INTERPRETING with a degree in TRANSLATION

potosi wrote:

I would love to one day be able to do some freelance interpreting, even if those occasions were rare.

Phil Hand wrote:


If you don't interpret often, you're not a professional interpreter. Interpreting is a skill which needs constant practice, and which you can lose if you don't do it often enough.

http://www.proz.com/forum/getting_established/271819-getting_into_translation_and_then_transferring_to_interpretation.html

Helen Hagon wrote:

Have you already started your studies? If not, some institutions do offer an MA in both translation and interpreting - perhaps you might want to consider this option.

Samah El Mahdy wrote:

I can tell that despite interpretation and translation require different skills. Yet a person can be both (I am). In the university we study translation for two years then we start with at-sight and accompanied with consecutive. Yet we never abandon written translation. Then two years studying simultaneous, consecutive and written translation. You know what! translation forms the necessary inevitable basis for interpretation. while interpreting everything goes quickly on the spot. You express the meaning in the first form that comes to your mind as you don't have time to contemplate the best vocab and the best structure. Being a good translator enriches your built-in lexicon and grammar. We are take translation as our record in live. Therefore we read and re-read the source text to make sure we fully understand. We get stuck with words and expressions that we feel for sure that there's a way of rendering them in the target language so search and research until knowing it. This hard course of knowledge of both source and target languages makes it easier for us not only to have permanently refreshed memory of vocab and structure but also to GET IT RIGHT. In my own case, (EnglishArabic), I can say that the good translator is known in his interpretation performance.
All what you need is to practice. you can start with at sight. That is, hold any document- you may stary with one you already have read before- start reading as if you are reading in the target language. Spend a couple of weeks doing so until you feel you can do it with any source text whether you have read before or not. Then start listening to slow-paced speech of any person. for the first time listen to it once and look up the words that may get you stuck with the text. Then replay it start taking note. not everything. just the things that will remind you of each sentence and devise your own symbol system as convenient to you. (there is a good document called seven principles of note taking; read it) after each four sentences start recording yourself but don't replay them until you finish the whole source text. Listen to yourself so that you can know if you have pronunciation or intonation problems (listening in itself is of paramount importance for fine-tuning your skills. when you feel good about both consecutive and at sight through your recordings of yourself. start doing consecutive with no notes for sometime. At this point you can start simultaneous. Believe me, if you have the individual skills needed (quick-wittedness and breath and mind control under stress) all the above, despite looking as a long journey, will be no only possible but also amusing.
I hope this helps. Good Luck

potosi wrote:

I guess what I'm getting at is if there are other ways to interpreting than another MA. If I practiced and studied and perhaps got certified? I'm not looking to do UN stuff here, just the possibility of interpreting at some minor situations and events.

Henry Hinds wrote:

I do it all, translation and interpreting, both directions, with no studies in either. I learned both on my own. So if I could do it, so could you.