Admission to the Certificate in Interpreting for Speakers of English and Another Language (Other Than Spanish)

If you speak English and another language other than Spanish, there must be at least eight students who share your language pair who are also ready to apply for official admission to the Certificate in Interpreting before your application can be processed. This is because we must ensure that there are enough speakers of the same language pair to complete the Certificate together, as a cohort. We will notify you when there are enough speakers of your language pair for you to apply.

We have current student interest and instructors available for French, Hmong, Oromo/Amharic, Russian, Somali and Vietnamese.

It is very important for you to keep in regular contact with us if you want to take a particular course or apply for official admission to the Certificate. Please call or e-mail us at least a few months before the course starts. If students do not let us know that they wish to take a particular course, it is hard for us to group students who share the same language pair and find out whether there are enough students for a particular language pair to organize a course.

Even if there are not enough students with your language pair interested in applying for official admission, you can register for Certificate courses as a non-admitted student. In particular, there are a number of courses that are taught in English, which are part of the Certificate. They are:

  • TrIn 3101: Introduction to Interpreting
  • TrIn 1201: Fundamentals of Health Care for Interpreters
  • TrIn 1301: American Law for Interpreters
  • Ling 1701: Language and Society (or another of the available elective courses)

You can also take bilingual courses as a non-admitted student as long as there are four students with your language pair who agree to register for each course. We need at least four students in order to pay for instructional costs and to ensure that you have other students to work with for practical bilingual exercises. The bilingual Certificate courses are:

  • TrIn 3001: Introduction to Translation
  • TrIn 3102: Consecutive Interpreting
  • TrIn 4201: Interpreting in Health Care Settings
  • TrIn 4301: Interpreting in Legal Settings

For further information see Registration for Translation and Interpreting Courses as a Non-Admitted Student.

It is very important to remember that TrIn 3001: Introduction to Translation has a crucial prerequisite. You cannot register for this course without completing writing samples for your "A" and "B" language and having them approved by our evaluators. Remember you must pass this course to receive the Certificate in Interpreting, as it is one of the required courses. If your writing samples are not approved, you must wait six months before you can resubmit. Please see our Web site or contact program staff for the Writing Sample form.

We will notify you when there are eight students with your language pair who wish to apply for official admission to the Certificate. In the meantime, you need to take the following step:

    Complete the Language Background form. Return the form to:

    Program in Translation and Interpreting
    101 Wesbrook Hall
    77 Pleasant Street S.E.
    Minneapolis, MN 55455

    FAX: 612-626-1800

Please keep in mind that the admission prerequisites are:

  • a high school diploma or equivalent
  • superior language skills in English and another language (other than Spanish)

Visit One Stop for a complete list of other important dates, including complete academic calendars, registration times, and drop/add deadlines.