British Council-Improving your interpreting skills

Transcript of the podcast

Interviewer: Today’s programme is devoted to people employed in international settings. My first guest is Dana Ivanovich who has worked for the last twenty years as an interpreter. Dana, welcome

Dana: Thank you

Interviewer: Now I’d like to begin by saying that I have on occasions used an interpreter myself, as a foreign correspondent, so I am full of admiration for what you do. But I think your profession is sometimes underrated, it’s something of an unknown quantity. Many people think that anyone who speaks more than one language can do it

Dana: There aren’t any interpreters I know who don’t have professional qualifications and training. You only really get proficient after many years in the job

Interviewer: And am I right in saying you can divide what you do into two distinct methods, simultaneous and consecutive interpreting

Dana: That’s right. The techniques you use are different, and a lot of interpreters will say one is easier than the other, less stressful

Interviewer: Simultaneous interpreting, putting someone’s words into another language more or less as they speak, sounds to me like the more difficult

Dana: Well, actually no, most people in the business I think would agree that consecutive interpreting is the more stressful. You have to wait for the speaker to deliver quite a chunk of language, before you then put it into the second language, which puts your short term memory under intense stress

Interviewer: You make notes, I presume

Dana: Absolutely, anything like numbers, names, places, have to be noted down, but the rest is never translated verbatimyou have to find a way of summarising it so that the message is there, without repeating word for word. That would put too much strain on the listener, and slow down the whole process too much

Interviewer: But with simultaneous interpreting, you start translating almost as soon as the other person starts speaking. You must have some preparation before the event, I presume

Dana: Well, hopefully the speakers will let you have an outline of the topic a day or two in advance. Conference speeches are an obvious example. You have a little time to do research, prepare terminology and so on

Interviewer: Can you give us an example of when you would do consecutive interpreting

Dana: Well, something I am involved in a lot is financial negotiations, where representatives are discussing the fine details of a business deal for example

Interviewer: And how do you stop everyone speaking at once? These things are rarely choreographed

Dana: This is where you as a professional have to assert yourself, to orchestrate things so that the communication flows. You let the participants know how you want them to speak-to respect the conventions of turntaking, to get used to pausing frequently to let the interpreter translate, to use short sentences, not to speak too fast

Interviewer: And be prepared to interrupt if the speaker forgets you’re there

Dana: Absolutely

Answers