How to Earn Your Interpreter Certification

Are you on the path toward interpreter certification or taking the first steps to becoming a certified interpreter?

Follow our guide that walks you through the process of earning your professional interpreter certification. Our post covers topics ranging from choosing your specialization to understanding the benefits of certification, so let’s explore how you can turn your language skills into a professional credential.

Translation Certification vs. Interpreter Certification

How do you know if you are better off focusing on translation or interpretation? Ask yourself this one question: are you more interested in working with written or spoken languages? Translators work with written documents, while interpreters help bridge language barriers in real-time situations (think meetings, live events, and more). Either focus may lead to careers in the public, private, or nonprofit sectors. The U.S. federal government is a leading employer of linguists, as translators and interpreters are termed in the sectors of law enforcement, intelligence, and diplomacy.

Both require a strong understanding of two languages and cultures and help facilitate clear communication between parties. If you are interested in learning more about becoming a certified translator, we have a detailed post outlining that process as well.

What It Means to Have a Language Interpreter Certification

Becoming a certified interpreter signals to others in the field, and to potential clients, that you are knowledgeable about bridging communication barriers and mediating across cultural differences. Other benefits that come with earning a professional interpreter certification include:

Illustrating competency – When you become a certified interpreter, you pass rigorous assessments and meet certain key requirements, ensuring that you have the skills and knowledge needed to interpret effectively.
Professional recognition – Obtaining your language interpreter certification enhances your credibility in the field and might make you a preferred choice over someone who does not have the same qualifications.
Quality assurance – When you have a language interpreter certification, you provide assurance to clients and your employer that you are a qualified and competent interpreter.

Two certifying bodies in the domain of healthcare interpreting, for example, are the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI) and The National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters (NBCMI). They ensure that practitioners understand the field’s ethics, standards of practice, and protocols. A common first start in the medical domain is Bridging the Gap training. Be sure any certifying credential you seek is legitimate; some will use language such as “qualified” but are not accredited or recognized industry-wide.

How to Earn Your Interpreter Certification: Our Step-by-Step Guide

Earn a High School Diploma or an Equivalent

While not universally mandated, some interpreter certifications require a high school diploma or GED. Additionally, you may need to be at least 18 years old.

Become Proficient in Your Target Language and Subject Area

Interpreter certification demands high-level proficiency, requiring at least near-native-level fluency in both working languages. These can be developed through education, cultural immersion, and practice with native speakers, including living in the target language country and continuing contact with the language in immersive environments, especially while using the language professionally.

A good indicator of proficiency is to take and pass proficiency tests in languages in which you want to interpret. Interpreters generally will need at least Advanced Mid oral proficiency on the ACTFL scale, or 3-5 (Professional Performance Level) on the Interagency Language Roundtable scale.

Kent State’s academic programs can help prepare you for interpreter certification courses. Translation (written language mediation) has many overlapping skills with interpreting, but it not alone a sufficient basis for an interpreting career. Education in a subject domain is also part of the interpreter’s core competencies, given that in addition to working with many language varieties, accents, and levels of speech complexity, interpreters must have a foundational understanding of the fields they interpret, including their organization, concepts, and cultures.

Complete Your Training

This is the part where your language interpreting skills will be put to the test. Students will enroll in interpreter certification courses, typically for 40 hours in length. Training is meant to be extensive, fostering interpreting skills, ethics, cultural competence, and specialized terminology. Interpreters today have to manage extensive technological options in both preparing for assignments and in real-time language lookups while on the job. Machine-aided language mediation can help ensure accuracy, but AI and other would-be replacements for human translation and interpreting are a poor and high-risk, even litigable, recourse.

Be sure to check requirements based on the state you are in, since some areas demand more time (for example, Oregon requires 60 hours of training for medical interpreters).

Determine Your Specialization

There are different requirements for each certification, and popular specializations include medical, legal, educational, business, and social interpretation. Each specialization may have different guidelines, and here are some resources for specific fields:

Prepare for Your Certification Exams

You will want to thoroughly study all terminology, ethics, and interpreting standards that correspond with your certification exam. It is also important to practice interpreting in all different modes, including consecutive, simultaneous, and sight translation.

Take and Pass Exams

Students looking to earn their professional interpreter certification must pass a two-part certification exam. First, there is a written exam that tests knowledge of terminology, ethics, and standards of practice. There will also be an oral exam to assess skills through the use of authentic scenarios. Passing scores depend on the specialization.

Submit Necessary Documentation

Once a candidate passes their exam, they must provide proof of training (and interpreter certification courses), language proficiency, and education. Some employers and certifying bodies require a background check or even a security clearance, so be prepared for that, too. Once these steps are completed, you will have your language interpreter certification!

Maintain Certification

Once you become a certified interpreter, you will be expected to pursue continuing education to stay apprised of changes in the field, and to update your expertise. Certified interpreters might need to renew their qualifications every few years to retain their status, and can often do so through participation in interpreter organization short-form training or conferences.

Strengthen Your Language Skills and Apply to Kent State!

Interpreters and translators make a sizeable impact on our world by making information accessible to all, whether ensuring due process, health equity, or social services empowerment. Whether working in a hospital, court, school, or other setting, certified interpreters ensure that communication is accessible, accurate, ethical, and effective, and ensure decision-making autonomy and full civic participation for all litigants, patients, clients, and resource-seekers.

If you are interested in taking your interpretation career a step further and want to strengthen your language skills first, apply to one of our translation programs.

We also offer MCLS 40095/TRST 50009 Introduction to Interpreting at the undergraduate and master’s levels, a non-language-specific introduction to interpreting in its multiple contemporary contexts: conference, medical, judicial, liaison, and media interpreting, with an emphasis on community interpreting. Students will be able to identify and analyze stakeholders, discourses, modalities, and environments, and distinguish and evaluate the forms professionalization of interpreters and their roles (coordinators, co-participants, diplomats).