Interpreter officer
An interpreter officer is a commissioned officer of an armed force, who interprets and/or translates to facilitate the military operation. Interpreter officers are used extensively in multinational operations in which two countries that do not share common language are doing joint operation, or expeditionary missions in which the communication with the local population is crucial but limited by lack of language proficiency among the expeditionary force personnel.
Republic of Korea
The Republic of Korea had a history of continuous presence of the U.S. forces. Because the military personnel of both countries usually lack the proficiency of each other’s language, a corps of interpreter officers was trained to facilitate the communication. Each service branch has its own group of interpreter officers. The interpreter officers participated in the meetings, high level conferences or day-to-day informal discussions to offer simultaneous or consecutive interpretation, usually between English and Korean.
There are several clubs for current and former interpreter officers.
- Tong Tong Club
- ROK Army ROKAIO
- ROK Navy NAVIOS
- ROK Air Force AFIOS
- ROK Air Force Old AFIOS
- ROK Marines
There are two online clubs for the Republic of Korea Army interpreter officers.
References