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Career Interpreting | ||
Tags: Interpreting | Career | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work |  | |
| lecorbeau Diglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 6022 days ago 113 posts - 149 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Serbo-Croatian, Turkish | Message 1 of 15 16 June 2009 at 3:55pm | IP Logged |
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Hello all,
As a preface, I did a recent search in the forums about this and couldn't find anything substantive (most of the posts dealt with translation as opposed to interpretation), and after a Google search I didn't come up with much other than vastly differing opinions and suggestions. Anyway, on my path to figuring out what precisely I want to do with my life, recently I have been flirting with the idea of becoming an interpreter for an NGO, international organization, or something else to that effect. I am very confident with my French (but plan nonetheless on getting a Masters at a French university + spending additional time in France to seal the deal), recently started the uphill struggle for fluency in German, have plans to perfect my Italian, and learn Portuguese and Croatian at some point within the next several years. Now, I know being an interpreter demands exceptional competence in your target languages (in other words, a mere Pimsleur/Assimil/FSI combination would be laughably insufficient), it is far from easy work (misinterpretations have started wars, after all!), not as glamorous as it may seem (not everyone works for the UN or EU), and some of the recent Google search results have suggested it's not necessarily a lucrative field. But in spite of all that, is there someone in this forum that can impart some wisdom as to the process to become one, a "day in the life of", schools, what is considered mastery in a language, salaries, opportunities---anything, really? Thanks a lot. Edited by lecorbeau on 16 June 2009 at 3:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5671 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 2 of 15 16 June 2009 at 4:17pm | IP Logged |
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Most interpreters that I have met are self-employed. They register with agencies, and build up as many repeat-clients as possible, and pick up work wherever they can. It is very competitive, and the pay is not great, and as you say, a lot of the interpreting is for very boring work.
I would rank it similarly to a career as a photographer: everybody dreams they will be published in national geographic, but most end up doing wedding photography at the weekends. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Iwwersetzerin Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Luxembourg Joined 5671 days ago 259 posts - 513 votes Speaks: French*, Luxembourgish*, GermanC2, EnglishC2, SpanishC2, DutchC1, ItalianC1 Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 15 16 June 2009 at 5:04pm | IP Logged |
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Hi,
I'm a translator, not an interpreter, but I think I can still give you some advice. In the US, the best place to study is the Monterey Institute of International Studies http://www.miis.edu The fields most in demand in the US are court and police interpreting and medical interpreting. You can either work as an employee of a court or a hospital or as a freelance interpreter. I would also strongly advice you to seek certification, if available. As far as I know many states offer court interpreter certification, although the languages offered may vary and some also offer medical interpreter certification. The federal certification only exists for Spanish, Haitian Creole and Navajo though. You may find these websites useful: http://www.ncsconline.org/D_Research/CourtInterp.html http://www.aiic.net/ http://www.najit.org/ 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jbbar Senior Member Belgium Joined 5802 days ago 192 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English | Message 4 of 15 16 June 2009 at 5:26pm | IP Logged |
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Interpreting requires a very high level of proficiency in your target language, I would dare say perhaps even higher than what is required for translating. You need very strong speaking and listening skills, you must be very familiar with the culture of the target language and your own. Some of the most difficult things are translating idioms and puns. As an interpreter, you must be able to convey this even more rapidly than a translator, and you have no time to look it up in a dictionary or somewhere on the Internet. Interpreting is also very intense and can be stressful. I've heard that you usually don't interpret for more than half an hour when you're doing simultaneous interpretation, e.g. in a booth. It is very well payed job though. I have some experience with interpreting in college. I don't like it very much myself, I prefer translating. Even so, translating still requires a very high proficiency in your target language, and if you want to do it efficiently you must have a very good knowledge of the grammar of your target language[s].
Just some of my thoughts. Best of luck, jbbar Edited by jbbar on 16 June 2009 at 6:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6896 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 15 16 June 2009 at 9:28pm | IP Logged |
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I can contribute an interesting snippet of information here that I heard from someone I knew who was doing simultaneous interpreting years ago. As I recall it he was doing stints of up to two hours (Finnish to Swedish).
Besides being physically and mentally exhausted after these sessions he claimed that he had absolutely no memory at all afterwards of what he had interpreted. Apparently all his mental and intellectual powers were so completely concentrated on the actual task of translation that other brain functions, such as taking in and remembering the subjects, were simply put on hold and deactivated for the duration of the effort. Not that I'd like to discourage anyone, but it goes to show how intense and taxing it must be. And it makes one wonder about the life expectancy in that line of work (?). Edited by Hencke on 16 June 2009 at 9:35pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Iwwersetzerin Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Luxembourg Joined 5671 days ago 259 posts - 513 votes Speaks: French*, Luxembourgish*, GermanC2, EnglishC2, SpanishC2, DutchC1, ItalianC1 Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 6 of 15 16 June 2009 at 9:45pm | IP Logged |
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Simultaneous interpreting indeed requires an extreme mental effort. I have heard similar stories to the ones that Hencke comments above from some of my former teachers who were UN interpreters. The level of concentration required from a simultaneous conference interpreter is often compared to that of an air traffic controller or jet pilot. It is recommended that one should take a break after 30 minutes of simultaneous interpreting, but the reality if often different.
Keep in mind that simultaneous interpreting is not the only form of interpreting. It is certainly the most difficult and maybe also the most prestigious. In fact, simultaneous conference interpreters at UN level are a minority. Another difficulty of conference interpreting is that you have to know a very great number of different subjects very well, as you will have to interpret conferences on all kinds of subjects, from agriculture to international politics to medicine or nuclear physics. A lot of preparation work is required in advance. I think that medical or court interpreting is not quite as stressful, although it is not an easy job either. Edited by Iwwersetzerin on 16 June 2009 at 9:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lecorbeau Diglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 6022 days ago 113 posts - 149 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Serbo-Croatian, Turkish | Message 7 of 15 17 June 2009 at 10:39am | IP Logged |
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Well, I suppose it's still something to consider. I am still very young after all, and have plenty of time to immerse myself in target-language environments.
But reading up on the career a little more has brought me to the conclusion that it might be a tad out of my reach, linguistically speaking at least. Time to do some more Googling :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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