5.3 Sight Translation (11%) & Written Translation (2%)

The final two components of the CHI bilingual performance exam are smaller in weight but still examinable: sight translation at 11%, tested through 3 brief English passages (each no more than 3 sentences, totaling roughly 45 words), and written translation at 2%, tested through a single multiple-choice item translating a short phrase from English into the target language with 4 answer options. Together these components make up 13% of the CHI performance exam, and both draw on skills distinct from the oral rendering tested in consecutive and simultaneous mode.

What Sight Translation Is

Sight translation is the practice of reading a written document in the source language and rendering it aloud, in real time, in the target language. Unlike consecutive or simultaneous interpreting, the source material is fixed text rather than spoken speech — the interpreter can see the whole passage (or at least scan ahead) before speaking, which is both an advantage and a distinct skill to train. Sight translation is common in healthcare settings whenever a patient needs to understand a written document on the spot: consent forms, discharge instructions, medication labels and package inserts, intake questionnaires, and after-visit summaries are all typical U.S. healthcare document types an interpreter may be asked to sight-translate.

Sight Translation Is Not a Substitute for Certified Written Translation

A critical professional-practice point, tested both on the knowledge exam and reflected in real-world scope-of-practice standards: sight translation is not equivalent to, and should never be presented as, a certified written translation of a document. A sight translation is a spoken, in-the-moment rendering meant to give a patient immediate comprehension of a document's content; it is not a substitute for a properly translated and certified written version of that document when one is legally or clinically required (for example, when a signed, translated consent form must be retained in the patient's record, or when a written translation will be relied upon later without an interpreter present). Interpreters should be clear with all parties about this distinction and should not represent an oral sight translation as fulfilling a requirement for certified written translation.

Core Sight Translation Technique

Reading Ahead

Because the source text is visible in its entirety before the interpreter begins speaking, reading ahead — previewing a sentence or clause before rendering the previous one aloud — is central to fluent sight translation. Reading ahead lets the interpreter anticipate sentence structure, identify unfamiliar terms before they must be spoken, and plan how to restructure a sentence that does not translate cleanly word-for-word (a common issue when source and target languages order clauses differently). Interpreters who read only as fast as they speak tend to produce halting, overly literal renditions; those who preview ahead produce smoother, more natural-sounding output.

Register Shift: Written to Spoken

Healthcare documents are typically written in a formal, sometimes dense written register — consent forms and discharge instructions often use passive constructions, legal or clinical phrasing, and complex sentence structures uncommon in everyday spoken language. Sight translation requires the interpreter to convert that written register into a natural spoken register in the target language, preserving the full meaning and legal/clinical force of the document while making it comprehensible when heard aloud rather than read. This is a genuinely different skill from oral-to-oral interpreting: the interpreter is not just changing languages but changing modality, from written prose meant to be read to spoken language meant to be heard and understood in real time.

Common U.S. Healthcare Document Types

Written Translation (2%)

The smallest component of the CHI performance exam, written translation, is tested through a single multiple-choice item: the candidate is shown a short phrase or sentence in English and must select, from 4 options, the correct written translation into the target language. Unlike sight translation, this task is not spoken — it tests written-translation judgment directly, evaluating whether the candidate can recognize an accurate, natural, correctly worded translation among plausible but flawed distractors (which may contain a false cognate, an incorrect register, a grammatical error, or a subtly wrong meaning). Because it is only one item worth 2% of the exam, it should not consume disproportionate preparation time, but candidates should not treat it as a throwaway either — it is graded exactly like any other scored item, and healthcare-specific vocabulary precision (the same false-cognate and terminology-management skills built in the CoreCHI Healthcare Terminology domain) is exactly what the distractors are designed to test.