“In the moment, the curiosity must be around the culture of both parties, both speakers. Culture is language, language is culture. It’s all intertwined.” ~ Silvia Villacampa

This week’s conversation is about curiosity in translation and interpretation. Not just the literal, “how do you say this thing in that language?”– but how do we use our curiosity to communicate our ideas effectively, to investigate what’s really being said when we’re quite literally not speaking one another’s language.

Luckily, there are people like Silvia Villacampa who have a few things to teach the rest of us…

The interpreter is trained to pause the conversation and ask for permission to check for understanding.

Listen to Ep. #285: Curiosity in Translation & Interpretation, with Silvia Villacampa

Silvia Villacampa was born and grew up in the Washington DC area. Her parents are from Spain and Ecuador, her husband from France. She’s spent more than 20 years using her language skills in everything from medical interpretation to being managing director of Liberty Language Services.

Check out Malcolm Gladwell’s Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know – a book about a fundamental paradox of the human condition: we need to talk to strangers, but we’re terrible at it.

I interviewed one of my sons’ bilingual, dual immersion elementary school teachers in this conversation about curiosity and learning in two languages, with Marleny Perdomo.

Want to explore learning and language a little more? Try these C2BC Classics: When You Are Curious, with Veronica Darwell and The Montessori Method, with Chandra Fernando.

Theme music by Sean Balick; “Discovery Harbor” by Cloud Harbor, via Blue Dot Sessions.

You can subscribe to Choose to Be Curious on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.