breakout session in order to provide feedback. Our interpreter assisted the Spanish speaking participants to write their comments in English on the provided maps of Hilby Avenue, as well as interpreted for the event employees so they could directly communicate with the Spanish participants and ask for their ideas.

This type of community safety event is very important, and therefore, we worked as community members as well to help generate more feedback from participants who were able to offer different perspectives. We look forward to future continuous endeavors with the traffic safety project.

Check out our Facebook page to see photos from the event.

It was quite interesting and enlightening to hear students’ stories. They come from all over the world and have incredibly diverse backgrounds, both personally and professionally. Many students have come to MIIS to begin their careers in the language industry, and show clear excitement for their current course of study and potential career paths. Other students already have years of experience in translation or interpretation, and have come to MIIS to hone their skills in a certain specialty or even to change their career trajectory entirely, for example by moving from a linguist to a project manager. Whatever the case may be, we were happy to connect with these talented people.

Students at MIIS, whether they are studying Conference Interpretation, Translation and Interpretation, or Translation and Localization Management all share a passion for languages and a keen desire to put what they are learning at school to work. We are glad to see that so many of these young professionals share our goal of bridging the world’s languages and cultures.

We are always looking for talented freelance translators and interpreters. We are also looking for Office and Project Assistants. During the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus, Monterey Language Services is poised for action – we have years of experience working remotely. For us, every challenge, downturn, or recession is an opportunity to reflect on what we can do to improve and move up to the next level. While most people and companies are focusing on the tasks at hand or cost cutting, we are thinking about what our contributions to the future would be and if we will be ready when our clients need us. Now is indeed a good time to think about all of this, and try to figure out how we can make better contributions to the environment we are in and to the people who we care about. We don’t lose faith in a crisis, and we believe those who survive the crisis will stand out when the crisis is over. To us, our career is a long journey. What’s most important is that we are ready to help when our help is needed, and staying connected to help each other out in a time like now.