The University of Iowa reports its language departments are growing as students realize employers are seeking bilingual applicants. In light of the increased interest, the UI Spanish/Portuguese department is offering a new course — Spanish-English translation — said Tom Lewis, the department’s head. While the class will not deal with interpretation in courts and hospitals due to their strict qualifications and requirements, he said, it will provide an introduction to some vocabulary, issues, and life situations that could come up in similar contexts.

“The Spanish-English translation course is designed really for translation from written texts,” Lewis said. “These wouldn’t necessarily be literary texts. They could be technical manuals, they could be scientific articles, but it’s sort of a lot of practice and a lot of building linguistics skills.” Though the course won’t be for strict interpreting, Lewis said, it will prepare students for a variety of other professions.

According to Lewis many large companies publish some form of in-house communication in both English and Spanish, creating a need for students with good linguistics skills in the business world. Lewis said the department is also working with the medical school to develop a medical Spanish course, and he would also like to eventually create a law Spanish course. But the law project is on hold until the UI is able to hire faculty members with the necessary skills to teach the course. Roughly 350 UI undergraduates major in Spanish and Portuguese, and around half have a second major in a different area, Lewis said.