UH Interpreter Training Program Get Record Attendance

Participants working during the Summer Intensive Interpreter Training (SIIT). Photo courtesy of University of Hawai‘i.

The University of Hawai‘i Center for Interpretation & Translation Studies (CITS) is training a record number of participants in its biennial Summer Intensive Interpreter Training (SIIT) program this year.

Forty-one students from the U.S., Europe, Africa, South America and Asia are studying language interpretation in the six-week course. Students will hone their skills, learning from world-class teachers who have worked as interpreters themselves for organizations like the U.N. and E.U. The program includes concentrated instruction and practice in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and French language.

Translators are in continually high demand in today’s global society, according to a UH press release. CITS—which is part of the UH Mānoa College of Languages, Linguistics & Literature—consists of highly skilled faculty in addition to a large network of experts who contribute to the program’s curriculum and knowledge base. CITS Director Lucia Aranda, a professor of Spanish in the Department of Languages and Literatures of Europe and the Americas, has extensive experience in translation and interpretation.

“When I saw the quality of the people who will train us here, that convinced me that this is for real, this is serious,” said SIIT program participant Andrés Espinal of Columbia.

The SIIT program runs from July 3 to Aug. 11, 2017.