Speaker 1: Hello again everyone. Today we're going to talk about prerequisites. What the heck are they? Well, if you want to become a certified medical interpreter, you're going to want to hear this. I'll be right back. Go get a pen and paper. Welcome to my channel, Interpreting Simplified. My name is Jeanette. Bienvenidos a mi canal. Okay you guys, today I'm really going to give you some information that might be helpful. Now again, I just want to remind everybody that the information that I'm sharing is based on my own experience. I'm not endorsing anybody and I'm not saying that one organization is better than another or one route is better than the other. I'm just sharing the information that I'm familiar with in hopes that maybe it'll help you. I asked a couple of friends, what would you want me to tell you to help you in this process to make it easier? And I think, like most of you, my friends wanted to know, wanted me to tell them if they should go with NBCMI or CCHI, which 40-hour course they should take, and how long it's going to take them. Those are the things that I cannot tell you, but I'll tell you why. Whether you go with NBCMI or CCHI is really, really a matter of personal preference. I have colleagues that are certified with CCHI and they love it. And I have colleagues that are certified with NBCMI and they love that. So it's just a matter of which one works for you. What I can advise you is to go to each website, navigate it, and then you'll start to identify which one of the two you want to go with. They're both great. They're both nationally, nationally accredited, and they both certify amazing medical interpreters. Once you've chosen the organization that you want to go with, you go to that organization and you find their get started area, because they both have them in different, in different areas, but they have the get started or initiate the process, however it's worded. You go there and you click the register button or registration button and you pay your fees. Step number one, you've already checked that off the box. The other thing that's required, so, okay, stay with me here. I'm going to try to explain it to you as simply as I can, because it can sound a little confusing. English is my first language, and in order for me to get certified, I need to prove that my Spanish is good enough to be a medical interpreter. So there are different ways of accomplishing that. If you've attended a formal course, if you've taken like Spanish classes, or if I had studied abroad, then I can use some of those documents or transcripts or degrees to prove that my Spanish is good enough to be a medical interpreter. But because I didn't have any of that, I never took a Spanish class, I didn't study abroad, I didn't live in a Spanish speaking country, um, I had to take a language assessment. The language assessment is just so that you have evidence of what your, in my case, what my language, uh, Spanish language skills are. That's one of the prerequisites. I was confident enough to do that after I did the 40-hour course because I had already participated in a language screening when I took the Cal State LA Interpreters course that I talked about in the previous video. So I, I did it the other way around. I took the 40-hour course and then I took the language assessment. My advice to you would be if you're not sure if your language skills are at the level they need to be, then take the language assessment first. And the good thing about that is that it's not that complicated. It doesn't require a lot. It really is just an assessment. Um, the, each of those websites have the link to click on for the language assessment test. And then you, there's a fee. So you pay the fee, you take the language test. And once you've completed it, you can, something else to check off your checklist. And you feel like, wow, okay, I've completed two things, registration and language assessment. As far as the 40-hour course, again, I can't tell you which one to take. Um, but you have to make sure that it's one that acknowledged or recognized by one of the two, uh, entities, either CCHI or NBCMI, depending on, on who you're going to go with. It sounds like a lot, but if we take the one step at a time, you're going to get there and it won't be overwhelming. I know exactly how you feel because when I was trying to make these decisions, NBCMI, CCHI, which 40-hour course to take, I had, um, a friend that I would turn to and ask her for her guidance and advice. I'm hoping that even without being able to endorse anything in particular, that I can be that friend that's guiding you through this process. And if you have any questions, feel free to comment. And if I can answer it, I will. So that's what we're going to leave off for now because you have some homework to do. Check out some of my other videos to learn more about my journey as a medical interpreter. Go ahead and click like, and or comment and subscribe. It's free and it lets me be there for you. And remember if I can do it, you can do it too. See you next time.