Brand the Interpreter

Interpreting with All Five Senses with Darinka Mangino

• Season 6 • Episode 97

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Let's immerse ourselves in the fascinating world of professional interpretation with Darinka Mangino, a seasoned interpreter from Mexico City. With over 25 years of experience, Darinka captivates listeners with stories about her childhood and how her upbringing in Mexico City helped shape her passion for languages. An early exposure to the Montessori system of education and the multilingualism of her parents laid the groundwork for her journey into the realm of interpreting.

Let  Darinka enlighten you on the unique approach she takes to interpreting, one that harnesses all five senses. Discover how her physical and mental preparedness, along with an acute awareness of her body and surroundings, enhances the interpretation process. We also delve into how Darinka turned the global issue of inadequate interpreter preparation materials into a solution that empowers interpreters around the world to thrive.

We wrap up with an intriguing discussion on the historical figure La Malinche, a colonial-era interpreter. Darinka offers an insightful perspective on the legacy of La Malinche and how her story continues to inspire social movements. Rounding out our conversation, Darinka shares invaluable career advice for aspiring interpreters and emphasizes the importance of continual learning, networking, and staying updated with industry trends. Don't miss this captivating conversation with Darinka Mangino!

Only on the podcast that shares your stories about our profession; brand the interpreter!
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Connect with Darinka Mangino 👇🏼
**Correction on name on thesis: Claudia Angelleli and not Sandra Hale**
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AIIC Article: How I survived my professional crisis
Parangaricutirimicuaring with Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO-pTlHPqy8
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👉 Orange County Department of Education 7th Annual Interpreters and Translators Conference - September 29th and 30th - at the Hilton Orange County/Costa Mesa in Costa Mesa, California

Conference registration site link: https://link.ocde.us/ITC2023
Conference flyer: ITC2023FLYER

Join them this Fall at the 2023 Interpreters and Translators Conference to continue your professional learning and networking! Registration is now open!

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Mireya:

Welcome back language professionals from around the world to another episode of the Brandy Interpreter podcast. Thank you for joining me today. In today's episode, I had the privilege of speaking Darinka Mangino. In this great conversation, she and I talk about her upbringing in Mexico City, her childhood aspirations and love for learning, her involvement in pro bono interpreting work, the importance of using all five senses in interpreting and, of course, so much more. If you're unfamiliar with Darinka and her work, here's a taste of her extensive experience.

Mireya:

Darinka Mangino has a master's in advanced studies for interpreting trainers, a postgraduate degree in forensic linguistics, a bachelor's degree in interpreting. She's an active member of the OMT, the Mexican Organization of Translators, and of the AIIC, the International Associations of Conference Interpreters, where she is currently part of the Committee on Admission and Language Classification or the CACL. She has 25 years of professional experience interpreting at the highest levels. Her native language is Spanish and she interprets and translates from English, French and Portuguese. Darinka provides her services in the private sector and in international and multilateral meetings for international organizations. She has taught interpretation classes at the undergraduate, postgraduate and academic extension levels at the National School of Language, linguistics and Translation of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Universidad Anáhuac and Uteca. She has given conferences and taught courses in Mexico and abroad. Some of her lectures have been interpreted into LSM, mexican Sign Language, ASL, american Sign Language, English, Portuguese and French.

Mireya:

She is the founder of Lexica, aula Virtual para Intérpretes and , both continued professional development projects for professional interpreters with face-to-face courses and webinars on strategies and technologies for interpreting, and thus prepare interpreters to face the future with the necessary tools. So, without further ado, please welcome Darinka Mangino to the Darinka, it is such an honor and a privilege to have you on the show here today. Thank you so much for being here with us today.

Darinka:

Thank you, Mireya. Thank you for showing interest in what I do and my story, so I'm honored. Thank you very much.

Mireya:

I'm very excited to not only have the opportunity, rather, to listen to your story firsthand, one-on-one with you I feel very privileged but also the opportunity to share your story with this particular audience. So how about we get started? Very well, beginning with the very first question that I have, just being a curious individual what does Darenca mean?

Darinka:

Well, the meaning came to my life when I was around 20, because when my parents decided to name me Darenca, they just heard it from a neighbor, when actually it was my mother. It was my mother's neighbor when she was a little girl, so they played together. So she met this Darenca who lived in her neighborhood. But this family came from back then, the Czech Republic. So she said to herself, if I have a daughter I will name her Darenca. But that was it. She didn't ask about the meaning.

Darinka:

So when I grew up and started meeting people from other countries, especially from Eastern Europe, the first question they would ask me why is your name Darinka? And I would go and explain that, oh, this beautiful name came to my mom because of this little neighbor. And they would say but you do know that it's not really a name, so no. So I realized that it's a diminutive for dadia. So in Eastern European countries they have this tradition of giving names to children and those names transform into a different name or the official name when you grow into an adult. So my name is a little dalia. So that's what I learned later in life. But also they share that. But I know you don't have a well, not a real name. It's a diminutive, of course, but the meaning is related to a gift from God, so I find it very beautiful. I didn't know about it half of my life, but that's what's in my name and I like it.

Mireya:

I like it too. I did a quick search before we jumped on our call and found one that I really liked and I felt like really resonated and it loosely translates to a she who supports firmly the good right, or she who firmly supports doing good. I suppose, right, and I thought that was that was quite beautiful because I thought, well, talking about the profession and what we do, I think that's definitely the road, or the route that we all wish to take, hopefully, when we're doing our work.

Darinka:

This is the first time I hear about it, and it's wonderful. You've made my day. So I now have another definition to an already very interesting one. So thank you, and I do. I do relate to that so great.

Mireya:

Darinka, talk to us a little bit about your childhood. If you would take us back in time a little bit and share with us where you grew up and what a fond childhood memory of yours is.

Darinka:

I was born, raised and, until very recently, lived in Mexico City all of my life Well, actually makes Mexico City the surroundings and actually we. Well, the thing is that Mexico City is so big that we see it as a unit. But no, I did spend a couple of years in the state of Hidalgo, in a little town next to the Peji del Río, which is a small little town, so we're really even smaller, but most of my time we, we spend it in Mexico City. So that's basically where I was born and I, yeah, I spend most of my life there.

Mireya:

Is there a fond childhood memory that you have growing up in Mexico City?

Darinka:

Yeah, related to what we do, and I have to say that I thought that all my training or my skills related to interpreting started in university. But no, actually, when you asked the question, I started thinking what were the things that, when I was a child, made me build certain skills that I use? And I didn't know. That came from a different moment in my life, so I I can share that. In Mexico it's very common to have very big families, so when I was a kid, I was always surrounded by a lot of cousins, so we were a large group of children spending a lot of time together, but we were, let's say, like half of us were girls and half of us were boys. So I started to realize that my male cousins played a lot of games with words and I just couldn't understand the rules that they were using and why the victims of those games were the female members of the family, and especially my grandmother. So then I decided I need to, I'm curious. So I went to learn this, this games, because it was like a battle of wits. But I wasn't prepared to to really get to play this game, and it's very common in Mexico to have battles of words. It's part of our culture to use double meaning all the time. So since we were kids, they were, I guess, getting trained to to use this games. So then I realized what they were doing and they were using words in a way to say something, but they meant something different. So it took time for me to realize. Aha, I know what they're doing and they want to tease my grandmother because she doesn't follow what they're trying to say. So I became and now that you share this beautiful meaning of my name, I became the double meaning police in my family, because I knew what they were, they were getting to, and most of this riddles and this battle of words that men play usually have references that it's very hard to understand if you don't, if you don't have that mindset and I didn't have it. So most of the references are sexual, but they don't use any word related to what they're trying to mean. So they they go in circles. It's very interesting, this phenomenon of the double meaning.

Darinka:

So since a very early age I identified that there was something going on with words, but I just couldn't understand what they were doing. So that was a fun memory that I have with language and trying to understand why I was not able to understand the words and I I knew the meaning of all of those words that they were using, but their strategy it was something that I didn't know how to use or how to interpret. But then when I got to understand the game, then I wasn't an arm. Now I was able to say don't play those games with my grandmother. So I defended her because she was not understanding why they were laughing and why these kids, they just had a blast just by using very simple words but asking questions.

Darinka:

That I mean it was you have to understand the game to play. So we were unable to get to play it, especially women in the family. So I said I'm not going to be excluded from this exchange of words. And well it. It made me realize later that I was able to identify the strategy behind the words. So, and that was very useful later in life.

Mireya:

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, you definitely were going to have to extract meaning from from words. That's a great story. Thank you so much for sharing that. Now, did you aspire to be something professionally as a child? When you grew up? Did you think about that at all?

Darinka:

Yes, yes, from a very early age I wanted to be an astronaut and, of course, every time I answered to the same question, people would laugh and oh yes, like all kids, they just want to be an astronaut, they want to be doctors and all of that. They thought I wasn't serious. But I was serious about being an astronaut. But back then, well, mexico didn't have a space program. There were no programs related to aeronautics or anything related to what you needed to be an astronaut. So my options were very limited. It was either I had to study abroad or join the army, and I wasn't willing to do that. So I was a little bit well frustrated because of the fact that I really wanted to pursue this aspiration, but the context was not on my side, and now it's different. So I, when I hear friends and families saying that, oh, she wants to be an astronaut, I know that now it's possible. So it's great. So, but not in my time.

Mireya:

What was it about becoming an astronaut that really fascinated you?

Darinka:

I guess traveling very far away. I've always been fascinated, and as a kid I well. I was born into a family of travel agents, so they did travel a lot. So what was the limit? The universe. So because they did travel a lot, so I knew that there was a limit of how many countries you could visit as a travel agent. So I said, huh, what is the frontier? Okay, why not? And now it's possible, right? Absolutely, yeah, travel.

Mireya:

Even as just the member of the public. Right Now it's possible. You don't even have to be an astronaut anymore, it turns out so wild times, indeed, I do think that you still do get to travel, although not to the stars quite yet, but definitely as part of your profession.

Darinka:

Yes, and back then my family. They traveled a lot and well, now travel agencies, with technology, have transformed tremendously compared to what was a travel agents job description and their context right. So they would be invited to travels just to see places, stay in the best hotels, free of charge, because that was their job to make recommendations to people. So I loved it when my grandparents would go in this trips all around the world and then when they come back they would come back with their suitcases filled with goodies and objects from far away places. So it was my favorite moment when they would open the suitcases and there was something for every single one of us in the family and I have to say we are 34 cousins.

Darinka:

So well, back then it was not that we were all together, but, yes, it was a large group of people just expecting to hear their stories and getting that very special something that they would bring from very far away. So I just wanted to have that job that you were invited to meet interesting people, to visit interesting places without paying a penny. So I found it. Wow, that's the best job you can get. But now things have changed. And those familiarization trips I think that was the name. Those were cold doesn't exist anymore or not like my grandparents had.

Mireya:

Yeah, that actually you bring that up and it's like I had a flashback of also when that suitcase would open and we were expecting whether it be candy back then or like a little knickknack, like you say. And now when I travel and I go into these shops, I'm like gosh, how did they afford it? There's so expensive. We were so many Exactly. I love that yeah. Did? You grew up in a bilingual household, letting go? When did language become a part of your life?

Darinka:

Yes and no. Well, I was born to a family of very peculiar individuals. My parents were very, very curious. They were interested in many, many, many aspects of how can I say this? They were hippies. They, that's my parents. They were part of that generation and they wanted to do things differently. So my father, he was bilingual, but he was not a native speaker of English. But when my parents were together, which was for a very short time, they made an arrangement that my mother would speak to me in Spanish and my father would speak to me in English. So when I was born yes, I was born to a bilingual house, not bicultural but, yes, bilingual so they decided to do things differently. So they would not read kids stories to me, they would read the newspaper to me. They would read specialized magazines like National Geographic, or Texts written for adults, not for kids. So I was exposed from a very early age to a variety of literature that was not for my age, but apparently that imprinted a specific interest in my mind, because I was always interested in a variety of subjects and I think it was due to that.

Darinka:

But that little experiment only lasted two years, and then, when I was a kid, in Mexico it was common to have cable TV, not necessarily because people were interested at least not in my family to watch shows in English, just because the signal was better. So in my grandparents' house they had cable TV, but they would watch soap operas and then use hour. They wouldn't care about the rest of the shows that they had. So I was very interested in just looking around and you had that well, no, I was going to say 30 challenge, but no, it was not that large. The variety of choices back then then increased gradually when the systems developed, but back then at least you had like 15 options. There was MTB, there was I don't know if the name back then was Cartoon Network, but I was able to watch cartoons, listen to music and a lot of content in a different language. So passively I would listen to English very often, but not from my family.

Darinka:

And in school as well. My parents decided to choose a different learning system compared to what the norm was back then in Mexico, which you would send to a traditional school or a Catholic school. They decided to send us to the Montessori system, which was pretty new back then. So it was great because most of our teachers were from the US and they were native speakers and the system was the best thing that can happen to a kid, because you would show up to class and they would ask you what do you feel like learning today? And then you would choose. I think I'm going to go to this corner of the room and then you would choose whatever your mood was If you wanted to read, if you wanted to play, if you wanted whatever choices there were available, I could choose.

Darinka:

So that was, from an early stage in my life, how my brain decided to concentrate into what I liked and what I was interested that day, which it makes sense now why I feel so comfortable being an interpreter and changing subjects every day almost, and it was, I think, very good training.

Darinka:

And I remember that one of my favorite activities from those years which were just a couple, two or three years, but at that age they're very important and I remember that I enjoyed very much going to a section where you had two jars and this jars had water of different colors and then you just poured one into another jar. You would combine the colors or just spend a lot of time pouring water into another jar, and for me it was so relaxing and it may be probably. Then, as an analogy, I see interpreting and translation like that you pour what you know into a different place and then you put it back and sometimes those colors merge. Sometimes you deliberately have to make them separate. So that process is what probably called my attention in the process of interpreting and translation the transfer of something into a different place and then you have to put it back and then you can split things. Sometimes you can't. Everything gets merged. So that's how I initially got in contact with languages in that particular context.

Mireya:

That's a great analogy. I really like that, particularly as you begin, or rather your brain perhaps even unconsciously, makes that connection once you enter the profession right, I really like that. I could totally see it in my mind's eye. At Darinka what point a, did you make the connection? Speaking of connections, of the language being able to be utilized in a professional setting, when did you encounter that experience that led you to think perhaps think, I could use the bilingual ability in a professional setting? Walk us through what happened?

Darinka:

I think it also started at a very early age because in my family language was used with different purposes and, for example, with my father, with his wife, because after they divorced he remarried, so they would change language when they were discussing their things. So when they realized that we could follow their exchanges in English, they would switch to French. So my sister and I the only thing we needed to know if that conversation was about us, so that was our interest, so we tried to just get the gist of what they were saying and then we realized, okay, it's not about us, we would keep playing. But we identified that learning languages is useful and that also triggered my interest in learning more about it, because I could use it to learn more. And also in my family. For example, in my mother's side, having knowledge or going to school was seen as a very important thing because not many people had a university diplomas on that side and on my father's side, even my grandmother had a PhD. So it was not normal to have, I mean, women having PhDs and my grandmother having a PhD and my aunt having a PhD. So knowing meant something very special and every time that you would introduce someone and they would say, oh, I studied this. And that everybody would be like, wow, so they know.

Darinka:

So from a very early age I realized that knowing things would get you somewhere. So in order to escape all the house chores, I realized that if I was reading they would leave me alone. So more than using my bilingual skills there, I knew that okay, so the only thing I need to do to be free and do whatever I want with my time is to study and get good grades. So that somehow made me value what I could learn from books, from anywhere I could get the knowledge from, and I think that led me to realize that I could do something with it, with the knowledge that I could acquire.

Darinka:

And as my family travel a lot, they would bring sometimes with them books in a different language. So they didn't speak English in my mother's family, so they needed someone to help them. If they were interested in a section, for example a recipe book or anything they needed, they would come to me oh, what does it say? So I became the family interpreter and I think then I realized that it was useful. I did not know that it was a profession, but I did know that it was useful to know a lot of things, and the best place to get knowledge was from books, from whatever I could find, and use it for a specific purpose.

Mireya:

Do you recall when you actually saw a professional interpreter and that made you think that that's something you could do or you wanted to do?

Darinka:

No, no, not an interpreter, a translator. Someone on my father's side was a translator and she was in charge of translating Sesame Street into Spanish. So she named Kermit the Frog, la Rana Renée. So I thought, wow, is that a job, I want that job. But it didn't dawn on me that it was translation, so I just found it fun. It's like okay, so this is something that I would like to do. It's great, but that was the first case that I knew that someone was hired or had that responsibility of putting those words into a different language.

Darinka:

But the note about interpreting I realized that interpreting was a profession when I was already in the translation program. I enrolled and we were sent to practice in the booth because it was part of the curriculum and we had to do it. So I didn't know that it was a profession until I click on the on button in the console and then I realized that what is this? I think I want to do this the rest of my life. And then I realized that there were interpreters, that interpreters work for the United Nations and all of the uses of interpreting. So I was completely ignorant about interpreting until I was put into a booth to practice.

Mireya:

And then it clicked, right? Then you thought this is it.

Darinka:

How beautiful.

Mireya:

How beautiful. Now walk us through, then, your experience. Once you're getting your training and you've obtained this information, this experience of interpreting as a profession, what did you begin to do in order to begin working in a professional level here? Because where you started, from not knowing about the profession or about the interpreting industry, to where you're currently at, I mean, it's such a big stretch, right? So walk us through the experiences of your training and becoming an interpreter. - The Orange County Department of Education is proud to host their seventh annual interpreters and translators conference September 29th and 30th at the Hilton Orange County Costa Mesa in Costa Mesa, California. This conference promotes the incredible work of interpreters and translators, bilingual persons and staff tasked with providing language access in schools and in the community. Know your path. Each step matters. To ensure language access is this year's theme and main focus. Conference sessions and engagements will respond to the core belief that language access is a foundational part of an inclusive and culturally responsive educational ecosystem. Participants will delve into unique opportunities to acquire and refine their skills, learn tips and strategies to enhance their professional practices, keep up to date with the latest trends, laws and expectations, and explore the use of diverse platforms and tools that can streamline their language service efforts.

Mireya:

Language access is a priority in public education and, as interpreters and translators working in the K-12 system are more visible than ever, becoming a substantial part of every educational encounter, it is imperative to professionalize the field through continuous improvement, training, growth and networking. The Orange County Department of Education Language Services team is at the forefront of providing these professional learning opportunities and experiences for its interpreters, translators, bilingual staff, school administrators and community liaisons, and is committed to communicating across cultures to provide meaningful language access to their families, students and the communities they serve. Join them this fall at the 2023 Interpreters and Translators Conference to continue your professional learning and networking. Registration is now open. So head on over to the episode notes to find out more about the Interpreters and Translators Conference hosted by the Orange County Department of Education's Language Services division, taking place September 29th and 30th. Hope to see you there.

Darinka:

This journey started 25 years ago, so I will do my best to summarize all of that, otherwise we'll be here for a long time. When I was studying translation and we had to make that choice either to stay in the translation program or choose the interpreting program, at the same time I needed to work because I needed to afford my expenses, so I looked for a job related to what I was doing in school. So I got a job in a translation office. So I started translating legal documents and sometimes they would get interpreting requests. Since I was being trained to be an interpreter, I was asked if I was interested in taking a project. But it wasn't a conference interpreting. It was a project where some engineers needed to spend a lot of time setting a wind turbine. It was very technical and we would go to a refinery and initially it was going to last only a couple of weeks, but it ended up lasting six months. I was there in that project for six months, so I had to quit school because it was a hard choice. I'm being trained to be an interpreter, but I'm right in the middle of the program. So what should I do? Should I say no until I finish, or what should I do? You can skip this year and then you come back and you would acquire a lot of experience that would help you in the future. Okay, that sounds fair to me.

Darinka:

So I decided to quit in the middle of the program and then come back, and it was a great experience because I was exposed to real interpreting in real circumstances and with a lot of responsibility, that even when your trainers share their advice and they prepare you to be ready to take care of someone else's words until you're there, we were there to set up a machine. If the machine would break or if there was an emergency, we needed to react pretty quickly. So it was a very interesting job. But I had to learn almost overnight how this machine worked and all the knowledge that I didn't have. I was right in the middle of my program so we hadn't covered yet how to build your glossaries, at least a tiny little bit. But it was a sink or swim situation. So I loved it and it was great.

Darinka:

But I had to go back to school and continue and earn my degree, because I could have stayed there and that could have worked, but I wanted my degree, so I went back and then finished. And once you start working and people start getting to know you, they recommend you. So I started getting jobs at the same time that I was doing my studies. So it was a little bit out of the ordinary that you start working before you graduate.

Darinka:

But that was my experience and before that I had done some pro bono work because, well, initially my mom started as a hippie but she became an ecologist so she organized, helped organize a large meeting of people coming from the Canada, the US and of course, they needed interpreters. So it was a great experience. So I had interpreters. So I, with my friends from university, we helped them with this Congress that took place not far from Mexico City. So it was a pro bono job, but it's still.

Darinka:

It was very real. So the two situations that happened before graduation but helped me start but also meet professional interpreters, because in both, in both projects, I was assigned to be the shadow of this engineers and also the shadow of some of the participants of this Congress, but there were professional interpreters working there as well. So that was my first contact and from then on I would be contacted by some of the people that I had met and some became my mentors. So most of what I've done is not only my own merit, but the people who have helped me along the way and have given my name as a referral to other people.

Mireya:

Oh yes, that community of mentors and individuals that always support us.

Mireya:

I truly and firmly believe that many of the paths that we take are, even though they feel like we're alone, or definitely not alone, because people do show up along the way. I also very much appreciate the story of the engineers because, without meaning to necessarily generalize, but I imagine at the time when you were a part of this, it was male dominated, and so here comes little that in again, with a bunch of boys right trying to decipher this communication among men. So what, aside from it's solidifying that you did want to become a part of this profession in a professional setting, what else did these experiences, or perhaps this one in particular that you recall, solidify for you, especially with a topic such as engineering, in which never mind the, the, the profession itself and the technique and everything that you need to learn with that, but being in a situation in which, potentially, you could be one of the few females involved on a day to day conversation with male engineers, what did this do for you in terms of experience?

Darinka:

Well, I guess that right from the onset in this particular experience I managed to earn the trust of this group, so I was considered a member of the group. So it didn't matter if I was a girl in this group of 13 engineers and me. I was part of the group and we, we merged and we work pretty well. But, yes, it helped that in my previous life let's say not professional I had different experiences that helped me feel comfortable with managing tools or being in environments that were male dominated, because as a kid, as I said, my parents decided to do things differently so we were not indoctrinated with.

Darinka:

This idea is that you can do that because you're a woman. For example, my, my father's wife. He was an artist and I didn't know that he was she. She was a genius and she is. At that time she was not considered to be very successful artist, as all artists go through that, that, that phase in their lives. That recognition comes very late in life. But she used a lot of technology back in the 80s to do her art. So from a very early age I saw women using tools that were not permitted for two women and she even created a language through her art and a way of using technology through art.

Darinka:

So having that, that experience of women doing things that they were not supposed to do, and it was okay, I think that it helped me not to even doubt of myself when I was doing what I was trained to do, even when I was the only woman in the room. So it has never been an issue at least not for me, right, and I I felt entitled and I didn't, and I didn't felt that technology or using tools or being certain surroundings was not, was, was not something that I was not supposed to do. So I think it In in a culture like Mexico, there are many rules, so there are many rules, and if you don't follow the rules you get into trouble. So I think that, professionally, it was. I have been very lucky to work with professionals, so if you are a professional, the doors open automatically. So I that's what what I've learned from from those experiences If you understand the expectations and you contribute with the skills that you're hired for, there is no problem.

Mireya:

That's amazing. I think that particularly too, I think that for for an individual such as yourself and growing up with these experiences, you don't necessarily feel the difference or see yourself in a in a different light. I think that potentially sometimes it could be a different experience in the sense of are the other individuals seeing you differently or treading differently because of you know who you are or or you know what they think you represent? So that's why I was asking was it any different? Because you're I not too long ago was in a meeting or wasn't really a meeting. It was sort of like a chit chat after a conference and I was sort of just listening in and I was listening to this individual talk about how the way in which she had to show up was different, as in having a conversation with a group of females as opposed to doing business with a group of men. It was, it was definitely a different experiences, not that she shied away from it, but just being conscientious about the fact that even in her conversations it was different. There was a lot of F bombs dropped in the conversations when she's having these conversations with men as opposed to like if she's sitting in the room with the group of business female leaders. And then on another occasion I had somebody else as well in business female, walking into male dominated industry as well, and the way in which she stood out or made herself be seen a little bit differently was visual. So she would wear colors that popped right in the room so that she would be able to have these conversations with men, because the color of a shirt, let's say, popped in it. She stood out.

Mireya:

So that's why I'm always curious, particularly with a profession such as engineering, and you know, I'm thinking, wow, like if I'd be untrained I'd be so intimidated. But you, you took the bull by the horns and just went for it, which I find again, I totally admire your journey and all these, all of these experiences. I'd like for us to sort of shift a little bit that in kind to now. You know you of course went through your training and you did finish your program. Finally, but at the same time you were also already practicing professionally in these settings and these different environments, different topics, things like that you mentioned pre recording, or you shared with me that now you are very much focused and are passionate about being able to interpret with your five senses. So let's let's dive a little bit now with, you know, all the years of experience that you have now and what this means for an interpreter that is that is hearing this for the first time.

Darinka:

Thank, you for this question and I think that, with the advent of so many technologies that we use as interpreters and translators and what we have gone through in the last couple of years, I had to understand what was going on and what was the added value of interpreters vis-a-vis technology and with this potential threat that AI might substitute us. And that's why I welcomed your invitation so much to talk about the human side of interpreters, because I think that being human, sounding human and thinking human is what would make us survive this change and, more importantly, explain what we're doing, because sometimes what people see is the product of a very complex process. So when I describe that interpreting with your five senses is different, because interpreting is also an experience. So you can only live an experience through your senses. So we can see interpreting with your five senses. If we describe the audience, for example, if we want to make that experience more pleasant for the person listening, well, we have to make adjustments. If we only think of the act of interpreting, as I said, just pouring different colors of water from one jar into the other Well, there is much more so when I say five senses.

Darinka:

Unlike the computers that we're using right now to communicate ourselves. We have two cameras, so we sometimes, as interpreters, when we concentrate, we tend to close our eyes, for example, so we're missing information. So that is one way to put it as a human interpreter, we need to use all of the tools that we have in our body, because interpreting I see it as a very physical activity and that's, let's say, the site right, but how the interpreter feels, we sense it in our skin, like stress. Before we started the interview, I shared with you that I like to prepare before I open my mouth, because I mean, I'm using my muscles, so it's physical. So even my mouth is telling me how stressed I am in terms of how my mouth tastes, for example, when I know when I'm stressed, if my mouth is dry, I know that there's something going on, that I need to drink water. So in that sense, interpreting with your five senses helps you in all the different levels that an interpreter needs to prepare and get ready to interpret. That is being mentally prepared, like stress gets in the way, mentally and also cognitively, having all the information that you have in your preparation phase, but also to understand what is going on while you're interpreting, because there is a lot of information around us and sometimes we disconnect from the situation where we are hired, invited to be an interpreter, especially now with technology that we are very far away from where the participants are, but still there are many visual cues there is we're still in the same environment. So, by that, using five elements to remind me all of the things that I need to use while I'm interpreting has been very helpful as a tool, like breathing, it might be that well, okay, I'm not going to use my nose or my scent of smell to interpret, but at least I know that if I concentrate in what goes on in terms of the intake of air, I can help myself concentrate. So it's not that well, of course, if we can relate this to memories, for example, when you send a specific smell like a prowess Madeleine, which is the ultimate example of how your senses trigger your memory. So there are many cues that come from our surroundings or just even having in front of us our glossaries, the information that we have prepared, that sometimes we forget that we have two eyes and these are probably very obvious reminders. But to me, I sometimes do this scan of my five senses to just check my list of okay. So am I concentrated enough? Have I prepared enough? Am I using all the cues around me? So we've covered three. So we have the sight, the scent, the smell, touch, hearing, yeah, hearing.

Darinka:

Of course that interpreting is basically the art of being able to listen attentively. But if you're stressed, the first thing that would get affected is how attentively you can listen and how you can monitor what you're producing. So being aware that you have other senses when that one is not on your side, because you have to compensate that level of stress with your breathing, for example. So your senses help you, and when we cancel one, the others might get affected. So that's how I like to see it a balance of different things.

Darinka:

So and a computer cannot have all those five elements, those five inputs, at least not for the time being it might use a lot of information.

Darinka:

Yes, we can do that as well.

Darinka:

But being aware and using our senses helps us to interpret the context that we're working in better and more thoroughly.

Darinka:

So interpreting is very physical. For example, after when we started using RSI, I started to explore different ways of how can I cope with all of those changes, like speakers reading at the speed of light the speeches. Well, I realized that if I stand up, as I am now, and I interpret standing up, I can speak faster, because sitting down it's somehow restrictive, at least in how my body works. So being aware of my body and actually interpreting the signals that your body sends you while you're interpreting it helps me at least being more aware, and when I train and I try to make interpreters aware of all the information that you get from your senses that sometimes we don't pay attention to and we can help ourselves to be more concentrated just by focusing on our breathing and helping compensate. When you are very stressed, your senses are affected, even if we like it or not, or you start sweating. Well, everybody's different, so stress will show in a very different way. So that's how I like to somehow scan how ready I am for interpreting.

Mireya:

No, I can completely see. Actually, in speaking of senses, right, I can please see what it is that you're sharing, because I know, for instance, or I've heard, rather, that individuals that lose a sense let's say, for instance, their ability to see, the other sense, for instance, the ability to hear is heightened, right. And so I almost feel like, when we are able to focus on one or the other, like you said, when we focus our awareness on the way that our mouth tastes or the way that our mouth feels, it's almost like a heightened sense, all of a sudden, of being aware that there's something wrong, whereas when you're not paying attention to it, you just carry on and keep going and potentially, yes, over-stimulate or get overstressed and therefore impacting, obviously, our output at some point. So I can totally see how, being able to just really focus on our feelings. I do want to get into in just a little bit, or potentially towards the end, how you warm up, because that was absolutely amazing and I know it's.

Mireya:

I know that listeners are going to definitely appreciate having just a demonstration of how we can warm up even the physical, our physical muscles, right, our muscles from our mouths, because if there's one thing we know, is that when we are tense, our jaws are definitely clenching, and for those of us whose words sometimes get stuck and just refuses to roll out of our tongues or roll out of our mouths, I feel like this little warm-up would be great. But let's keep going into a couple little things before we run out of time here. You mentioned just a little bit about the future of the profession, that Inca, and being able to sort of differentiate ourselves in a way in which we are recognized as the human component to the communication process. Right, how or what do you see in terms of interpreters, professional interpreters, potentially differentiating the way in which they work, or what do you see about the future of our profession?

Darinka:

That's a very big question, but from what I have read, from what I have seen and what I strongly believe, I think that the future for interpreting, and mostly all professions, is ethical, because we have plenty of options available, as many other professions have. Ai is out there. Ai can replace every professional. It's not only us that are in this situation. I think that how we use those tools it's going to define the future of our profession, because when we started seeing the explosion of RSI tools, for example, it was great to see how quickly technology can follow certain trends.

Darinka:

Yes, but what are the real needs for people wanting to communicate in different languages? Confidentiality is not going to change, so you cannot use technologies that cannot assure you that communication is going to be kept in the past, should be in a space where you don't have any information leaks. Of course, when we talk about interpreting, it's a whole different world that you cannot just fit into. Zoom, for example. Zoom might be useful for certain exchanges, but there are many others that, even that you have the state-of-the-art technology, you can't use some technologies because there's something that would get compromised. I see that the future of interpreting will be related to you excelling in what we do as interpreters, because, yes, the more sophisticated tools we get, the bar is going to be raised higher, because if you use Google Translate, yes, it's possible the outcome is well, we can have a very long conversation about what you get from those tools, but you cannot make Google Translate responsible of their mistakes. So I think that the future of our profession is showing a face, and we do have a face as individuals, as doctors do. You can replace a doctor, of course. I'm sure that you can have a robot with all the information published from the beginning of history to now, and a human doctor cannot memorize all of that, but you need someone accountable for their choices. So I think that we, as interpreters, need to be the best professionals we can and we need to understand that that's the value that we've always provided for society being there and being accountable for all those assignments that will get to us. Because, yes, ai can substitute us, but that's around the corner. But who would want an interpreter that cannot be accountable? So, would you have a robot in a courthouse? I don't think so, because you need someone to blame.

Darinka:

So that idea of sometimes using interpreters as scapegoats it might be the key to this revival of the profession because, yes, we're there, we can respond, we are accountable and we're ethical and we can anticipate all of those little mistakes that you can find in all of those tools that can be used from speech to text and those automatic translation tools. They will make mistakes because they can't make decisions based on context, and we can. I'm probably very optimistic. I'm not an expert, but at least that's what I have seen. And no one would.

Darinka:

I mean we take care of other person's words in other language.

Darinka:

No one would risk to be the laugh in stock of a room with 5,000 people expecting to learn or hear someone, someone coming from far away and having an automatic translating tool just missing the point of a joke or even using a term that, yes, it might exist in a dictionary, but if you don't know the communities and how that community that you are working for speaks, expresses itself or decides how to name things, well, even if the robot has all the dictionaries in their algorithm or whatever you software, they have making inferences at least I don't see it around the corner as we do. So we can anticipate those little mistakes because that we're human, because we specialize in fields and because we know the language, especially languages with so many variants like Spanish. It's not that easy to have 22 choices for one single word. I think that a robot might have a hard time choosing from. Oh, what's the best way to translate this if you have 20 something countries that use the same word differently? Well, a human interpreter can, because we are experts in human communication.

Mireya:

Yeah, I think that I've yet to hear or experience someone say I love dealing with bots when I have to call, for instance, customer service, right like my bank, my credit card chatting with a bot, even online. So I think definitely if that hasn't and that's been out for quite some time if that hasn't gotten to the point where it's an enjoyable experience, I think we can absolutely still believe that, when it comes to the interpreting, for this profession at least, and the use of technology, there's still a long way to go. But in addition to that, I think also part of the beauty or what I love about learning from individuals such as yourselves is that we not only understand or, excuse me, you not only understand the profession, the intricacies of what it involves to be able to convey a message between languages and all of these other different components, but I also believe that there it takes an individual to become a problem solver in the industry in order for our profession to evolve close to the same rate as technology is evolving right and, like you mentioned earlier, rsi we've seen it in history with the simultaneous use of interpreting equipment and things of that nature, where somebody that understood the profession but also has this ability to problem solve and be able to potentially present potential solutions. You did this, that Inc. When you identified a problem in the profession as you were experiencing over and over again and later identified that this was a situation that it seemed like all interpreters were going through, you shared with me.

Mireya:

You ended up actually focusing your thesis on this very subject. What had to do with individuals, agencies and those that you worked with sharing content, if they shared content potentially towards the end? Talk to us a little bit about what you came up with. What was the challenge and your solution that you proposed for this difficulty in the profession?

Darinka:

Thank you for that question. When I decided to join the MAS, the University of Geneva for interpreter trainers, I was going through how can I say a deep valley in my professional life because I felt that I was not treated as I should be. I was not given enough information from my clients because I didn't have the tools to do my job right. But I was somehow thinking in a very passive way. I was expecting the client to think like an interpreter and give me all the things that me, as a professional interpreter needed. So I nagged agencies and clients like give me, give me, give me, give me, instead of thinking Am I asking the right questions? It's actually the information only in the hands of clients and those different questions to ask came from this process of learning and actually being exposed to other cultures and how in other countries they experienced the same problem. Because I thought that all the poor little Mexicans this is an issue that we only live in my country and it should be better in Europe, it should be better in the US. So I thought that the rest of the world didn't have this problem of not getting information in time for interpreters to get prepared. And then I realized that, with my classmates in the program that it was a general issue. So it was an epiphany for me to know that we're not alone. But I mean, if we're not alone, we need a tool to. If all clients behave the same way, what can I do? Because I like this profession, but I don't like begging for preparation material because it's my right. It's what I need to do my job and I'm willing to prepare. I've always been willing to spend long hours preparing and it's part of the job. I mean, we show up to interpret in the booth, but we might have spent twice or three times the time that we spend interpreting preparing.

Darinka:

So, based on all the methods that are made available to you in a program like the one I studied, I decided to come up with a method to help interpreters at least have the basics covered and then, once you've looked for the information yourself or find different sources to get as much as you can for your assignment, then I can ask the client or whomever is in between the conference organizers and the interpreters, or sometimes it's direct communication. But when you participate in a conference or a project, people are dealing with many other things, so the least of their worries sometimes it's getting you information. So I understood that, okay, they're going to give me 30 seconds of their attention, so we need to be very specific in terms of what I'm asking. So, knowing the basics and being able to express myself differently not from a passive point of view, but from an active point of view that change completely the way I felt about interpreting. I was considering even quitting and going back to translation, because I was not comfortable with this very, very grim situation, to my eyes at least. But afterwards I saw that, okay, I can get at least half of the information that I need with my own research and the rest will come. Yes, probably late, but I have everything else at least covered and I feel more comfortable by knowing that. Okay, I will just fill the gaps and it's not that I just arrived blank, because I've never been able to do that I would. I managed to find information anywhere I could.

Darinka:

So I came up with the method based on an ethnographical analysis of communication made in the late 70s from an ethnographer, del Heims, and I used his typology in the field of interpreting. And I learned from this typology from Sandra Hale, who is a researcher as well in interpreting, and she used that same typology to describe the differences between community interpreting and conference interpreting, because sometimes, when we ask that question, we know that these two are different. But why? How can you make a clear distinction? Well, she, in a brilliant paper, made that distinction, and then I realized well, this tool that she used can be used as a checklist for interpreters to prepare, or at least understand, the situation where they will be interpreting. And then, once you've understood the situation, then you can work on the details. You can start working on each one of the speeches if you want, but you need to understand the big picture to then go into the details.

Darinka:

So this tool which I mean it's as well I'd always try to use either acronyms or elements that you can fit in your both hands so we can remember easily is called the speaking method, based on the acronym that Del Himes gave to his theory of communication, and it covers the setting, the participants, the ends, the key of the exchange, the instruments that are used, the rules well, norms and the genre. That is the type of environment that you will be using. And, of course, I mean I'm just summarizing everything, but just by using this acronym you can cover much of what you need to understand before starting to prepare and delve into the details and all the terminology, because I've realized that sometimes, at least when I started, my preparation was all about making glossaries, having equivalents in two languages, and, yes, that helped me a lot, but I needed more information. Sometimes, when I would show up to a conference with a very long list of words in two columns, well, it was useful, but I needed context. I needed to understand the subject first and then, yes, a couple of terms would come up and those were already in my glossary, but I needed something else more.

Darinka:

So when I speak about preparation, it covers more than just a glossary with words. I try to go a little bit more into understanding what is going on and the people that you're going to work for. What are they trying to get from that exchange? So at least that changed my way of addressing preparation and I feel more comfortable because I know what to do, because sometimes at least, I was not taught in university how to prepare. It was a very intuitive process and I'm a very practical person and I came up with different systems, color coding, different post-its, but it was not enough. I needed something that would guide me, especially when you have last-minute jobs, which is basically the case of Mexico, at least, that everything it's just last-minute. So I needed something that, even if I have only two hours to prepare, I just need to stretch the time as much as I could, but get the basics, and that would make me more confident to show up with at least the very basic that I needed for an assignment.

Mireya:

Yeah, you ended up writing an article about this. I believe it was for Aiic. Is that correct?

Mireya:

Yes, so I'm going to make sure that I include the link in the episode notes for individuals that would like to, yeah, get an understanding a little bit further, because I think we can all absolutely utilize this technique, because it goes down from conference interpreting all the way to community interpreting. Absolutely, like you mentioned, this is a universal problem for all of us, for all interpreters. Sadly, I know that we're getting close to the end of our time together, Darinka and I have a couple of last questions for you, the very first towards the last being if you could talk to us a little bit about your renewed interest about La Malinche. Talk to us about this just a little bit.

Darinka:

Well, la Malinche was my booth mate during the pandemic At least, that's how I like to see her, because it does somehow. The pandemic coincided with the 500 anniversary of the fall of Mexico City, which back then it was called Tenochtitlan, and a lot of conferences, a lot of books and many, many, many events were organized around this moment in Mexican history. But the figure, the star of all of this efforts, was the interpreter of Cortez. So, as a Mexican, malinche well, that's how she was called for a long time, and it even led to an insult. It led to a concept, a verb, so she became somehow like the epitome of how Mexicans relate with foreign cultures. So being a Malinchista is someone who prefers what comes from abroad than what you find in your country, and this is a concept that you find in every country that has gone through a colonization process. So it's very interesting as a phenomenon, but I've always felt very uncomfortable that an interpreter, the name of an interpreter, is an insult in my language. But before that moment I just had that thought cross my mind, but I didn't research much about her until then that I started noticing and sharing in social media oh look, they're going to talk about Cortez's interpreter. How interesting. And then colleagues started sharing with me resources that they found along the way and I ended up having a very long list of resources movies, documentaries, novels about her and it was fascinating to see that her story tells the story of our profession and it is very easy to relate to her choices and there are very serious researchers that have analyzed her choices as a woman, as a historical character, but not necessarily from the standpoint of an interpreter. So I found it very interesting that in all of these conversations you had anthropologists, you had a specialist in many areas of social sciences, but not a single interpreter in those specialized panels.

Darinka:

So I started feeling like this is unfair. Why are we not represented in this conversation? But then I realized how fascinating that all of these people have spent their lives, years of their lives and many hours researching what an interpreter did 500 years ago. So I decided, okay, probably it's not that this is unfair. This is a great opportunity to learn about our profession and to understand how people see us and what we have not managed to explain about what we do. These people are doing it for us and everything I would hear about the description of this woman were praises, adjectives of wonder, intelligence. It was like, wow, they're talking about us and they admire everything she did.

Darinka:

And she was not described as a traitor, which is what this insult means in Spanish, right? So you give preference to the foreign culture that came after what we had, right? So, and then, since this was serious research, they told us the story of that, why it became an insult. And it happened with the independence, because the independence movement in Mexico. Well, what they wanted was to detach completely from Spain and what they needed was an image, a character, someone who would represent closeness to Spain, and that was the perfect match the Cortez's interpreter. So, after 200 years of Malince, since then, her name became an insult. But she didn't notice. And it was part of this strategy, political campaigning against what Spain meant back then and what the new government or the new idea of a country was planning to do, which was create something new. And they needed someone to blame.

Darinka:

Exactly so. If it worked 500 years ago, why not? Well, of course, we are not going to be blamed for our mistakes, but we were professionals. You need professional interpreters to make interpreting work and she was, I would say, the proto professional, the first professional interpreter that we had in Mexico, and I was not told about her story when I studied, and that was that. It's shameful, because we have a tremendous story to tell and I believe that the future of our profession also depends on how good we tell our story and how well we describe what happens in the background, in the backstage, because people don't know, they only see us opening our mouths and it looks pretty easy and we haven't managed to describe how complex it is and how we describe how complex it is.

Darinka:

So I think that there are many researchers, many resources out there that describe Malinche in a way that we haven't managed to do the same at that level of detail. It doesn't matter if they don't describe the interpreting process as we do, but it's there and they respect her. She has a very special place and she has even become the symbol of social movements, like in the US she represents. I will have to use more of your time to define, but, for example, the Chicano movement. For them, malinche represents their experience and how they feel in the middle of two countries, and you come from one culture, you acquire a second one, but you are in the middle. So she represents even a movement, a generation that it's very far from when she existed and she's an interpreter. So we interpreters represent a lot and we haven't been able to at least not me.

Darinka:

Probably I'm generalizing and that is unfair, but I think that we could start using those descriptions of our profession and listen. So what I learned from that experience was that I needed to listen and then I would decide what to do with this information. But it's fascinating to see how our profession is described, and we didn't ask for it. No one told this people. Hey, this is a very interesting story, you should explore it.

Darinka:

No, no, no. Her story is fascinating enough to keep inspire people after 500 years, and I think it's just a start, because she has inspired so many people to keep on learning and rewriting the story of what really happened. Well, I don't know if it's possible to 100%, but at least there are resources and she is everywhere and she was highly regarded 500 years ago and we today, interpreters are not as highly regarded as she was, so we might learn a lot from her story and just feel that gap because we haven't changed that much. Her choices are very similar to two hours and there are books, and I can share the list as well with you of all the resources because I am fascinated by her story.

Mireya:

I was just going to say, if you do have that list, I would absolutely love to have it and, if given permission, even included in the episode notes for those that would love to binge now. This would be a binge worthy topic for sure. Right, being able to get into that story. I have to shameingly admit that I had not heard of Loma Linche until you mentioned her as part, connecting it to the interpreting profession. Perhaps at some point I'm not sure, during maybe a story, but she was in the backdrop, maybe Cortez perhaps was the main character and heard of the interpreter, his interpreter, but in terms of being the highlight of the story I had not heard until now.

Mireya:

So you've opened up for me an interest now in her story and potentially I don't know one day share her story. Not that I could bring her back so that she could come to the podcast, but somehow, some way, you know, relive the story somehow. So that's beautiful. Thank you so much for having shared that. I'm definitely very highly interested now and I know I'm going to do a deep dive into her story now and how it relates to the profession. I mean, it's so very fascinating. Thank you so much for having shared that.

Darinka:

And, on the contrary, you are doing the same thing. You are describing the profession through the people. So I'm sure that if she was around, she would have loved to be here in your podcast. So well. Of course, I'm just putting words of praise, but I'm sure that all of the stories that you have told contribute to this effort, and that's what I wanted by sharing her story. It's to get more people interested, because that's what happened in Mexico. In every single country where there was a similar interaction, there were interpreters and we don't know about them.

Mireya:

Wow yeah, wow, this is blew my mind right now. Yes, that's so great, and that Inca it has been just an amazing opportunity. Before I go, I always open up the platform for interpreter guests to basically share any recommendations for those that are just starting the profession, for those that have been inspired, maybe to make a pivot from what they were doing into something new. What are those recommendations you can give to new and aspiring language professionals, or the new generation of language professionals? What would you like to share with them?

Darinka:

Of course, I would suggest planning your career because you're a professional. So at the beginning it might seem that you don't know where you're going and so many things are not under your control. But if you can plan or at least know where you want to go, making decisions along the way at least in my opinion are easier. So interpreting is a very demanding profession and I didn't know that, but I as an individual was ready to do whatever it took to to do the job right. So it's a lot of studying. It will never end and I'm very glad because I love studying, I love knowing new things.

Darinka:

But as the world goes and it is moving, things are moving at a very fast pace. So that means that we as professionals need to keep up with what goes on in the world and that makes our job more difficult. Well, not more difficult, but I would say more demanding. Because just understanding what goes around the world, it's a job. I mean it's just being up to speed with the news. It's not going to take five minutes of your day just to see what's on the news. We really need to study a lot. I mean keeping up with your languages and having them ready to be used professionally. It takes time. So I would say that being an interpreter today requires a lot of commitment, probably devotion, because it's easier when you are passionate about this job, because I enjoy everything I have to do to have my tools ready to be used. So it's a decision. So be ready to make those decisions, because otherwise it's going to get difficult.

Mireya:

It will get difficult, really quick, absolutely and, of course, we cannot leave without you sharing with us the technique to warm up our muscles, right, darenka, as we had talked about earlier. So listen closely to what's about to happen, because this is something that you might want to bookmark for later on, for later use. So I'm going to go ahead and ask if, darenka, you could guide us through this practice of warming up our muscles before we go into an interpreting assignment.

Darinka:

Of course, as I said at the beginning, my parents were artists, so my mother, for a while she was an actress, so she would rehearse at home and she would use different techniques to warm up her voice and her body, and we usually use tongue twisters for that right. So I like to, yes, sometimes use tongue twisters or some words from indigenous languages. And those are the names of two volcanoes in Mexico, that is, the Popocatepetl and the Parangaricotirimicuero. So, as you can see, you can use those phonemes to use most of the muscles that you would use, especially in my case.

Darinka:

I'm not an English native speaker, so I need to warm up those muscles that I don't use usually in Spanish. So if you want to Parangaricotirimicuero with me, so you can Parangaricotirimicuero, you can repeat Parangaricotirimicuero or Popocatepetl. Or, if you are brave enough, you can use the names of volcanoes in Northern Europe, which are, of course, unpronounceable, but they would force you to use muscles in your mouth that you usually don't use in one language or the other. So I would recommend at least yes, of course use tongue twisters, or you can have fun trying the names of volcanoes of the world, why not? And that would help you update your geography knowledge.

Mireya:

How many times do you repeat it?

Darinka:

Say it again I would say okay, I'll say it and we can count Parangaricotirimicuero, parangaricotirimicuero, parangaricotirimicuero at least four or five times, until I don't have to make an effort.

Mireya:

Lastly Darinka, I know that if you search for Darinka in just a random Google search, you will get plenty of resources there that you've put out and you will find her and a lot of the information and content that she shared. But if somebody wishes to connect with you directly, where would be the best place to do so? What social media platforms are you on where individuals can connect with you?

Darinka:

I believe I used most of the social media that are out there, but LinkedIn, I would say, would be my preferred choice.

Mireya:

LinkedIn for the win, guys. As always, I always share, yeah, absolutely LinkedIn. And this is definitely the one spot where I've managed to find the majority of my guests or interest in the guests that I invite. So, absolutely LinkedIn. I will make sure to include the LinkedIn handle for that Inca in the episode notes so that if you wish to connect with her, you can do so.

Mireya:

Darinka, I have been so inspired by our conversation. Of course, I knew I was going to be, and it's been a few months that we've been waiting, or I've been waiting, for this conversation. So I just want to say, once again, thank you for what you do, thank you for the information that you push out for us individuals that are seeking to improve in one way or another, be re-inspired or reignited in the profession, no matter what level you are on. I think that you have opened up the doors to inspiration for our profession, and I am very much appreciative of your time, of the opportunity to have this conversation directly with you, even though we are miles and miles away. You happen to be out in Paris, out of all places, and I'm over here in Southern California, so imagine that but I thank you so very much for everything that you do for the profession and for being so willing to share your story on this platform with language professionals around the world. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Darinka:

Mireya, it has been a pleasure as well, and thank you for what you do, because it's great to learn about the new colleagues and in this environment that you have created. So thank you, thank you for inviting me and thank you for sharing so many resources with us. I think that would roll out of my mouth would be nonsense, to be quite honest.

Mireya:

Parangaricutirimiquaro.

Darinka:

Parangaricutirimiquaro Paranguancantinimicaro, you're getting there. So yeah, so now we've created a new verb in Brand the Interpreter, word Parangaricutirimiquaring.

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Mireya Pérez

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