Young translators: children helping their parents to communicate
When a family arrives in a new country, often the children are first to pick up the new language – and inevitably, they become the family translators. Thousands of migrant children in the UK translate for their families every day. Often the children were not pleased to be dragged from Italy to the UK; learning a new language and translating for their parents was a burden. Researcher Dr Humera Iqbal describes what it’s like to be a child responsible for dealing with doctors and landlords, bank staff or restaurant suppliers.
