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Is anyone here an interpreter? | ||
Tags: Interpreting | Career | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work |  | |
| phantommaster Newbie Australia Joined 6456 days ago 14 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 1 of 16 31 March 2007 at 5:37am | IP Logged |
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Is anyone here an interpreter? If so, could you please describe the life of an interpreter in detail? i.e. in what environments do you work, how you prepare for a job, how do you interact with the person you're interpreting for, etc.
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| Tike Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 6496 days ago 18 posts - 25 votes Speaks: German*, Russian, English Studies: French, Czech | Message 2 of 16 31 March 2007 at 6:28pm | IP Logged |
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I would not yet say that I AM an interpreter but I'm training to become one as a student at university. So, unless someone else can give more qualified answers, I'd give it a try ;-)
But maybe you could clarify a bit more what you want to know and why, then I'd have a better idea of how to help you. You see, it depends a lot on the area an interpreter is working in, the training he/she has had etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| phantommaster Newbie Australia Joined 6456 days ago 14 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 3 of 16 31 March 2007 at 6:45pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I want to be a freelance interpreter. Someone will ring me up, tell me to go to this conference and interpret. Basically, I want to know every tiny detail about every single kind of interpreter. I know the basics: whispering, conference, community, escort, etc. But can you just a typical day in the life of each?
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| Tike Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 6496 days ago 18 posts - 25 votes Speaks: German*, Russian, English Studies: French, Czech | Message 4 of 16 31 March 2007 at 7:37pm | IP Logged |
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I will see what I can do...
From what I have heard from my teachers most interpreters seem to be freelancers nowadays. This results in a lot of organisation work you will have to do by yourself. Most likely, at the beginning you will have to ring up people yourself, send you CV, get registered etc. and try to fill your time-planner ;-) The next step is preparation. You will have a general idea what your conference or your meeting is about, but quite often people forget to supply you with more detailed material (or even refuse to do so, because "why do you need it? You don't have to know how our new fuel cell works, just translate it" ;-)) So you will have to do all that work on your own. Depending on your job you will have to travel more or less frequently, but you are unlikely to see much of the countries you are travelling to (apart from airports, hotels and conference rooms). Most conferences are interpreted simultaneously. This means you will sit in a very small stuffy booth together with one or even two others for what can be four or five hours, alternating every half an hour or forty minutes. This is VERY exhausting. It is, however, probably the only way of interpreting where you are likely to earn a decent amount of money. If you do community interpreting, interpret in courts etc. you will not be paid that well. I notice I focused a bit on the negative aspects - but these are the ones you should consider first. Of course interpreting can be great fun and I love my subjects. But unless you are prepared to work very hard, e.g. train interpreting some hours a day for some years, read newspapers every day in all of your languages, bear great responsibility without much reward because many people do not understand what you are doing, you should not become an interpreter. Of course I have only limited experience by now and can only describe the situation in my country. So feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7158 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 5 of 16 31 March 2007 at 9:19pm | IP Logged |
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Here's an old thread that I found particularly noteworthy when it first turned up a few months ago.
It could be me, but I gather that there are more translators than interpreters on this forum. Edited by Chung on 31 March 2007 at 9:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| PETE Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6485 days ago 73 posts - 85 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 16 02 April 2007 at 12:52pm | IP Logged |
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I worked a number of years as a Russian Interpreter in the United States military.
My last position was as a "Strategic Debriefer," while living in Germany. I interviewed people from the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations wishing to receive refugee status in Germany or asylum in the United States. I interviewed them in Russian or German and also interpreted for others who needed to interview them, but did not know the language. When we talked about becoming interpreters at the Defense Language Institute, an interpreter with almost 20 years experience had us do an exercise to get a glimpse as to how good a person would need to be. He had two people sit across from one another at a short distance and then had an "interpreter" sit right behind one of them. These two people across from each other were given a topic to discuss and had worked out what they were going to say and how they were going to say it ahead of time. The person across the way would say something in English and the interpreter would "translate" it, repeating it in English to the person he sat behind. They started out with sequential translation, letting the person finish their statement completely, and THEN the interpreter would provide the "translation." The interpreter would then provide the response in English, repeating the statement verbatim of the person he was "translating" for. It went smoothly but they were surprised at how many snags they ran into when the translations became more lengthy or the reponses came more quickly after the translations. They then switched to simultaneous translations. Again no foreign languages used. Just beginning to repeat back what what being said before the person they were "translating" finished what they were saying. The interpreter had to deal with several factors then. - Keeping track what of what was being said even as they were still translating the sentence before. - Ensuring that the volume of their voice wasn't a distraction to the person they were translating for, let alone drowning out what else the person across from them was saying. - Having to tranlate back when the person they were translating for interrupted the other person to make a comment or ask a question. The two people then escalated to a rather rapid and heated exchange and while they were both speaking English, the interpreter had to struggle to keep up. And the end of just a couple of minutes, the interpreter was flummoxed and exasperated. It was then that they were told to try to picture doing that in two different languages and trying to keep those languages seperate and their translations accurate. It was quite an eye opener. I remember hearing a gentleman named Francona, who had been the interpreter for General Schwatzkopf in the first Gulf War, speak about simultaneous translation. He stated that for a meeting they would have a team of four interpreters on hand, and they would rotate out of the hot seat every seven minutes. He stated it was so demanding and stressful that there was no way to last more than that and that after several minutes the interpreter would be frazzled and dripping in sweat because of the incredible mental challenge. He said that demands in the corporate world could be less exacting, but not to bet on it. Just a thought... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7017 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 16 02 April 2007 at 3:21pm | IP Logged |
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Wow, and I thought my job could get stressful at times!
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 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6896 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 16 03 April 2007 at 5:30am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for sharing that PETE, quite an eye opener as you say, and an interesting insight into the world of simultaneous interpreting.
I can only say I am in total awe, and have the highest respect for anyone who is able to work and do a good job under such conditions. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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