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Finding Your Way Through Canada’s Interpreting Profession

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Why is the interpreting profession difficult to navigate in Canada?

Community and public service interpreting in Canada remains largely unregulated, with inconsistent qualifications, limited transparency, and no clearly visible professional pathway. As a result, interpreters are often left to navigate training, contracts, rates, specializations, and career development largely on their own.

Interpreter Career Development

In more than 30 years of working in the interpreting field in Canada, and having held a multitude of roles within it, one thing has remained remarkably consistent: the field itself is often obscured from the very people it relies on.

This is particularly true in community and public service interpreting. Many interpreters find their way into the work almost by accident. They may be recruited because they speak another language, referred by someone in their community, or offered an assignment before they fully understand the profession they are entering. This is not a universal reality, at all, but a very common one.

Those who continue for 10, 20, or even 30 years often develop considerable knowledge within their immediate working environment. They know the organizations that hire them, the settings in which they work, and the expectations they encounter every day.

But move beyond that immediate horizon, and the larger field can become much harder to see.

We recently explored many of these issues in our monthly Professional Development Workshop, Drawing the Line: Navigating Challenges as a Freelance Interpreter in Canada. The discussion reinforced just how many interpreters are seeking greater clarity about the business of interpreting, from assignments, contracts, and rates to qualifications, professional boundaries, and negotiating with language service providers. Regardless of the length of time they have been working in the field. Interpreters frequently ask:

  • How do language service providers assign appointments?
  • What criteria do they use?
  • How are interpreter rates determined?
  • Can I negotiate my contract or request a higher rate?
  • Why do some providers require training and language assessments while others do not even ask for a résumé?
  • Can I work directly for a lawyer, healthcare provider, public institution, or private company?
  • What qualifications should I pursue?
  • What are other interpreters earning?
  • What does a sustainable career in this field actually look like?

These are all valid questions. Some have relatively straightforward answers. Others expose much larger issues within the interpreting sector.

If you don’t know what you don’t know, where do you start?

Community Interpreting in Canada

Community and public service interpreting remains largely unregulated in Canada, with little oversight. Requirements vary significantly among sectors, jurisdictions, institutions, and language service providers. There is no single, clearly visible pathway into the profession. Or through it.

As a result, interpreters are often left to assemble their own understanding of the field. Many work independently and have limited opportunities to connect with colleagues, compare experiences, learn how the broader system operates, or identify reliable professional practices.

This creates more than an information gap. It affects how interpreters make decisions about training, contracts, rates, professional boundaries, specialization, and career development. But, it is important to note, that interpreters can begin building stronger professional pathways at any stage of their careers.

Below are some of the most common mistakes that I have seen interpreters make.

  1. Mistaking loyalty for exclusivity

Most community interpreters work as independent contractors. Unless a contract specifically states otherwise, working with one language service provider does not necessarily prevent an interpreter from working with others.

Yet many interpreters remain dependent on a single provider without fully considering the implications. This can limit access to assignments, sectors, experience, and income, leaving the interpreter particularly vulnerable when demand changes.

Professional relationships matter, but loyalty does not have to mean exclusivity. Interpreters can maintain their contractual obligations, provide consistently high-quality service, and still develop relationships with multiple reputable organizations.

The important questions are: Does the organization have fair and transparent practices? Does it respect the interpreter’s role? Are its expectations consistent with professional standards? And does the relationship support the direction in which the interpreter wants to grow?

  1. Believing that compassion and business do not mix

Interpreters may be motivated by compassion and a commitment to language access, but they are still skilled professionals whose work should be properly valued and compensated.

It is possible to care deeply about language access, equity, and the people who depend on interpreting services while also paying attention to contracts, working conditions, expenses, payment terms, and rates.

In fact, professional boundaries support both.

When interpreters understand their role, communicate their conditions clearly, and approach negotiations as businesspeople providing a skilled service, they contribute to a more sustainable profession. Compassion should inform the work; it should not be used to justify undervaluing it.

  1. Working without a professional direction

Many interpreters begin by accepting assignments as they arrive. That is understandable, particularly when someone is new to the field and trying to gain experience.

The difficulty arises when reacting to the next available assignment becomes the long-term career strategy.

A professional pathway requires more deliberate questions:

  • What settings do I want to work in?
  • What knowledge and competencies will those settings require?
  • What additional education or assessment should I pursue?
  • Which organizations align with my professional standards?
  • What kind of work do I want to be doing two or five years from now?
  • What practical steps will move me in that direction?

Experience matters, but experience alone does not automatically create a career pathway. Interpreters also need access to information, education, professional networks, and a clearer understanding of the system in which they work.

We explore many of these questions in our courses, encouraging interpreters to research the organizations, requirements, rates, and opportunities that shape their work. Yet this exercise consistently exposes a larger problem: much of the information interpreters need is difficult, if not impossible, to find.

These may appear to be individual questions, but they are also system questions. Certainly, interpreters can take greater ownership of those aspects of their professional lives they can control. They can conduct research, pursue further training, strengthen their negotiating skills, and plan their careers more deliberately.

But individual effort can only go so far when the field itself lacks transparency, or when faced with challenges created by an unregulated system.

When qualifications are inconsistent, procurement decisions are difficult to see, rates are determined without transparency, and the interpreter’s role is poorly understood. Uncertainty is not simply a personal failure to “figure it out.” It is evidence of a broader coordination problem.

The Interpreter’s Lab was created in response to this need: to provide a place where interpreters can learn, connect, ask questions, and better understand both the work and the field surrounding it.

Because interpreters deserve more than a collection of assignments. They deserve access to the knowledge required to navigate their profession, and a system coherent enough that the people working within it can actually see where they are going.

This connects directly to the questions I have been exploring in my System, What System? series. Canada relies on interpreters across healthcare, justice, immigration, education, social services, and many other public institutions. Yet the people performing this essential work often have no clear way to understand how those pieces connect, or where they themselves fit within them.

Bad actors and low-threshold hiring practices make that problem worse. They reduce interpreting to the ability to speak two languages; obscuring the knowledge, judgment, ethics, preparation, and complex human communication the work actually requires.

But with access to clearer information and the right support, interpreters can make more deliberate professional decisions.

You do not have to navigate the field alone

Greater transparency across the interpreting field will require broader, systemic change. But interpreters can still take meaningful steps now, and support is available.

At The Interpreter’s Lab, we help interpreters better understand the profession, strengthen their skills and professional judgment, explore areas of specialization, and make more informed decisions about their development and careers. Through standards-based training, continuing professional development, practical resources, and opportunities to connect with others in the field, we are working to make the professional landscape more visible and easier to navigate.

Whether you are new to interpreting, have worked in the field for many years, or are trying to determine your next professional step, you do not have to figure it all out on your own.

Explore TIL training and professional development opportunities: www.interpreterslab.org 

Making more of the field visible

Our developing resource, A Field Guide for Interpreters in Canada: Navigating the Work, Business and Profession (estimated publication date January 2027), grows from this same purpose. It will not solve every structural problem or provide a single answer that applies to every interpreter, language, region, or sector. The field is too varied for that.

What it can do is make more of the landscape visible. It can help interpreters understand how work is organized, what questions to ask, how to assess opportunities, and how to make more informed decisions about their professional development and careers.

Interpreters are critical and essential links, not only facilitating communication, access, and language justice, but also sustaining the cultural and linguistic diversity that strong communities need.

They deserve access to the information, education, professional networks, and support needed to understand the field, navigate it with confidence, and build sustainable careers within it. Making the profession more visible will not resolve every systemic challenge, but it can give interpreters greater knowledge, agency, and choice.

That is an important place to begin and work we can undertake together, because no interpreter should be expected to navigate the field alone.

Join TIL and become a part of a Community of Peers. 

 

 

The Real Game Remains Human-Centred – On Every Field of Play.

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AI and Interpreting

FIFA is giving us a very public example of something we are all trying to understand right now: technology can track the game, analyze the game, support decisions, and generate new ways of seeing what happened. But it does not play the game. The game is still played by the players.

At the highest levels of sport, technology is everywhere: data, analytics, video review, player tracking, semi-automated offside technology, and AI-supported match analysis. These tools are powerful, and they are changing how the game is assessed, prepared for, and understood. But they do not replace the players. The game itself remains human. The skill belongs to the players. At the most fundamental level, what matters most is still human: focus, discipline, timing, trust, judgment, communication, and the ability to respond to what is happening in the moment.

The real work, the real game, and the real commitment remain human-centred.

Mobilizing the Real Benefits of AI

Communication is the primary function of an interpreter. It is not just the words that matter, but the interactive, evolving, interpersonal engagement between human beings expressing intent, motivation, needs, questions, uncertainty, and meaning; and then receiving and processing all of that in real time.

Interpreting in community settings, healthcare, justice, financial assistance, education, and other public service spaces, is more than moving words across languages. It is about the connection that happens in these spaces, and the efficiency and effectiveness of that connection.

AI is changing the way we work. And that is a good thing. It can support communication, improve coordination, assist with preparation, and help organizations think differently about access. But it does not replace the human responsibility at the centre of the work. AI can support the work. It can analyze the work. It can represent the work. But it is not the work.

The Human Work of Interpreting is Not Pattern Matching.

Interpreting is not simply the transfer of words. It requires judgment, ethics, context, cultural understanding, professional boundaries, and real people making real decisions in moments that matter. It is a form of intelligence that AI has not yet replicated.

AI functions through pattern recognition; interpreting requires thinking. It is a cognitive process that involves analyzing information, intention, context, meaning, and content in real time. Interpreting is not pattern-matching. It is human judgment in motion.

As Sangeet Paul Choudary writes in Reshuffle, AI’s “approach to reasoning, by predicting the next likely word from countless possibilities, is nothing like how humans use language” [1].

AI does not think in the human sense. It processes language by recognizing patterns, structures, and probabilities in large bodies of text. What makes contemporary AI powerful is not human understanding, but its ability to filter, rank, and foreground certain information as most relevant in each context. In that sense, AI does not simply respond to us; it also shapes what is brought forward for our attention. This is why human judgment remains essential: people must still ask what has been emphasized, what has been left out, and whether the response reflects meaning, intention, context, and consequence [2].

Interpreters Think. Think About That.

As we watch players perform with extraordinary focus and commitment, we are reminded that excellence is never only technical. It is human. The AI-generated replays on the screen are useful, but they are still only a representation of the game. They are not the game itself.

At The Interpreter’s Lab, we continue to believe in using new tools wisely, while keeping people at the centre of this very important work.

AI-assisted, yes.

Human-centred, always.
___________________________

[1] Sangeet Paul Choudary, Reshuffle: Who Wins When AI Restacks the Knowledge Economy (2025). p. 13

[2] Sangeet Paul Choudary, Reshuffle: Who Wins When AI Restacks the Knowledge Economy (2025)

Reference

Choudary, Sangeet Paul. Reshuffle: Who Wins When AI Restacks the Knowledge Economy. Sangeet Paul Choudary, 2025.

NOTE: Image generated with Gemini AI. This is a conceptual illustration and does not depict any real person or athlete.

Interpreter Training Programs in Canada: From First Word to Full Career

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A Learning Home Base for Interpreters at Every Stage of Their Career

Interpreting is not a skill you learn once and carry forever. It’s a practice. It deepens with every encounter, every setting, every challenge that asks more of you than the last one did.

The question isn’t whether to keep growing. It’s where. 

The reality is that most interpreters are left to navigate this on their own. Entry into the field often comes through a single course, a short training, or no formal preparation at all, and from there the expectation is that experience will somehow close the gaps. Yet the system has not been designed to support that kind of progression. It remains fragmented, inconsistent, and often disconnected from what interpreters need once they are already working.

We built our programs around a simple belief: interpreters deserve a learning home, not a scattered collection of one-off courses, but a place where every stage of your professional journey has somewhere to go. That’s why we chose the name, The Interpreter’s Lab; to signal a constant learning and experimentation – a place where we can all connect, share and learn together.

Interpreters are at different stages in their learning and practice journey, and that looks different for everyone.

Start Your Career Here

If you’re just beginning, our foundational skills program, Interpreting in Community Settings, gives you the skills, the knowledge, the cohort, and the confidence to step into real work. Live classes, self-directed study components, practice with peers, student manuals and glossaries you’ll return to repeatedly, and a Certificate of Successful Completion that speaks to your qualifications and what you’ve earned. And that is recognized nation-wide. 

DISCOVER THE FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS TRAINING PROGRAM TO GET YOU STARTED

Advanced Interpreter Training: Medical, Mental Health, and Court Interpreting Settings

If you’re ready to specialize, our advanced training programs take you deeper into the settings that matter most: healthcare and medical interpreting, mental health and complex care, legal and court. These are intensive, short-course programs, serious, immersive learning for interpreters who want to build real skill and deliver with confidence.

DISCOVER ADVANCED PROGRAMS IN SPECIALIZED SETTINGS

A 360 wrap-around organization for interpreters who take their craft seriously.

If you want to sharpen a specific skill, right now, and efficiently, our intensive workshops are designed for exactly that. Workshops on medical terminology OR simultaneous interpreting. Targeted, practical, and immediately applicable.

Each year, we bring a different focus, or revisit what matters most, based on what you, the interpreter, need.

FOR A FULL LISTING OF UPCOMING SESSIONS, PROGRAMS AND WORKSHOPS – CHECKOUT OUR CALENDAR

Everything You Need to Grow as an Interpreter — In One Place

And if, between programs, you want to continue learning and advancing your skills and career, our professional development focussed Membership Program is a 360 wrap-around:

  • monthly speakers
  • subject-matter experts
  • significant discounts on all advanced courses
  • quarterly drop-in sessions
  • masterclass access
  • exam prep support
  • an exclusive community of peers

Everything that a freelance professional needs to build and grow their practice.

DISCOVER MEMBERSHIP AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AT TIL

The Interpreter’s Lab also offers coaching, mentorship and language and skills assessments; the full arc of professional development, not just the beginning of it.

We think about this often: what does an interpreter actually need to become the professional they’re capable of being? Not just training, but continuity. Not just knowledge, but community. Not just a credential, but a career.

That’s what we’re building here. We have a place for you, wherever you are in your journey.

See you at The Lab!

The Interpreter’s Path: How to Enter One of Canada’s Most Essential Profession

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Interpreting is everywhere. You encounter interpreters in hospitals, courtrooms, community centres, schools, at the insurance office, during financial aid meetings, or in child welfare visits, and even at the negotiating table when organizations or communities need to find common ground across a language divide. And yet, despite its reach and its stakes, the profession remains poorly understood by most people, including many who are drawn to it.

At The Interpreters Lab, we hear the same question regularly: How does someone actually become an interpreter? It is one of the most searched and least clearly answered questions in the field. The pathway is not as linear as medicine or law, and there is no single credentialing body that defines it universally. That ambiguity can be discouraging, but it shouldn’t be. The path exists. It is well-established, and for the right person, it is deeply rewarding.

This is where it starts.

Language Proficiency: The Non-Negotiable Foundation

Every conversation about interpreter training must begin here, because there is no version of this profession that does not require it. Genuine, high-level proficiency in at least two languages is not a preferred qualification, it is a baseline requirement. And it is worth being precise about what proficiency means in this context.

The interpreter is not a translator working quietly at a desk with time to consult a dictionary. The interpreter operates in real time, in live environments, often under significant pressure. They must receive meaning in one language and render it accurately, completely, and fluently in another, in consecutive or simultaneous mode and within moments. That demands more than academic knowledge of a language. It demands the kind of fluency that is intuitive, flexible, and responsive to register, dialect, emotional tone, and context.

If you are bilingual and considering this career, ask yourself honestly: in both of your languages, can you follow rapid, idiomatic speech without effort? Can you express complex ideas with precision? Can you shift register fluidly, from formal to colloquial; from clinical to conversational; without losing accuracy? These are the standards the profession demands. This is what training teaches you.

The Personal Qualities That Drive the Work

Language proficiency is necessary, but it is not all. This is where many aspiring interpreters are surprised.

The weight of that responsibility is real. For the professionals who carry it well, it is also the most compelling reason they chose the field.

The qualities that distinguish a skilled interpreter are not only linguistic. They are fundamentally human. A genuine interest in people, in their circumstances, their communication styles, their cultural frameworks, is not a nice-to-have. It shapes how an interpreter shows up in a room. So does intellectual curiosity, a comfort with uncertainty, and the capacity to remain composed and focused in environments that are often emotionally charged or logistically demanding.

Interpreters in community or public services often work in settings defined as complicated and complex. They encounter people at their most vulnerable, their most adversarial, and their most exposed. The professionals who thrive in this work tend to share a particular disposition: they are drawn to the challenge rather than deterred by it.

Not sure whether you have the profile? Our assessment was designed to help you find out. Take the Do You Have What It Takes Assessment

Foundational Training: Where the Talent Meets Competence

The assumption that bilingualism alone qualifies someone to interpret professionally is one of the most persistent and consequential misconceptions in the field. Foundational training is not supplementary. It is essential. It is where interpreting as a discipline is actually learned.

Structured training – such as The Interpreter’s Lab Interpreting in Community Settings course – introduces the core modes of interpreting:

  • consecutive interpreting, in which the interpreter renders a complete utterance after the speaker pauses
  • simultaneous interpreting, in which the interpreter works in real time, with almost no delay
  • sight translation, in which the interpreter reads from a document in one language and translates it into another – using either spoken or signed.

Each mode requires distinct skills and significant practice to execute well. Training also covers:

  • note-taking methodology
  • memory retention techniques
  • research skills
  • ethics
  • cognitive strategies (necessary to manage the considerable mental load of live interpreting)

Equally important is the professional formation that takes place in a rigorous training environment:

  • understanding the interpreter’s role and its limits
  • developing the discipline of impartiality
  • learning to navigate the ethical dimensions of the work (before encountering them in the field)

But in Canada, these pathways are limited in both availability and relevance. Where they do exist, they are often tied to official languages and follow highly structured academic routes. For many of the languages used in community settings, these pathways are not only unavailable, they often don’t align with the realities of the work.

Canada’s linguistic landscape tells a different story. According to the 2021 Census, the most common mother tongues other than English or French include Mandarin, Punjabi, Cantonese, and Spanish. Beyond these, more than 100,000 people each speak Arabic, Tagalog, Persian/Farsi, Urdu, Russian, and Korean at home.

Punjabi, Mandarin and Arabic Languages in Demand

The demand for community interpreters in languages such as Punjabi, Mandarin, Arabic, Tagalog, Hindi, Urdu, and Farsi is not only substantial, it is actively growing. And importantly, this demand is not uniform across the country. Regional variation matters. In British Columbia, Mandarin and Punjabi are among the most commonly spoken languages; in Ontario, Punjabi and Arabic are prominent; and in Quebec, Arabic is the most common immigrant language.

In other words, the need for interpreting spans a wide and evolving range of languages, shaped by local realities. Yet the training pathways have not kept pace. What exists on paper does not always reflect what is needed in practice.

For most languages outside of signed languages and Canada’s official languages, formal educational pathways are limited. Where they do exist, they are often found in private training models or smaller, practice-based programs rather than within traditional academic institutions.

That said, pathways into foundational training do exist. These may include university programs in conference interpreting or translation studies, community and healthcare interpreter certification programs, and specialized training institutes. The appropriate pathway depends on the individual’s goals, prior education, and the settings in which they intend to work.

This gap between practice and formal pathways was a key impetus behind the development of ISO/TS 6253, an international standard designed to address training in community interpreting where traditional models fall short.

ISO TS 6253:2024

Specialization: Medical Interpreting and Court Interpreting

For many interpreters, foundational training is followed by specialization, and it is here that a critical distinction must be made. Specialization in interpreting is widely understood to mean subject-matter knowledge. Medical interpreters know medical terminology. Legal interpreters know legal terminology. This is accurate, but it is a significant understatement of what specialization actually requires.

To work credibly in a medical setting, an interpreter must understand more than vocabulary. They must understand the structure and hierarchy of a clinical environment, the dynamics of a patient-provider relationship, the ethical and legal framework governing patient confidentiality, working with multidisciplinary teams, and the weight of conversations about diagnosis, prognosis, and consent. They must know how to interpret these conversations not only accurately but appropriately, with an understanding of what is at stake for every person in the room.

The same depth applies in legal, mental health, educational, and other specialized contexts. In each setting, the interpreter is not simply a language conduit. They are a professional whose presence carries institutional weight. That credibility is not automatic. It is built through preparation, experience, and a sustained commitment to understanding the environments in which the work takes place.

The Professional Responsibility That Defines the Role

Interpreting is, at its core, a profession of consequence. A commitment to professionalism, including strict adherence to and understanding of completeness, fidelity to the message and accuracy can determine whether a patient receives the correct treatment, whether a defendant understands the charges they face, or whether a negotiation succeeds or fails. This is not the work of a background function. It is the work of a trained, accountable professional operating at the intersection of language, culture, and daily demands.

The weight of that responsibility is real. For the professionals who carry it well, it is also the most compelling reason they chose the field.

If you are considering this path, as a first career, a second, or a natural evolution of your language skills, the question is not whether the profession is demanding. It is whether the demand is something you are prepared to meet.

Begin by finding out where you stand. The Interpreters Lab  Take the Do You Have What It Takes? Assessment

 

Sources for statistical information courtesy of Statistics Canada:

https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-314-x/98-314-x2011003_2-eng.cfm

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/departmental-plans/departmental-plan-2024-2025/departmental-plan-2024-2025-full.html

 

Language is the door, not the destination.

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Those of us who work in interpreting, whether we call it a field, a profession, or an industry, arrive here via many different pathways.

In my observation, there are two common paths. Some come through language itself. They begin as translators, interpreters, linguists—people drawn to words, to structure, and to meaning, often working within or alongside language service providers and others in the language industry. Others, like me, come through equity, access, and inclusion: through community engagement, through policy work, and through building systems that respond more fairly and more intelligently to diverse communities.

Language was my starting point, but it was also my turning point.

For many years, my work focused on systemic change, strengthening policies, improving community engagement practices, and supporting institutions to better include those who were often left at the margins. I was concerned with participation: who is at the table, who is not, and why. I spent years examining how institutions respond to communities, how policies unintentionally exclude, and how good intentions often fail in practice.

Again and again, language surfaced as a primary barrier, one that could be addressed, and often was. Sometimes this was done in thoughtful, comprehensive ways; other times through ad-hoc, temporary solutions. Regardless of the approach, language services were often where the conversation stopped. The deed done. The issue considered addressed.

To me, language is a critical tipping point: language is the threshold. It is the first step into the room. It creates the possibility of connection, but it does not guarantee it.

What happens beyond that threshold is where the real work begins. Inclusion is not achieved simply because two people technically understand each other’s words.

That is why the conversation cannot focus only on those accessing a service. It must also include those providing it, those designing the systems, and those responsible for engagement, risk management, client safety, compliance with legislation and policy, and organizational effectiveness. They are as much part of the equation as individuals who do not communicate in the dominant language. Communication is relational. It affects everyone in the room.

Years ago, volunteering on a UNICEF project in Ecuador, I began to see how fragile communication can be when it depends on whoever happens to speak both languages in the moment. When I was back in Canada and working in healthcare environments, I witnessed situations that unsettled me. Bilingual individuals were asked to step into complex, emotionally charged encounters without preparation, without a framework, and without clarity about their role. The assumption was straightforward: if you speak the language, you can interpret.

Interpreting is structured meaning-making within human systems. It is a critical element in a multilingual, multicultural community.

Filling a Much Felt Gap: Interpreter Training

The Interpreter’s Lab did not emerge from a business plan. It emerged from recognizing a gap between what systems required and how we were preparing people to meet those demands. I was not interested in producing more bilingual helpers. I was interested in strengthening professional practice, building education that respected the complexity of the work and helping institutions understand that language access is not an optional courtesy. It is part of operational integrity.

Over time, I have come to see interpreting as one of the most underestimated professions within public service systems. Interpreters stand at critical intersections, in courtrooms, clinics, classrooms, and social service offices, supporting conversations that shape decisions about health, legal status, education, and family life. And yet the profession is still too often framed as an extension of bilingualism rather than as a discipline in its own right.

Perhaps that is because many of us arrived here indirectly, some through language itself, others through equity and access work, and many through lived experience.

Wherever we entered, many of us arrived at the same realization: communication across languages is neither simple nor neutral. It is shaped by power, context, and training, or by the absence of training.

Language opens the door. What we build beyond that door, the standards, the competencies, the expectations, the accountability, determines whether inclusion is genuine or superficial.

The work we do at The Interpreter’s Lab and through our many initiatives continues to sit at that threshold, not only preparing interpreters through programs and curricula that advance the profession. but also asking how systems understand and support the work. Because if we value our own professional integrity, whether as clinicians, lawyers, educators, or policymakers, we must also value the integrity of the communication that underpins it.

Language gives us the opportunity to learn from and about one another.

What we choose to do with that opportunity is the real measure of systemic change.

Interpreter Training Is Not Content Delivery

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Workshops, Techniques and the Hard Truth About Interpreter Training

There are tips and techniques.

There are workshops, webinars, and quick fixes.

And then there is training.

These things are not the same. Treating them as interchangeable has quietly undermined the interpreting profession for years.

Workshops have value. They raise awareness, introduce ideas, and support interpreters who already have a foundation. But they do not replace training.

Training is structured, cumulative, and grounded in standards. It is what moves someone from being bilingual to being appropriately qualified. That distinction matters, whether people realize it or not, especially in situations where the consequences are real and the impacts are lasting.

The Work Behind the Words

One of the most persistent myths in our field is that interpreting is simply “helping out” with language; that if you speak two languages and care enough, a few workshops will prepare you.

This belief is usually rooted in goodwill. Communities want access. Organizations are under pressure. People step in because someone must. But good intentions do not equal professional competence.

When interpreting is reduced to the act of speaking two languages, the work is treated as a simple transaction: words in, words out. But that framing oversimplifies the complex process of communicating across languages, cultures, and people. Interpreting involves constant decision-making within complex human and institutional contexts.

Interpreting requires far more than bilingual ability; it includes, among other important things, ethical judgment, role clarity, session management, discourse and register control, memory, and research skills.

Those competencies don’t emerge accidentally. They are developed deliberately and progressively.

“Interpreting is not a transaction. It is a professional, decision-based practice.”

Learning About Interpreting vs. Learning to Be an Interpreter

This is where confusion often arises.

Workshops tend to focus on content:

  • What interpreters do
  • Common mistakes
  • Ethical scenarios
  • Practical tips

Training focuses on formation:

  • Exploring communication
  • Meaning and language
  • Professional identity
  • Scope of practice
  • Decision-making and critical thinking
  • Developing professional competencies and skills
  • Accountability to standards
  • Consistency across settings
  • Ethical awareness and dilemma resolution

A webinar can raise awareness. A workshop can spark insight. But neither prepares someone to interpret in public service settings such as social services, healthcare, law enforcement, or mental-health contexts, where the consequences are real.

“Training is not about shortcuts. It is about readiness.”

Where Asynchronous Learning Fits–and Where It Doesn’t

Asynchronous learning, self-paced learning that occurs without live, real-time interaction between instructors and learners, has a role in interpreter education. It can support foundational knowledge, introduce concepts, and allow learners to engage with theory, terminology, and ethical frameworks at their own pace.

What it cannot do, on its own, is develop skilled interpreting competence. Asynchronous learning can support training, but it cannot replace it.

Interpreting is a performative, decision-based practice. It requires real-time interaction, guided feedback, correction, and exposure to unpredictability. These elements cannot be meaningfully replicated through fully self-directed, asynchronous formats. Without structured interaction and feedback, learners may absorb information without developing judgment.

When asynchronous learning is positioned as a complete substitute for interpreter training, it creates the illusion of readiness without the conditions needed to develop it.

And while the growth of asynchronous and on-demand learning has made education more accessible, that accessibility is not the same as adequacy. When it comes to acquiring tangible interpreting competencies, asynchronous learning alone is not innovation. It is omission.

Why Standards Matter, Especially When No One Is Enforcing Them

In many jurisdictions, including Canada, interpreter training is uneven or unregulated. That vacuum allows almost anything to be labelled “training.”

This is precisely why standards matter. International frameworks such as ISO 13611:2024 Interpreting services — Community interpreting — Requirements and recommendations and ISO/TS 6253:2024 Requirements and recommendations for training programmes in community interpreting articulate what professional practice and interpreter education require: defined learning outcomes, qualified educators, structured programmes, assessment, and progression.

Even when training programs are short in duration, they are designed to build competence, not simply share tips and tricks. 

At The Interpreter’s Lab (TIL), our courses are built around these principles, not to be prescriptive, but to be responsible. Without standards, training becomes performative rather than transformative.

Real-World Training for a Real-World Landscape

Our courses may not be the longest, and that is intentional.

Our programmes are largely self-funded by participants, so accessibility matters. We design our courses to be focused and rigorous, without unnecessary length or cost. At the same time, we are responding to urgent workforce needs and systems that too often rely on “good enough” language support. Shorter does not mean lighter.

At a time when interpreter training programmes have been closing across Canada, we have remained relevant by staying current. Our programmes are intentionally designed to sit at the intersection of academia and industry; grounded in professional practice and informed by the real-world realities interpreters are navigating now, not an abstract or idealized version of the profession.

“Accessibility in education is important, but accessibility is not the same as adequacy.”

This includes engaging with current modes of practice, evolving technologies, and the practical skills interpreters need to sustain their work, such as finding assignments, negotiating contracts and fees, and adapting to new forms of service delivery.

Rather than treating these realities as peripheral, we embed them into training as part of professional formation, alongside ethical judgment, international standards, and reflective practice.

Our programmes are taught by experienced practitioners and educators who have spent years working in, advocating for, and shaping this field; they are designed to lay a strong professional foundation.

Training does not need to be endless to be rigorous. It needs to be coherent, intentional, and accountable; it must provide a solid foundation for ongoing professional development, guided by those who understand both the field and the work.

From “Bilingual Helper” to Professional Practitioner

Many bilingual individuals have been interpreting for years before encountering formal training. When they do, the realization can be uncomfortable: there is much more to this profession than they were ever told.

That moment is not failure. It is professional awakening. As the saying goes, you don’t know what you don’t know.

Proper training reframes the role. It moves interpreters away from instinct-driven decisions and blurred boundaries, and toward ethical clarity, professional confidence, and consistency.

Training Is a Beginning, Not a Badge

Completing a solid training programme does not make someone “finished.” It provides a foundation, one that supports specialization, mentorship, and continuing professional development.

That is how professions function.

Tips have their place. Workshops have value.

But training, real training, is what turns intention into competence.

And once that distinction is clear, it’s impossible to ignore.

References and Resources

ISO STANDARDS ISO 37/SC 5

ISO 13611:2024

ISO/TS 6253:2024

Claudio Fantinuoli:

  1. Panel: The Future of Interpreter Training: Challenges, AI, and the Path Forward https://www.claudiofantinuoli.org/2025/02/28/the-future-of-interpreter-training-challenges-ai-and-the-path-forward/
  2. What future for translation and interpreting training institutions? https://www.claudiofantinuoli.org/2025/01/25/what-future-for-translation-and-interpreting-training-institutions/

 

Deep Impacts: 2025 Highlights at The Interpreter’s Lab

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2025 was a year of deepening impact, strengthening training, advancing standards, and building stronger bridges between interpreters, institutions, and communities.

At TIL, we continue to advocate at all levels for the important contributions of interpreters and for recognition of interpreting as a specialized profession. The work that we do and the initiatives supported interpreters across spoken and signed languages nationwide. In 2025 over 150 new and practicing interpreters engaged in our training and continuing education programs. Building on current research and established best practices endorsed by international experts, TIL regularly strengthens its core curriculum and foundational ethical guidelines for interpreters.

Check out this Blog for More Information on How TIL Sets the Pace

Programs continued to align with Canadian and international standards while remaining grounded in real-world practice.

Learning & Professional Development (Membership Program)

Professional Development and Continuing Education

Interpreting in Law Enforcement – Working with the Police – Masterclass with Dr. Debra Russell (offered again in 2026)

  • 2 sessions for ASL interpreters
  • 1 session for spoken-language interpreters

Four cohorts of Interpreting in Community Settings – A Foundational Program

Interpreting in Legal & Court Settings

  • 1 cohort for spoken-language interpreters
  • 1 cohort for ASL–English interpreters, adapted from our long-standing spoken-language curriculum to meet the specific requirements of ASL–English interpreting.

Program & Curriculum Development

  • Implemented ISO/TS 6253:2024 across programs, supported by a successful full internal audit.

Updated course content across programs, including:

  • Revised Ethical Guidelines for Interpreters in Community Settings
  • Updated competency frameworks and assessment measures
  • Engaged a new instructor with expertise in training for interpreting in Indigenous languages 

Partnerships & Customized Training

  • Designed and delivered a customized training program for the Family Support Institute of BC (Resource Parent / Peer Programs)
  • Welcomed new partner agencies into our organizational training programs
  • Strengthened collaboration with professional membership organizations in Canada and internationally

Sector Leadership & Standards

Continued service as:

  • Board Member and Chair, Interpreting Committee – Canadian Language Industry Association (CLIA)
  • Certified Member, Women Business Enterprises (WBE)
  • Presentation to Canadian Translators, Terminologist and Interpreters Council Board at their annual AGM on ISO TC 37/SC 5 projects and standards
  • Ongoing leadership in the rollout and implementation of international standards in interpreter education
  • Initiated the BC Working Group on Interpreting Services, in collaboration with the Provincial Language Service (PHSA BC), a cross-sectoral initiative exploring system-level improvements to access and information on qualified language services.

Presentations & Advocacy

  • Speech-Hearing BC: Enhancing Speech-Language Pathology Practices: Strategies for Effective Collaboration with Interpreters
  • Health Standards Organization (HSO): Language Access as the Tipping Point for Equity and Inclusion
  • PSIT Networking Group – UK – London Metropolitan University (June 13); The Canadian Experience in Public Service Interpreting
  • Met with Minister Niki Sharma, BC Attorney General, to discuss language access, interpreting, procurement practices, and ISO standards.

Media & Knowledge Sharing

Excellence as Standard Practice

2025 was an exceptional year for The Interpreter’s Lab, marked by meaningful growth, collaboration, and impact. As always, we continue to evolve our programs, strengthen standards-aligned training, and respond to emerging needs in the field.

This progress is only possible through the trust and engagement of our members, partners, and collaborators. We look forward to building on this momentum together in 2026.

responsive by design

Interpreter Training That Keeps Pace

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At The Interpreter’s Lab – Centre for Interpreter Education and Training (TIL), our programs are regularly reviewed and updated to reflect evolving professional standards, practitioner experience, and the realities of public-service interpreting. Continuous improvement is not an add-on, it is part of how we design, deliver, and assess training.

What’s NEW for 2026

  • Updated ethical guidelines, standards of practice, and competency frameworks, aligned with current international standards
  • Improved navigation to help participants move more easily through course content
  • Enhanced learning resources to support applied practice
  • Course content updated to ensure alignment with current standards, clearer competency expectations, and consistent assessment of learning outcomes.

Professional Standards

Professional standards are not static. ISO standards, for example, are developed by international experts and are periodically reviewed and revised to remain relevant as professional contexts, technologies, and expectations evolve. As a long-standing member of ISO TC 37/SC 5 (since 2010) and the Project Leader for ISO/TS 6253:2024 – Requirements and Recommendations for Training Programmes in Community Interpreting, TIL’s Founder and Director, Angela Sasso, is very familiar with the components required to prepare bilingual individuals to work competently as interpreters in public-service settings.

This expertise, combined with the exceptional experience of our instructional team, all practicing interpreters, translators and educators, underpins TIL’s approach. Ethical decision-making, standards of practice, and clearly defined competencies form the foundation of our course design, and recent updates to international guidance are reflected throughout our curriculum.

Our programs follow the newest international standard, ISO TS 6253:2024, which sets the requirements and recommendations for interpreter training in community settings. We are also active across Canada in training interpreters, working with organizations, and supporting educators.

Because there is no outside accreditation body for this standard, we created our own careful review process. This process is based on our long history with standards work since 2010 and more than 30 years of experience in the interpreting field.

Assessment and Certification

All TIL courses conclude with a final exam to assess learning outcomes. Assessment is an essential part of ensuring that participants have not only attended but have met the learning objectives. To be awarded a Certificate of Successful Completion, participants must:

  • Achieve a minimum 75% passing grade on the final exam
  • Attend live, instructor-led sessions
  • Complete all online modules and assignments

Participants who complete the live sessions but do not meet all assessment requirements may instead receive a Confirmation of Attendance, verifying their participation.

Investing in credible, standards-based training is not about adding barriers; it is about building a more reliable, sustainable interpreting workforce that organizations and consumers can confidently rely on.

Balancing Access and Professional Expectations

At TIL, we work deliberately to balance accessible learning with professional rigour. This balance is not always simple, but it is essential if training is to be both inclusive and credible for the organizations and communities interpreters serve.

Our programs are designed to be accessible at the outset, with flexibility to expand into more in-depth, customized learning over time when organizational or workforce needs call for it.

Looking Ahead to 2026 and Beyond

In 2025, we also delivered advanced training in legal and court settings for ASL–English interpreters in British Columbia. Building on that work, this program will be offered nationally in 2026, further strengthening specialized training pathways across Canada.

What This Means for Agencies and Organizations

For agencies and organizations responsible for procuring, managing, and assuring the quality of interpreting services, training is not simply a credential, it is a risk-management and workforce-development tool.

Standards-aligned training helps ensure that interpreters understand and apply ethical decision-making, professional boundaries, role clarity, and sector-specific protocols consistently across assignments. This reduces variability in service delivery, supports compliance with institutional policies, and strengthens confidence among service users, staff, and funders.

TIL’s approach supports quality assurance by:

  • Delivering training through a live, instructor-led and blended format, and never fully asynchronous learning4 quadrants of excellence
  • Embedding clearly defined competencies and ethical frameworks into all training
  • Assessing learning outcomes through formal evaluation, not attendance alone
  • Providing transparent distinctions between completion, assessment, and participation

From a procurement and contracting perspective, standardized training benchmarks make it easier to articulate expectations, compare qualifications, and demonstrate due diligence when responding to audits, complaints, or funding requirements.

From a workforce-development standpoint, structured training pathways support interpreter retention, professional growth, and readiness for increasingly complex public-service environments. Agencies benefit from interpreters who are better prepared, more consistent in practice, and clearer about professional limits, reducing downstream issues and supervisory burden.

In short, investing in credible, standards-based training is not about adding barriers; it is about building a more reliable, sustainable interpreting workforce that organizations and consumers can confidently rely on.

  • If you are interested in receiving a copy of our updated Code of Conduct or Competencies Framework, please contact us at admin@interpreterslab.org

Advancing the Field: A Milestone in Court and Legal Interpreting for ASL-English Interpreters

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We’re proud and delighted to share that The Interpreter’s Lab – Centre for Interpreter Education and Training has just completed the first-ever Interpreting in Legal and Court Settings: ASL–English Advanced Program, led by the exceptional Dr. Debra Russell. With over 20 ASL-English interpreters participating, this inaugural cohort marks a groundbreaking moment for interpreter education in BC and across Canada.

Advanced Training for ASL-English Interpreters in Court Settings

This program is more than another course, it represents the first coordinated, advanced training for interpreters in legal and court settings, built specifically for ASL-English interpreters and grounded in Canadian practice, standards, and legal frameworks. And it reflects something essential about how we work at The Interpreter’s Lab: when interpreters and our partners identify a gap, we respond, quickly, collaboratively, and with purpose.

After listening to ASL-English interpreters across BC describe the persistent gap in legal-interpreting training, we adapted our well-established spoken-language legal interpreter training framework and rebuilt it specifically for ASL-English interpreters. This required re-sequencing modules, reworking assignment design, and ensuring that the competencies, protocols, and ethical considerations unique to ASL–English court work were meaningfully integrated. And we did so in a relatively short time, ensuring that interpreters could access the training they needed without waiting years for a program to be developed.

Coordinated, advanced training for interpreters in legal and court settings, built specifically for ASL interpreters and grounded in Canadian practice, standards, and legal frameworks.

Under Dr. Russell’s leadership, participants engaged in rigorous, research-informed learning: case analyses, applied skill-development, explorations of courtroom dynamics, and considerations and protocols for team/co-interpreting practices. The energy, thoughtfulness, and commitment from this cohort made it clear just how needed, and overdue, this type of training truly is.

Best Practices, International Standards (ISO) and the Canadian Justice System

This program was also deliberately grounded in international standards and evidence-based research on interpreter education. Drawing on the ISO framework for interpreter training, particularly the standards developed under ISO TC 37/SC 5 and decades of scholarship on legal interpreting, assessment, and professional competencies, we ensured the curriculum aligned with recognized best practices.

Everything from sequencing to assignment design, to skill development was informed by research and premised on the Canadian Law and Justice system. This alignment with standards and evidence-based pedagogy is central to how we design our programs and reinforces our commitment to delivering training that reflects the realities and responsibilities of legal interpreting today.

“At The Interpreter’s Lab, our mission is to deliver accessible, responsive, and standards-based training”

We extend our sincere gratitude to all participants, and to Dr. Russell for her leadership, expertise, and generosity in shaping this pioneering program.

More Training Opportunities to Come in 2026

This inaugural cohort centred ASL–English interpreters; however, we acknowledge the important contributions of Deaf interpreters in legal settings and plan to explore future training options that support and reflect their role in this work. The timeline for this first delivery made it necessary to proceed with the established structure; however, The Interpreter’s Lab is fully prepared to adapt the program for a second offering that reflects the needs of all sign language interpreters.

“The information and the opportunity to have Dr Russell guide our learning was incredible, and I do feel as though it was a great professional development opportunity.”

As we continue investing in sector-specific ASL-English interpreter education, this first-of-its-kind program sets a new benchmark, and it’s only the beginning. More advanced training opportunities for signed-language interpreters are coming in 2026.

 

AI and Interpreting: What You Need to Know

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This year at The Interpreter’s Lab, we’ve been digging deeper into AI, just as many others in the interpreting field have.

Interpreting in community and public service settings, whether in education, healthcare, or law enforcement, is uniquely complex. It’s not only about managing dynamic, interpersonal communication but also about working across many languages and navigating truly localized knowledge. Accuracy matters profoundly when people’s health, safety, or liberty are on the line. That means community interpreters must approach AI with caution.

Still, when used wisely, these tools can serve a valuable purpose.

“AI is not here to replace interpreters – and won’t be for the foreseeable future.”

From note-taking apps to terminology management, there are countless AI tools that can support interpreters before and after assignments. But when it comes to community interpreting, things get more complicated. Unlike conference interpreters who may work with teams, booths, and on-site technology support, community interpreters often work alone. They are expected to respond in the moment with critical decision-making skills rooted in professional confidence and ethical understanding. Confidentiality and client privacy are central, meaning that pulling out a phone or laptop mid-session to run an AI tool usually isn’t an option.

This doesn’t mean AI is off the table. As we learned recently at the August session of The Interpreter’s Lab Speakers Series Professional Development with Evelyn Cervantes, there are creative and ethical ways to bring AI into your professional toolkit.

Practical Ways Interpreters Working in Community and Public Sector Services Can Use AI

  1. Pre-Session Preparation
    AI tools can help interpreters research terminology, generate practice scenarios, or organize glossaries before an assignment. Some tools even allow you to upload documents or background material (with privacy considerations in mind) to get a clear sense of key concepts.
  2. Post-Session Reflection
    After assignments, AI can support with debriefing and self-study. Summarization tools, for instance, can help you review notes and identify areas where additional terminology practice is needed. As any good interpreter knows, a reflective practice is a professional practice.
  3. Practice Management
    No matter how powerful the tool, the responsibility for managing and organizing your practice remains yours. AI can generate resources, but it won’t tell you how to structure your files, prioritize your workload, or balance your commitments. That’s where your professional judgment comes in.

What to Watch Out For:
AI isn’t perfect, and interpreters need to approach it critically:

  • Accuracy and Reliability: Just because AI provides a reference doesn’t mean it’s correct, or even real. Always verify.
  • Privacy Concerns: Free versions of tools may not protect your data. Be cautious about uploading sensitive materials, especially anything linked to client information.
  • Free vs. Paid Subscriptions: Paid tools often provide better security, features, and accuracy. But even then, due diligence is essential.

Why This Matters
AI is not here to replace interpreters – and won’t be for the foreseeable future.  Instead, it can complement our skills and make us more efficient, better prepared, and more reflective practitioners, if used wisely. In community interpreting, where confidentiality, ethics, and quick thinking are paramount, the key is knowing when and how to integrate these tools without compromising professional standards.

As AI continues to evolve, so too will the conversations about how interpreters can, and should, engage with it. At The Interpreter’s Lab, we believe that staying informed and critically reflective is part of what makes a strong professional community. That’s why our monthly Pro-D sessions don’t just introduce tools, but also create space to explore the ethical, practical, and real-world implications for community interpreters – technology is only as useful as the ethical framework we bring to it.

AI isn’t a replacement for professional skill, judgment, or standards, but it can be a supportive ally when approached wisely. We invite you to join us as we continue to explore these questions together.

Not yet a member of The Interpreter’s Lab?

Join today to access our monthly Pro-D sessions, practical tools, and supportive community of interpreters. Learn more here