How do you translate patients who don't speak your language?
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How do you translate patients who don't speak your language?
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When you have a patient who cannot speak your language, how do you communicate? We have had a discussion along these lines called Re: Should we charge patients for use of interpreters? , but how do yo
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How do you translate patients who don't speak your language?
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Re: How do you translate patients who don't speak your language?
posted at 16/1/2012 12:04 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2075
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 18/5/2012 |
In Response to Re: How do you translate patients who don't speak your language?: I am a mere monoglot at the feet of Odysseus and Yoram. I have been scolded for it in Dutch, frustrated by Nords who, in the face of my attempts to speak Swedish, "Do like to practise their colloquial English!" and told by Poles that despite my very best endeavours my French is worse than their English. But Odysseus' post about sharing a language changing the doctor/patient relationship reminds me of a story from WW2. The Hellenophile Englishman Patrick Leigh Fermor was recruited into the Special Operations Executive, and parachuted into Crete to lead resistance to the Nazis. One exploit was to kidnap the German Commander of Crete, General Heinrich Kreipe. Hiding out in the Cretan mountains, the General looked out from a high place and quoted Horace, ""Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte" . Fermor had no difficulty continuing the Latin ode and the relationship with his prisoner was thereafter quite different. If you don't know him, Odysseus, you will like Fermor. Try "Mani". John Posted by John D I know the story well, John, have read the book, been to the spot where the kidnapping took place, read the Cretan Runner, numerous other books on Crete including The Flowers of Rethymnon. A man in Crete gave me a book on the Cretan Resistance and i have read Beevor's book, Crete. My uncle fought in Crete (2nd 3rd Field Regt, 6th Div) and left with 4 out 30 of his battery (Australian Artillery Sgt). My study is graced bv small double axes in bronze, Cretan bull, urns and a Cretan oil lamp Homer would have used. I crossed the White Mountains in a pilgrimage of my uncle's and other uncle's courage. The tinkling goat bells and the aroma of thyme on a scree slope on a summer's day remain always, with me. I think that language is a great leveller and also connector. I think the two men had mutual respect. After the war they could have been friends. PS. Google Translate has its uses but is a false friend. It tends to the littoral sic literal, has too much lee helm, tends to broach on a run, is lousy with idiomatic language, metaphorical and metaphysical hopeless, puns useless, zeugma forget it, technical a lemon and if you want to get your face slapped by a woman use it. Otherwise it would get you an orange juice at the baker's. Caveat translator.
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Re: How do you translate patients who don't speak your language?
posted at 16/1/2012 10:15 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 10
First: 2/12/2011 Last: 14/4/2012 |
Hello all, I wonder why up to now no-one has brought up the setting in which this situation takes place. Of course it is a huge difference if you do emergency on-calls and there is this foreign-language-speaking patient having had his arm sawn off or a myocardial infarction - or if you see a patient on a routine basis, with a scheduled appointment, be it a new or a well-known person. In the former case of course you do anythig to get communication going, for the patient´s sake. In the latter situation however I now tend to choose another approach than I did during the last 15+ years of consultancy: it is (usually, anyway) the patient who wants something from me - medical advice, surgery, low vision aids, consulting concerning his academic and professional life etc etc. I think it is up to him/her to provide a person who can translate into and from his language (and I am not always happy imagining what the heck they are translating???). I am fluent in English and German, and reasonably talk-able in French, and I understand Italian and Luxembourgish (a very interesting language indeed - I envy the children growing up there with up to four languages! - we are situated at the junctions to France and Luxembourg). We have many military patients coming here, so I need the first two languages often. Here a big, really big, huge problem is the amount of immigrants who have been living here for ages and the adults do not speak the language, but they bring their children (who, in my case, often are the patients) and have the children translate.... I do not understand that. As I said - if the patients come and want to talk about really important things (deciding which school type for visually handicapped, surgery etcpp) and if they come less than 200km I politely ask them to return with a translator. Our University has a translator list of foreign language speakers who work in the hospital - if there is urgent need, we can take that list and call the Hindu nurse from the ENT department or the Chinese doctor from the cardiac unit. Concerning the important talks like deciding for (elective) surgery - there always is the possibility to get sued, this is another reason to make sure my patients/parents understand me. Greetings from -8° C Germany, Barbara |
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Re: How do you translate patients who don't speak your language?
posted at 18/1/2012 3:11 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 851
First: 12/3/2010 Last: 20/5/2012 |
Quote kaesmann, "Here a big, really big, huge problem is the amount of immigrants who have been living here for ages and the adults do not speak the language, but they bring their children (who, in my case, often are the patients) and have the children translate.... I do not understand that. " In the UK the first generation of immigrants from the Indian sub-continent tended to do that, but we are into the third or fourth generation now. It used to be said that the the purest Yorkshire or Lancashire accents were heard on streets where Indians and Pakistanis lived, because their children were not subject to the "speak properly!" restrictions of their parents, who spoke only Punjabi (or another language). Of course now, the grandchildren of those original immigrants speakwith a good regional English accent, and no trace of their ethnic origins. Give it another hundred years, kaesmann! John |
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Re: How do you translate patients who don't speak your language?
posted at 18/1/2012 8:19 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2075
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 18/5/2012 |
In Response to Re: How do you translate patients who don't speak your language?: Quote kaesmann, "Here a big, really big, huge problem is the amount of immigrants who have been living here for ages and the adults do not speak the language, but they bring their children (who, in my case, often are the patients) and have the children translate.... I do not understand that. " In the UK the first generation of immigrants from the Indian sub-continent tended to do that, but we are into the third or fourth generation now. It used to be said that the the purest Yorkshire or Lancashire accents were heard on streets where Indians and Pakistanis lived, because their children were not subject to the "speak properly!" restrictions of their parents, who spoke only Punjabi (or another language). Of course now, the grandchildren of those original immigrants speakwith a good regional English accent, and no trace of their ethnic origins. Give it another hundred years, kaesmann! John Posted by John D Ditto in Australia. The Australian accent had become established remarkably early and it is thought that children of British/Irish immigrants and convicts were the prime movers of the linguistic shift. Within fifty years or less, the accent was established and is very stable all over the continent with broader accents found in the bush. Immigrants become consumed by a nations tongue and mores eventually. Few third generation Greeks know as much Greek as I. |
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Re: How do you translate patients who don't speak your language?
posted at 19/1/2012 9:20 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 851
First: 12/3/2010 Last: 20/5/2012 |
Is that so, Odysseus? No accents? Can you not tell if someone is from Adelaide or Sydney? |
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Re: How do you translate patients who don't speak your language?
posted at 19/1/2012 10:23 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2075
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 18/5/2012 |
No difference in accents in this country from place to place. Educated people like me speak with less of an accent although I can mimic my compatriots' accents including from the bush as well as a German, Italian, French and Norwegians speaking Australian English. As I said, folks from the bush have a more Crocodile Dundee accent in general. Tradesmen have the same accent as all but may err in grammatical and syntactical ways.
The Army has its own charms with wit and turn of phrase. There are some regional words but not accent which may tell which city or state a person comes from; togs, cossies, swimming trunks, bathers OR port, bag, suitcase. Kiwis have a very distinctively different accent with S'xty s'x for sixty six. I think social mobility from the outset is the reason we have the same accent. We are not people who stay in the same village for 500 years. The accent of people in the 1920-40s was broader with about 3000 words lost since then. If you speak like an Oxford Don you are regarded as a tosser (tosher in Dickensian English). I would use another word but won't. Australian custom allows a very well educated man (or woman) to use slang and Australianisms in everyday language eg in medicine even in court although less so there. We have egalitarian ideals and hate pomposity. If you spoke like an English Admiral at the sailing club you'd have flat tyres and you boat would be underwater by the end of the night. I can speak like an Oxford Don if sarcasm prompts me. The English, being class-ridden may tend to assume that unless one speaks like the Queen or someone who was a fag at Harrow is both lower class, ignorant and unskilled. Brideshead Revisited showed this nicely. Give me one skipper at my boat club to a squadron of Italian or British admirals in pea jacket, tie, white shoes and cap. |
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