ASL Interpreter

My suggestion of how to get started to becoming an ASL interpreter is to first go and join your local community college or university that has ASL classes and learn from deaf teachers about the language. And I would also just say you have to immerse yourself in the language if you want to first off build your base in American Sign Language and then becoming an interpreter. That is the two things you have to do and they are completely different things on on its head that you can be a very good signer but not a good interpreter. So but first you have to be able to develop that base and then start to actually learn about the profession of interpreting.

My advice for getting started is to look for ASL clubs in your area if you're not in college yet or see if your school has any ASL classes that you can take. I definitely recommend reaching out to your local deaf community. Usually most communities have, you can check on Facebook for local deaf pages. Usually you can see like deaf people in my city, whatever city you live in, and that will usually pull up a deaf page or a local ASL group or something like that. And definitely getting started with the language and getting connected to your deaf community is definitely the best way to start because without the deaf community there is no ASL interpreters. So everything that we have as interpreters is thanks to them.

Total immersion is the best way to get started becoming an ASL interpreter. You have probably not had any kind of exposure to the language or to the culture and just sitting in a classroom and taking classes in the language is not going to help you get ready to actually do the job. You have to be involved with the community, that means going to a lot of deaf events, hanging out with deaf friends, doing things on the weekend with deaf people, not just moving one language to the other, but seeing how the language actually works in real people's lives every single day. I had a lot of people in my class that just studied in their books all the time, they ended up not doing too well because they did not immerse themselves in the community. So get out there, get involved, it's the best way to go.

So my advice for getting started would definitely be to learn sign language and learn it from deaf people. Make sure that the people who are teaching you are themselves fluent and really get a sense of the live language and how people use it. Be very observant, go to events and look at people using sign language in their natural environment with their friends, see what you notice, what patterns come out, and also watch language interpreters in action. See if you notice any patterns, see if you can recognize which sign language interpreters are clearer, which ones can really get the gist of the message as you're picking up sign language.