International Translation Day is celebrated every year on September 30, which is the feast day of Saint Jérome, the patron saint of translators who was the first to translate the Bible into Latin (fun fact: he originally translated the Bible all from Greek, but as he went on he corrected the Old Testament against the Hebrew original -The New Testament was originally written in Greek.)

Translators around the world wish each other a great year full of well-paid projects and understanding clients (or so I’d like to think :D). I will take the opportunity to tell you about 3 others celebration days that not all translators and interpreters are aware of:

National Interpreter Appreciation Day

National Interpreter Appreciation Day is always observed on the first Wednesday of May. This year, it was this past May 4, and I learned this fact this year from my fellow interpreters. So consider this a heads up and greet the interpreters in your life next year on May 3rd, 2023 😀

Sign Language Interpreter Appreciation Day

The month of May is pretty busy, with May 1st being the day to celebrate sign language interpreters!

Know any sign language interpreters? Make sure to show them appreciation on May 1!

International Mother Language Day

According to Wikipedia, “International Mother Language Day is a worldwide annual observance held on 21 February to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and to promote multilingualism.“

How about you greet all your friends whose mother language is different than yours this coming February 21? A nice thing to do is to learn a few expressions in their language, such as “hello”, “thank you” and “please”.