I’ve written about terminology before, and about how you can memorize lists and lists of terminology, but it’s not going to save you when you’re hit with words you didn’t even know that you didn’t know how to say. But here I am to offer up a teeny piece of what I know from being an interpreter: What I might call my “must-know” words. Understand that words are just words, and you still have to learn them in context, ideally through interpreting practice. I did a lot of interpreting practice when preparing for my state court exam. My preparation for my national health care exam was a decade of interpreting in hospitals, and everyone (patients, providers, and me) would have had a much easier go of it in the beginning if someone had revealed these tips to me. So here they are, to get you started, or to start an argument if you’re a working interpreter who’d like to disagree with me (it’s allowed): Continue reading “Medical Terminology for Interpreters: What I Know”