Woman Starts Niche Translation Business For Immigrants Who Are Actually Speaking English
After years of translating for her immigrant father from Mexico, 20 year old Juana Fernandez has founded a niche translation business that caters to immigrants who are, in fact, speaking English.
Fernandez has been honing her translation skills ever since she can recall. “I remember being a little kid at the supermarket watching my dad ask a stock boy where the ‘chrimps’ were over and over again until the boy looked at me and I said, ‘shrimp.’ I felt like I decoded the Rosetta Stone,” says Fernandez.
Realizing her natural talent of translating immigrant English to native English speakers, Fernandez set forth to start her own business. Her skill is based in the surgical precision with which she discerns linguistic puzzles, such as, “parque” as park (not like the flooring), “disco” as nightclub (not like the 70s dance), and “screwdriver” as an undiscerned tool, as in, “Hand me that screwdriver, no, not that thing, the other thing.”
In one of her more impressive feats, Fernandez describes translating for her father at Taco Bell, tricky because, as someone who is a native Spanish speaker, the menu is pseudo-Mexican by nature. “Yeah, I really thought he had that one because it’s kind of Mexican, but it turns out my services were required to explain to the cashier that he wanted a dish that hadn’t been on the menu in years, the name of which he could not recall. It took some work, but we all celebrated when we realized he wanted an ‘enchirito.’ That was a tough one!,” says Fernandez.
Fernandez’s company does not only work with Latin immigrants, but people of all backgrounds. As Fernandez says, “My co-worker’s from Laos and usually just describes things to people until they get what she’s saying. I listened to her describe ‘that one dog with the eye’ to another co-worker for 15 minutes before I jumped in to explain that she was referring to the dog from the Target ads.”
As of now, Fernandez’s business does not do reverse translation as she still doesn’t understand when her neighbor says, “You know, that Mexican drink, Ay-toll (Atole, pronounced Ah-tol-ay).”
