Medical records often come in hard copy. When we make a quote, we count the total amount of words and base the quote on this number. Hard copy makes counting the words more complicated, so we must do our best to accurately count and calculate by hand; we might even do this process two or three times to ensure that our quote will be as accurate as possible.

These projects had several different types and lengths of documents, including handwritten doctor’s notes, medical histories, diagnosis information, receipts, itemized bills, and information sheets. We bundled these by type and had them translated in different batches, to make sure the translator wasn’t overburdened and could focus on one type at a time based on their specialization. This helped us produce high quality translations and stay organized.

This also helped us notice patterns in the documents, and come up with ideas that would make translation easier and quicker. For example, several of the documents were nearly identical, with just a few words or sentences being different. Rather than having the same content translated multiple times, we translated one of the documents. Then for all the others, we identified every piece that was different, translated these “strings,” and inserted them where they belonged. This saved our client a bunch and also helped us stick closer to the budget.

The volume of medical records is usually heavy especially for severe injuries. It requires a team to complete managing and translating all sorts of documents, and the tasks involved include selecting translators who have relevant experience and qualifications, organizing all of our files, keeping track of the status of the project, clarifying unclear parts with experts, reviewing the translations for completeness and accuracy, and preparing the files for final delivery to the client.

We work to have a supportive environment where our team members can cover for each other’s backs, so no one is overloaded. When improvements are needed, we are willing to talk about them and improve them rather than brush them under the rug. After all, accuracy and completeness are the utmost goal of our work. We enjoy medical records translation projects, because it gives us a great sense of helping our clients and also because there is always something challenging us to put in the extra effort!

Through accurate and clear translation of corporate communication materials, customers and employees can gain a better understanding of the corporate message and guidelines and can thus better contribute to the greater success of the corporation.

Global companies working with Monterey Language Services are growing stronger because they have chosen a translation and interpretation company that gives individualized attention to each translation project entrusted to them.

Our company stands firmly by what we believe in and provides the following to our global corporate customers.

Specialty: Translation and interpretation that require high level of expertise

Domains: Medical, legal, technical, and business subjects

Approach: Clear, accurate, and complete translation and interpretation

Value: Professional, efficient, and high quality services

Languages provided: Over 175 languages (including Arabic, Japanese, Hebrew, Malay, German, French, Indonesian, Danish, Finnish, Hungarian, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Hindi Norwegian, Polish, Russian and more)

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

Our interpreters are professionally qualified. They have studied translation and interpretation at the graduate or undergraduate level, or are professionally certified, or have received training in medical, legal and technical subject areas. They are experienced medical interpreters, legal interpreters and technical interpreters. Furthermore, they pursue continuing on-the-job training and education.

Our interpreters are not only local, able to come to our headquarters or to our client sites to perform services, but also distant, working remotely through a range of technology options such as video remote.

Our interpreters work consecutively, but also at conference, offering simultaneous interpretation.

Monterey Language Services has been providing language support to hospitals for years. A short list includes Spanish, ASL, Vietnamese, Arabic, Mandarin and Cantonese, Korean, Tagalog, Russian, French, Portuguese, German, Japanese, Punjabi, Gujarati, and indigenous languages such as Triqui, Mixteco, Zapotec. Even when a rare language is needed, we can vet and bring interpreters to our customers in a matter of hours.

We stand by ready 24-7, either work with a regular schedule of interpreting appointments, or provide last minute on-demand interpretation, for example for a hospital’s emergency needs.

It is our goal at Monterey Language Services to provide a full line of interpretation services. And it is to that end that we maintain our huge pool of professional interpreters to serve you whenever or wherever you need them.

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

It may involve a dozen sound engineers to make preparations ahead of time.  First, several booths must be set up for the interpreters. Each will represent one language and contain interpreters all working at the same time. The location of the booths should allow all interpreters to see the speaker and the activities on stage while the booths should blend in with the conference setting.

Before the conference starts, the interpretation system has to be connected and tested to ensure each booth’s interpretation can be clearly heard from the headsets that will be provided to the audience.

When the audience gets there, each member is provided a headset connected to a radio-like device that receives the channels of interpretation in different languages (English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Japanese, German, etc.). Using all of this high-tech equipment makes you feel like you’re in the U.N.

The interpreters should arrive early and get as much information beforehand as possible.  Simultaneous interpretation is a very difficult and energy-consuming task. Therefore, there are usually two to three interpreters in each booth. They are like a relay race team, taking turns to interpret, 20 minutes each turn. While one interpreter is interpreting, the others must also listen to the speaker so that the next interpreter knows when it is his or her turn to interpret. The three interpreters also depend on each other for help. For example, they may need their partners to write down big numbers or look up the terms in the glossary. Teamwork is crucial to the success of the interpretation.

At the end of the communication relay race, every audience member has understood the conference. The team feels mission accomplished. Monterey Language Services is getting ready for one such conference as we speak. We look forward to helping the panel communicate to the audience.

Do you know how it feels to handle 19 languages in one week? You might think it is a lot to manage, but in fact, it is AWESOME! Other than dealing with the language routine, we amuse ourselves with some of the interesting differences between languages.

Did you know that…

– translation of “Sincerely yours” in Russian depends on gender? How you translate it depends on who is signing it, man or woman.

– in many languages, including Polish, addressing someone depends on gender?
Szanowny Panie [for men]!  Szanowna Pani [for women]!  

– Finnish attaches case markings directly onto the noun? (“Facebookin” in Finnish for the possessive noun “Facebook’s” in English).

– Chinese likes to convert nouns in English to verb forms a lot? In Chinese, “renewal of company values” is commonly & easily switched to “renew company values.” (perhaps it is because a Chinese verb makes no difference between past, present, future, gender, singular and plural form!)

– in Portuguese, we do not repeat terms as much as in English? (variety=better style)

– written Spanish tends to use more synonyms than written English? For example, you can rotate between “compañía” and “empresa” as translations for “company.”

– in Turkish, indented paragraph alignment in a ‘written letter’ is a punctuation rule?

– Triqui, an indigenous language in Mexico, has three variations? Alto, Media, Bajo (high, middle, low) and they can’t understand each other.

Every language has its own intrigue and subtleties, and when comparing one language to another, these differences stand out. That is, their intrigue is magnified. This is one of the reasons we are drawn to working on so many languages simultaneously

The City of Marina, where Monterey Language Services is headquartered, is the 7^th largest multilingual city in the United States. 

On its 35^th anniversary, we would like to wish the City a Happy Birthday in the following languages: Spanish, Hawaiian, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Afrikaans, German, Tagalog, Hebrew, Samoan, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, and Portuguese.  Thanks to our many translators who responded quickly to contribute to this special occasion.

Hindi and Turkish just got in:

Hindi – जन्मदिनमुबारकहो!

Turkish – Mutlu Yillar Sana

Happy 35th, City of Marina!