For those who play at the top of their game, is it the nirvana of complete focus or the roar of the crowd that drives them to bust excellence’s envelope? Case in point: Interpreters for combat sports.

These days some translators achieve a degree of fame along with the literary works they help popularize among new audiences. But interpreters usually do better with notoriety than fame. #interpreterfail is what makes the evening news. Remember that guy at Nelson Mandela’s memorial in 2013 who pretended (badly) to be a sign language interpreter?

Nice to see that Slator recently featured Dariusz Kruczek, the mild-mannered Pole who consecutively interprets in English, Polish and Portuguese for UFC’s mixed martial arts fights in Europe. Kruczek normally interprets for the fighters the week before the main event at press conferences, photo shoots, etc. as well as on fight night before the fights and during the post-fight interviews. An interpreter only since 2014 and a tennis player, nonetheless his work for the UFC has been called “magical.”

Here on the Translation Guy blog we’re happy to echo the praise Kruczek’s been getting. In addition, we encourage all our readers to give a shout out to other interpreters who deserve a little appreciation too. After all, interpreting is hard work and it takes a lot of skill to do well.

At Responsive Translation we’ve worked with many great interpreters over the years at different events for our clients in business and government. The kind of events where errors are not an option.

It would be too hard to single out just one interpreter, so actually let me salute all of them – all those skilled and hard-working interpreters who have helped make these events such a success, and communication with foreign-language guests absolutely seamless.

Readers, are there any other interpreters you’ve seen lately who deserve a round of applause? Go ahead and tell us why!