I keep a mental list of these accomplishments, not the least of which was the training I underwent in interpreting school. People who consider interpreting as a profession are usually bilingual or multilingual to a certaindegree , but they soon find in their training one indisputable truth. Whilea givenamong working interpreters, this truth is widely overlooked by those outside of the profession. Namely, it is not enough to bebilingual or multilingual toworkas an interpreter.
French interpreter, and founder of the Interpretive Theory of Translation, Danica Seleskovitch has written that one must differentiatebetween knowing languages and utilizing languages in the technique of interpreting. Her classic textbook, “Interpreting for International Conferences,” was mandatory reading in the interpreting school that I enrolled in, and I strongly recommend it toany aspiring interpreter.
Interpreting is not transcoding. In other words, interpreting has lessto do with replacing a word in the source language with a semantically equivalent word in the target language. It is an exercise of dissociating words from thought. It is a process of extracting the sense of what was utteredand then re-expressing the equivalentsense in the target language.
Therefore , an aspiring interpreter must develop a knowledge base and expressivecapacity that reaches far beyond the limitations of his or her hitherto necessarily narrower intellectual life. Structured training will propel you to build muscle in both of these arenas through the rigorous exercises, reading material , and research requirements the teachers assign .
Oral tasks: summarizing a given speech into a third of its length on the first listen ; reproducing a story of a certain length without taking notes; recorded word tests; drawing cards from a bowl, and giving a two-minute speech on the topic written on the card.
Frankly, I had underestimated the cognitive load interpreting class wouldrequire . I remember that when I was in my very first semester at school, I had signed up for a four-hour weekend course and that after the four hours, the accumulated mental strain was such that there was a stress-induced tremble in my left hand for the rest of that day.
I have sensed time and again that it is of utmost importance that you build a sense of trust with your speaker so that he or she can feel that they can trust you with the delivery of their words. I find that even in the small talk that takes placeprior to interviews or press conferences, your skills and intellect are being gauged.
What gives me comfort in such situations is that I had put myself through that training at school, and that I have been doing this forover a decade, and that I have done my research on the topic. I don’t think there are any shortcuts toconfidence .
