When Babelfish Fails...

March 6, 2006 8:57 AM

Guidance for locating translators for diverse and specific languages?

What resources, organizations, forums, &c exist for locating translators? For example, how and where might a person look to find a Fulani/Pular translator in the vicinity of NYC?

File under "question by proxy".

posted by cortex to Writing & Language (13 answers total)

This might be a start.
posted by adamrice at 9:01 AM on March 6, 2006

I know a company that finds most of their tanslators through translator's cafe.
posted by Alison at 9:04 AM on March 6, 2006

Yes, I mean translators.
posted by Alison at 9:04 AM on March 6, 2006

Try LionBridge, in Boston. I know it's not NYC, but they outsource to the language's origin country anyway.
posted by jon_kill at 9:08 AM on March 6, 2006

A good source for qualified translators is always the listings of the American Translator's Association
posted by msali at 9:23 AM on March 6, 2006

You might try proz.com
posted by veggieboy at 9:34 AM on March 6, 2006

Cortex--thanks a lot for doing this.
posted by kensanway at 9:41 AM on March 6, 2006

If it helps, I'm looking for a translator for Pular/Fulani/Fula, a dialect used in Guinea. It's for a pro bono asylum case. I have a list of a number of translation firms, but this is a rare language, so it's been difficult to find translators. Thanks for your help so far!
posted by kensanway at 9:42 AM on March 6, 2006

Also, I guess I'm really looking for an interpreter rather than a translator.
posted by kensanway at 9:53 AM on March 6, 2006

Hey--actually that first link posted on the metatalk version of this helped! I just called them and ideally will have a fulani translator sometime this week. Thanks so much!
posted by kensanway at 10:17 AM on March 6, 2006

Hey--actually that first link posted on the metatalk version of this helped!

Good, I was beginning to think I might be invisible... :)
posted by amro at 10:35 AM on March 6, 2006

I heard a story on NPR a couple months back that talked about what hospitals do (or did) in such circumstances as there are no available formal translators: they start calling restaurants.

My advice - get an intern to start dialing African restaurants. You might try looking into Little Senegal in the hopes that Senegal immigrants might include Fulani that had been forced into Senegal.
posted by plinth at 11:46 AM on March 6, 2006

Kensanway, AT&T LanguageLine claims to do Fulani (here's a PDF list of the languages they have available); they're the service we use frequently here in our hospital. They're very, very good, with rare exception.
posted by delfuego at 1:12 PM on March 6, 2006