In the New York state court system, the people translating for non-English speaking litigants are called interpreters for a reason. They are doing more than just repeating, said Ann Ryan, a career interpreter who now heads the court system's Office of Language Access as its statewide coordinator. They're taking those concepts and converting them into the same concept in another language. And that is a thoughtful but very rapid process.
Technological advances in translation services will permit agencies to produce cost-effective methods for bridging language barriers and reducing inefficiencies with the translation process.
Currently, California provides bilingual voting assistance primarily for Spanish speakers, but a new poll indicates widespread support for expanding this to more languages, including Chinese and Vietnamese.