Bosnian (Serbo-Croation) Medical Terminology Resources

February 2, 2010 4:49 PM

A good friend of mine really wants a job as an interpreter. Before he is able to interview he has to take a medical terminology test where he must translate English words into Bosnian. Because he left Serbo-Croation speaking world for the U.S. when he was 13, he's a little rough on medical speak (read: he probably never learned many of the words). Does anyone have any resources for him to brush up on some words before he takes the test?
posted by hannahelastic to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

I found a listing for a book that might be of help: Medical Point 2. "Volume 1 (Patient History Interviews) and Volume 2 (Emergency Medical Services) are combined into 17 individual language editions." They have one in Bosnian.
posted by bentley at 6:02 PM on February 2, 2010

In the past when I've needed specialized dictionaries for other languages, I've used the site YourDictionary. It doesn't seem to have a relevant dictionary for what you want, but I may not be looking carefully enough in the Slavic Languages Section.
posted by sciencegeek at 7:20 PM on February 2, 2010

IME hiring tons of translators, if the individual didn't go to high school or (hopefully) university in that language, they're not going to make a great translator. This is in no small part to the fact that they 'sound' like a kid. I've tried many times to give people that moved to the States as older children translator jobs and everytime I get feedback from native speakers finding the translator 'not credible' or 'not professional' (regardless of age) - feedback I've never gotten with translators that went to high school or later.
posted by k8t at 7:47 PM on February 2, 2010 [3 favorites]

I usually use Wikipedia for this type of thing, but the Serbo-Croation edition of Wikipedia doesn't seem very well developed yet. He might luck out with the medical articles, though
posted by Harald74 at 4:16 AM on February 3, 2010