In accordance with Assembly Bill (AB) 635 (Atkins, Chapter 600, Statutes of 2016) which was passed with little objection, and Senate Bill (SB) 165 (Atkins, Chapter 365, Statutes of 2019) which passed unanimously:

On August 31, 2021, the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) announced that Medi-Cal beneficiaries will be receiving increased interpreter support in several regions in California, including Contra Costa County. The aim of this was to ensure that all patients, no matter what language they speak, are able to receive the care that they deserve without having to worry about communication.

The project is called Medical Interpretation Pilot Project. Through the legislatively mandated project, medical interpreters in the following languages are needed or will be called upon. This is to cover Medi-Cal assignments in the area either on-site or remotely, either via phone or video conferencing.

Arabic
Armenian
Cambodian
Cantonese
Dari
Farsi
Hindi
Hmong
Japanese
Korean
Laotian
Mam
Mandarin
Mien
Mixteco
Pashto
Punjabi
Russian
Spanish
Tagalog
Thai
Vietnamese

Monterey Language Services is proud to be part of the MIPP team, providing interpretation services in Richmond/Antioch area.

In this blog post we interviewed one of our Arabic colleagues, Laith Ibrahim.  

Monterey Language Services (referred to as “M”): Thank you for participating in this interview. Can you briefly introduce Arabic to us?

Laith (referred to as “L”): Arabic is one of the Middle Eastern languages, which also include Dari, Urdu, Farsi, Pashto and Kurdish. These languages all use Arabic letters but depending on the language, each one may have additional letters or extra sounds. I am originally from Iraq. Before settling in the U.S. I have worked in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, where I used a mix of standard Arabic and the local and Iraqi dialect.

M: I’ve heard that in Arabic the term “lion” can have hundreds of names. That sounds very interesting? How is it possible?

L: There are in fact at least 500 names for the word “lion.” The word “sword” is another example. It has around 300 different names that are given based on the characteristics of the sword like shape, size, thickness, weight, etc. 

M: Can you share more differences between Arabic and English?

L: There are many differences, for instance:

• Arabic is written from right to left and in cursive format, with no distinctions between upper and lower case. Arabic has 28 letters and each has up to 4 shapes depending on its location: the beginning, middle, or end of the word. The shape of a letter is also affected by the predecessor and successor.

• Arabic has no vowel letters. Instead, it uses small characters that are written above or below the letter to change the sound of the letter. These are called diacritics (in Arabic, “Harakat”) indicate sounds not represented by the basic alphabet. Arabic text is usually written without them unless a word can be read in a different way if they are not used.

• Arabic has letters that produce sounds that don’t exist in English. Also, the sound for P, CH, V, X don’t exist in Arabic.

• Most words have one form and are written in one way. For example, my name “ليث” has only one way of writing it in Arabic. In English it can be written as “Laith” or “Layth.”

M: Thank you for sharing! One last question, what does your name “Laith” mean in Arabic?

L: (Laughs) “Laith” is actually “lion” in Arabic. It’s a bold, strong lion.

Since its creation, Twitter has been a worldwide phenomenon that has connected everyday people with their favorite celebrities, friends, and everyone in between.  Although the service has been provided worldwide, the company has been trying to translate the business tools into 33 languages in order to reach an even broader audience.

These languages include: Afrikaans, Arabic, Basque, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Farsi, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Urdu.

At the Twitter Translation Center, translators can sign on using their Twitter account and help translate various blocks of text for the company. The upside for the translator is experience in the field, as well as their name possibly on the “Top Ten Translators” for those who have been translating the most.

The @MRYLanguages Twitter account isn’t in this top ten just yet, but it does connect directly with Director of Translation Mei-Ling Chen where she will gladly answer questions posed about the company, translation services, or any other related topic in the industry.