The other day, I stumbled upon a subtle yet impactful video on LinkedIn about child interpreters.
You know, those mini-adults who have to step up and translate for their immigrant parents? It was real, relatable, and made you rethink interpreting in ways you never had before.
The video shows the child bearing huge responsibilities. Interpreting for her parent at school meetings (yes, about her), and at the end, there was some very gloomy medical news she had to deliver to her parent.
Indeed, great responsibilities. Cases that can leave traumas that even adults struggle to deal with later in life.
Now, let me add my two cents about child interpreters. A completely opposite experience.
I come from a multicultural circus. My father, an American born in Baltimore, and my mother, a Brazilian from Fortaleza.
Dad was Jewish, while my mom was Jewish until she decided to treat religion like a buffet, sampling a new one every month. So many hilarious stories!
I was born and raised in NY, lived in CA, hopped back to Brazil, ping-ponged to NY, back to Brazil, and so forth until I got married, had kids and finally anchored myself in one spot after bouncing through over ten schools and three colleges in my “jet-setter” days.
English is my first language, and I learned to speak Portuguese (very luckily at a native level) around age 8.
By "learned," I mean a crash course during a summer vacation when my mother had the genius idea to send me to Brazil.
My Brazilian family didn’t speak English, I didn’t speak Portuguese, and we were strangers to each other because I had only been to the country once, for a few weeks, with my mother. Sounds like a sitcom setup, right?
Luckily, I stayed with an aunt, whose daughter, my cousin, who is just months apart in age, so we had a lot in common.
She exploited me big time! She dragged me to her school and had me write down all her classes, even though I didn't understand a word.
Everyone treated me like a rock star, and recess was a blast. I felt like I had been in that school forever.
Fast forward, I learned the language, and we were living between Fortaleza and NYC.
My father, who only spoke English, was always in need of a personal interpreter in Brazil.
Guess who took on that role? Yep, me. If you're wondering how I got roped into this, ask my mom.
Everywhere we went, anything we did, the gringo needed translation services, and I, his trusty sidekick, was there to save the day.
Despite his mischievous personality, my father was smart enough to start challenging me with double entendres only after I turned 15 and had developed a bit of a “dirty” personality myself.
I wonder where I got that from. Still have it, by the way! One of my best traits! Hahaha.
My dad loved attention, and he got plenty of it in Fortaleza, where people would treat him like he was the 10th wonder of the world.
He always smiled, made everything a spectacle, which made people want to interact with the sweet old man who couldn't speak a lick of Portuguese.
Okay, I'll admit, looking at his pictures now, I can see why they stared. He had this Dracula-esque quality. Seriously, he would have nailed a 1950s Dracula role. Pointy hair tip and all.
I digress... At the time, I thought interpreting for him was a total drag. Of course, I wanted to be doing other things, talking about other stuff with kids my age.
But let me show you his favorite way of shocking people when I translated. He was a musician and would play this song on his accordion. It began with such an innocent melody that no one ever saw the lyrics coming:
**In The Shade Of The Old Apple Tree**
In the shade of the old apple tree,
A pair of fine legs I did see,
With some hair at the top, and a little red spot,
It looked like a cherry to me.
In the shade of the old apple tree,
That's where Hilda first showed it to me,
It was hairy and black, and she called it her crack,
It looked like a subway to me.
This was his favorite song to share just for kicks, and I translated it every single time.
When he finally moved to Brazil and spent over ten years living here, I still had to interpret everything for him as an adult. The only words he ever learned in Portuguese were:
**SAM’S GLOSSARY**
ENGLISH | PORTUGUESE | HOW HE SAID IT IN PORTUGUESE | MEANING OF HOW HE PRONOUNCED IT |
Good morning | Bom dia | Bundinha | Little butt |
Bread | Pão | Pau | I’m not gonna post this. Look it up if you're curious. |
Papicu (a neighborhood in Fortaleza) | Papicu | Papa cu | There’s no way in hell I would post this one. Look it up if you’re curious |
These are just the ones I remembered off the top of my head. There were others, for sure.
I know not all child interpreters feel as lucky, but this was my experience, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Looking back, it was a treasure trove of fun memories, jokes (some a bit too adult for me at the time? Maybe LOL), smiles, laughter, and the best company... my dad's. And his puns.
It took me a while to realize this, but my dad was training me in consecutive interpreting before I even dreamed of becoming an interpreter! Life's funny like that, isn't it?
Now, here I am today, an English and Portuguese translator and interpreter.
Thanks, Dad, I owe you one!
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