“Finding Arabic speakers as competent as Laura AND as aware of the cultural nuances is very difficult. Money isn’t the problem. We have plenty of money to hire people for those jobs. There are few applicants qualified to fill them.”
It is inspiring to read about her.
Sometimes I read stories like this and consider that type of thing because learning other languages has always come very easy to me.
But understanding the culture, like you said, is something that most people would lack.
Learning the language goes way beyond just translations. Cultural idioms are a critical aspect of understanding the communication. We had a house guest for a while who is studying Japanese. He brought along a book full of idioms. The Japanese term for a useless employee is a "day lantern". When an English speaker says, "brilliant", you must know whether you are dealing with a British or American speaker and whether it comes with a tone of sarcasm or delight to discern the meaning. Laura does many translations from audio and frequently recognizes the voice of the speaker as another value added aspect of the communication.