Forty Seconds, Two Pages, and a Handwritten Strike-Through

Scan for structure before words: paragraph numbers, brackets, italics, footnote marks, anything handwritten. You are building a map, not memorizing text.

Then triage, in this order:

1. Scope. The judge said marked paragraphs. Translate those. Do not volunteer the rest of the document, and do not silently skip a marked paragraph because it is dense - if you cannot do one justice, say so before you start, not after.
2. Hazards. Here there are three: the footnote, the bracket, the initialed strike-through. Identify them now so none of them surprises you mid-sentence.
3. Audience. A 68-year-old hard-of-hearing respondent who does not understand the proceeding needs short sentences and a slower pace more than he needs a stylistically elegant rendering.

Open with a short frame: "Señor, le voy a leer los párrafos que su Señoría ha marcado." That orients him and marks the start of the interpreted segment.

For the footnote, do not invent content you cannot see and do not silently drop a citation that may define the charge. Render it as a citation: "vea el Código de Regulaciones Federales, título 8, sección 1003.15, inciso b." Keep it moving - a citation string is not where a respondent's understanding is won or lost, and spending fifteen seconds there costs you the paragraphs that matter.

• nunc pro tunc - means "now for then": an order given effect as of an earlier date. Render the meaning, not the Latin, and not a calque ("ahora por entonces" is not Spanish and will read as nonsense). Use "con efecto retroactivo a la fecha de…" or "con efectos desde la fecha original." If the precise earlier date appears in the document, say it. A Latin tag left untranslated in a sight translation is a gap in the record, not a display of erudition.
• [seal] - a bracketed notation is a description of the document, not a word in it. Say "sello" or "sello del tribunal" so the listener knows a stamp appears there. Do not skip it; a listener who is told later that the document was sealed and never heard it will not trust the rest.
• The initialed strike-through - this is the one that can change the outcome. Willful and knowing are different mental states, and a Spanish rendering that blurs them ("a propósito" for one, "a sabiendas" for the other) changes what the respondent is being asked to admit. Render the document as amended, and make the amendment audible: "donde decía 'doloso', dice 'a sabiendas'." The initialed correction controls; never read the struck word as operative, and never read both without marking which is which.

Correct it immediately, in place, audibly, and without drama.

1. Finish the clause so the listener is not left with a dangling half-sentence, then correct: "Corrijo: 'a sabiendas', no 'doloso'."
2. Do not continue silently. The respondent has no way to know a correction happened, and the record now contains a term he did not hear. Silent correction is the one option that is always wrong.
3. Do not over-apologize. A cascade of self-reproach consumes the respondent's attention and the court's patience; one clean correction is what the situation calls for.
4. Flag it if it is material. Here it is: the mens rea is an element of the charge, and a misread mental state is not a stylistic slip. At the next natural break - or on the record if the judge invites it - say plainly that you corrected a term going to intent, so the court can decide whether the respondent needs the passage re-read.

Finally, note what not to do: do not "fix" the problem by re-characterizing the rest of the paragraph to make it consistent with the wrong word. Consistency with an error compounds it.