I remember when I heard this word for the first time from a Polish person – it must have been 2007. Who on earth came up with that? I was told that it was a common adjective to describe a Pakistani person or a person with a similar skin colour. Two questions came to my mind: isn’t it offensive? How did it come about?

I thought it must have something to do with chapatti – Indian flatbread (recipe) and the Polish word ‘ciapaty’ (transl: spotted, flecked). So the two words were merged to create this ‘commonly used’ word. I have done a bit of online research. After all, I need to know how to translate it when it comes up during my interpreting sessions, and believe you me – it does come up!

I would like to point out that I do not want to offend anyone and I do apologise in advance if you find this content offensive. But as a Polish interpreter and a translator, I need to relay the message the same way it was put to me, without omitting or adding anything (IOL’s Code of Professional Conduct [5.7] and ITI’s Code of Professional Conduct [4.1.2]).

I have found several articles online which may help me to translate this weird ‘name’ into English. First of all, a confirmation of my definition of the word ‘ciapaty’: a contemptuous term describing a Pakistani, Indian or another dark skin-coloured person (but not a black person!) introduced to the Polish language by Polish people living in the UK. This term is typical for Polish immigrants and probably originates from the name of an Indian bread. It usually expresses envy or a conviction about poor intellectual abilities of the people described by this word.

Example: ‘Ciapaci mnie z roboty wygryźli…’ – I have been ousted from my job by Pakis…(http://www.miejski.pl/slowo-Ciapaty).

Interesting tags have been attached to the above link: ‘emigration’, ‘racism’.

There is an interesting article in a Polish magazine which defends Asian people (http://londynek.net/czytelnia/article?jdnews_id=2891747&cat_id=69).

But I keep searching further and I find another article which is so offensive that I am not going to give away the web link. It talks about the hygiene of Asian people, their prices of Polish beer, intellect, their relationships with Polish women etc.

I believe the adjective ‘ciapaty’ is unjust towards Asians and I really do not want to repeat the same ‘stereotypes’. It is worth mentioning that not all Poles think this way. Maybe it is not my place to defend Polish people but I can say from my interpreting experience that some Poles, who find it hard to articulate themselves well, simply do now know the correct Polish word to use when talking about an Asian, Pakistani or Indian person. The word ‘ciapaty’ quickly springs to their mind and does not require thinking hard, therefore saving time and money when paying for interpreting services (LOL). Perhaps, for Polish people, I should suggest an alternative from the world of the Polish language, like ‘Hindus’ (mieszkaniec Indii, obywatel tego kraju), ‘Pakistanczyk’ (mieszkaniec Pakistanu, obywatel tego państwa).

But, as I said before, my role is simple – to translate the word into English. Therefore my suggestions are:

Ciapaty – ‘a chapatti man’ (a bit milder), ‘Paki’ (considered offensive).

And to finish on a positive note – a motivating story ‘I’m a Paki and proud’.

Some time ago I was helping a client at a police station in London. The police were quite happy to use my services over the counter, where I spent over hour interpreting between my Polish client and the police. However, when it came to making a formal statement, the police insisted on using their own interpreter, even though I was a fully qualified interpreter, listed on the NRPSI and I have the Metropolitan Police Test certificate for interpreters. The problem was the fact that I was not listed on the Metropolitan Police list of interpreters. I must admit, that list is virtually impossible to get onto. I meet the criteria but I do not know what else I can do to be included.
Anyway, that Polish person, who happened to be a lady with a baby, had to wait at that police station for 4 hours for another interpreter to turn up, even though there was a qualified interpreter already present. Where is the sense in that?

What do you do to maintain your language skills? Do you read books? Do you visit your native country frequently? Do you speak to your friends and relatives on Skype several times a week?

Well, I read books in both languages – English and Polish, in turns. I have a Polish satellite TV. And I do speak to my mum back in Poland a lot! I live in the UK and I do what I can to speak good English, without losing the ability to speak Polish. Language skills are a very important tool in the work of an interpreter. It turns out that not everyone is a true believer in maintaining language skills, I will tell you a story.

Not a long time ago I met a Polish interpreter who, apparently, is constantly in demand. She was a lovely lady; we exchanged some opinions about the industry and chatted about past assignments in general. Yet there was something not quite right about the conversation. As we were both native speakers of Polish (or at least that was my impression), we naturally spoke Polish. However, the lady was mixing Polish and English a lot during the conversation. After an hour I asked her whether she found it difficult to speak Polish. Her reply surprised me a lot. She said that she believed it was incredible that she was still able to speak Polish at all; taking into account the fact that she had been living in the UK for over forty years! She came to the UK when she was a teenager. I then asked her how she dealt with her interpreting work and I learned that she only cared about the English speaker understanding her. What about the Polish speaker? Apparently the Polish speaker will always understand her somehow – or so I heard.

How much attention do you pay to being professional? What do you do in order to maintain your language skills?