FROM THE LENS WHY DIDN’ T I THINK OF THAT ?
Speaking Your Language In a world that gets more global by the day, TNOLA Languages has found a growing niche market. BY ASHLEY MCLELLAN PORTRAIT BY SARA ESSEX BRADLEY
NEW ORLEANS MAY OWN THE TITLE OF “MOST
French city in America,” but Louisiana as a whole is home to many languages, including Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Arabic, Haitian and German. In fact, according to the 2000 census, almost 10% of the state’s population age 5 and over reported speaking a language other than English. As such, Andrew Dafoe, a Colorado native who moved to New Orleans in 2006, said he was surprised to find “a huge lack of highquality language services available in the greater New Orleans area.” A certified interpreter, Dafoe launched TNOLA Languages in 2014 as a way to grow his freelance career. Six years later, the business has quickly grown to a team of freelancers who provide a wide array of translation services and interpreting to businesses, conferences, film sets and courtrooms primarily in New Orleans, but with a growing reach across the state and the Gulf South. TNOLA has an extensive, and still growing, menu of services including in areas of legal and medical translations of documents and proceedings. The company also provides subtitles for films, conference interpreting, and assistance with personal correspondence, websites and more. The price range for services varies greatly depending on the task and time required, according to Dafoe, with basic translation services starting at less than 25 cents per word, ranging up to large conferences with multiple interpreter teams running into thousands of dollars. “Historically, most of our work has been in the legal sector, primarily because that’s where a lot of the demand is,” said Dafoe, who is also Louisiana Supreme Court Certified. “In legal settings we’re hired by attorneys, their clients and also by district
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Interpreters often work in incredibly important settings such as hospitals and courts, where the words they select can literally be the difference between life and death. Andrew Dafoe, owner of TNOLA Languages
and municipal court systems. Apart from the legal sector, we’ve had the opportunity to work steadily with a number of medical providers, private businesses and educational institutions as well.” While COVID-19 has changed in-person interpreting services, the business has thrived in translation services in written work and providing virtual services to companies. “With the shutdowns that came in response to the pandemic, our in-person
interpretation work essentially disappeared overnight, so it really forced us to focus on translations, and thankfully, there was, and is, a lot of information that needed to get out to everyone,” he said. “Apart from that, we’ve also seen an increase in willingness from clients to utilize the technology that’s available to provide interpretation remotely. When everyone is meeting via Zoom or Teams, it makes perfect sense to bring an interpreter in remotely as well.”
