Meet Andiswa Gebashe - the woman who delivers good or bad news right next to President Cyril Ramaphosa.

She is one of several sign language interpreters who have graced South Africa's screens beside Ramaphosa as he delivers news of national importance during the coronavirus lockdown.

Gebashe, 34, and her colleagues have become an internet sensation as viewers are taken by their hand gestures and facial expressions while they ensure that the government's message also reaches deaf people across the country.

Sowetan's sister publication TimesLIVE held a telephonic conversation with Gebashe on Wednesday, hours before she delivered the latest lockdown regulations on behalf of the president to the deaf.

"I don't know how many times I have been the president, myself," the bubbly interpreter chuckled.

"I have also been minister so-and-so, I have been the speaker [of parliament], I have been the journalist calling to ask a question to the minister. I have been everything!"

She loves her job, which is evident as she speaks.

"I have the most interesting job under the sun. I think being an interpreter, in general, is a privilege because you get an opportunity to bridge cultures, language.

"It is a phenomenal and rewarding experience for any interpreter," she said.

But it is not at all easy. "It is very difficult but it is doable. It is important to study for the profession because being bilingual does not make you an interpreter. It is an assumption that most people make that if, for example, you speak Zulu and Tswana, you can interpret from one to the other and it is far from the truth," she said.

"Interpreting is a different skill altogether. You need to be trained to receive information, analyse it and reproduce the information in a totally different language.

"There's no Zulu or Xhosa sign language. Sign language is a language that stands on its own that also has its own culture. It is an entire language."

The term coronavirus was one that many had never heard of before the outbreak in China late last year.

"Before the lockdown, when corona was still just in Italy and America, there was a deaf person who put it on the internet, saying there is this thing called corona.

"He spelled it out and said this is how it was signed in China. Everyone then followed suit," Andiswa said.

Sign language interpreters usually work in teams so that one can help the other if they trip up on a certain term or figure. Are they privy to the information before the rest of the country hears it? "In an ideal situation, you should get the material prior and then you read and prepare for it... but obviously everything that we interpret is confidential."

For her, the passion and enthusiasm for sign language is deep-rooted.

"My father is deaf, so sign language is my home language. I have been signing all my life," she said.