The Seattle-based nonprofit, Vital Talk, specializes in building communication skills for healthcare professionals. With the COVID outbreak, it recognized a vast new sector of work. “We’re facing conversations that we never expected — or wanted — to have,” the group announced as it made available a guide that covers topics such as triaging, counseling, grieving and much more.
This resource is available in English and 21 additional languages. In it you’ll find what Vital Talk calls “practical advice on how to talk about some difficult topics related to COVID-19” that it’s built on two decades of communication research and teaching, plus consultation with clinicians in the grip of Seattle’s struggle with COVID.
Find the English and translated versions of this guide here.
Here’s another batch of coronavirus-related information that may help you communicate with patients with limited English.
How can you adapt mental health practices to fit your clients’ languages and cultures? Get help at a free cultural adaptation event, 2-4 pm, Tuesday, March 17, at the 
And the answer is … well, no one really knows, according to writer Dan Nosowitz in the online journal Atlas Obscura. “This question, frankly, is a nightmare,” Nosowitz observes. But on his way to leaving the question dangling, he provides insight into how we use subtle visual clues to make sense of spoken language.
Just in time to fill in the linguistic subtleties involved when Iranians employ the phrase, “Death to America,” the Iranian-American Pontia analyses the many common uses of the Persian word for death when Iranians are insulting or questioning others, or justifying their own actions.
Consider the poem, A une Damoyselle Malade (To a Sick Young Lady), written in 1537 by Clemont Marot for the daughter of a queen. Twenty eight lines, three syllables per line. How complicated can it be to translate from French to English?
Here’s a New York Times rundown on states responding to a recent Trump administration executive order that gives governors the right to refuse to accept new refugees.
Learn more about the 100-year history of the International Institute of Minnesota and its present and future challenges in a StarTribune story, 
“The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) posts itself as “low-immigration, pro-immigrant.” But CIS is widely perceived as anti-immigration.
Get a rundown on the Twin Cities area growing Congolese population in the StarTribune story, 
Yet another sign that the future is catching up with us fast: the availability of interpretation devices that fit in your ear and instantly render foreign languages into your own.
Take a look at this New York Times story, 
Here’s another item to stuff into your Brave New World file — a hand-held translation device that, according to Bloomberg News, is taking Japan by storm and is also now available in the US. (“
Wondering how to say “How are you? Are you fine?” in Tamashek? Or, “How are you doing? How are you feeling?” in Fulfulde? Here’s a chance to satisfy your curiosity.
Looking for ways to better serve refugee kids in your mentoring programs? Here’s a free webinar open to all refugee service providers, including those working at state agencies, resettlement agencies or other organizations.
Well, unlike the states of North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, South Carolina and Colorado, it’s not German.
The June 4 end of Ramadan is right around the corner, but it’s still worthwhile to take a look at a StarTribune story on health considerations for Muslims who adhere to the month-long period of fasting.
When it comes to learning a new language, not all tongues are created equal. Some offer a much rockier path to fluency for native English speakers. Consider this analysis by the Foreign Service Institute on how tough it is for English speakers to learn various languages.
It’s all about diet, says University of Zurich researcher Balthasar Bickel, in a study reported recently in the journal, Science.
Here’s a conversation starter that will most likely lead to some interesting laughs with your organization’s interpreters and translators. 
Check out a collaboration between renowned Hmong shaman Wa Leng Lee and artist Sieng Lee, in an exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The installation explores the story of Siv Yis, the first Hmong shaman. Along the way, Sieng Lee also asks what people give up to assimilate into American culture.
The Center for Victims of Torture has just released a free, downloadable toolkit for providers who work with refugee patients.
Here’s a moving essay about a college student’s effort to understand more about the escape her grandmother made from the Philippines to the United States. 
Okay, this story about the interpreter who makes the declutter maven Marie Kondo understandable in English might seem a little off track. But here’s the redeeming feature that makes the piece relevant — it’s also full of nuanced description of what raises top-of-the-line interpretation above its hum-drum counterparts.
Despite the advances in machine translation that have moved it from the ridiculous to the potentially useful, there remain glitches — particularly in the area of assigning gender, as pointed out in an article in Slator: Language Industry Intelligence.
Should the arts be considered an essential ingredient in general well-being? And should therapeutic art or hobby-based treatment be prescribed as part of a treatment plan?
How many patients are capable of fully understanding the care instructions they’re given? The answer: barely one in ten.
With the Trump administration poised to deport a large group of legal Cambodian immigrants to the United States, among the questions that arise is, How will those booted from the US adapt to Cambodia, a country that in many cases they’ve never known?
Want to be viewed more often as a liar? Try telling the truth in another language.
Looking for a cheap and easy way to learn how to say hello and exchange a pleasantry or two with recent immigrants? Check out the language lessons — many of them free — at the 
One frequently cited observation in the world of cross-cultural care is that patients feel more comfortable dealing with providers who look like them.
Immigrants’ lives will become that much harder as the Trump administration imposes new rules on those who legally use public benefits such as food stamps, Part D Medicare drug coverage, or Section 8 housing vouchers. They could be denied green cards that allow them to live and work in the United States as the government aims at barring people it views as an economic drain.
Here’s a interpreting/translation-related lawsuit that could have a major impact on your organization. The case started in 2015 when Houston resident Song Xie was sent home from the hospital with discharge instructions in English that his caretaker son couldn’t read. Song Xie later suffered a stroke. His family now wants to hold the hospital liable.
Let’s take a break this week from wondering how to help English language learners, and stop to think why most people in Minnesota only speak English. For some fresh perspective on how weak this is in comparison to the other end of the scale — that of the world’s premier polyglots — take a look at this recent story in the New Yorker magazine: The Mystery of People Who Speak Dozens of Languages: What can hyperpolyglots teach the rest of us?