Moving from translating to interpreting Thread poster: katiej
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katiej 
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:55
French to English
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Has anyone had experience of moving over from translation to interpreting (specifically conference interpreting) after a fairly long career in translation?
| | | | Nadia Peiro
Spain
Local time: 20:55
Member (2013)
Spanish to English
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| From 0 to 100 | May 25, 2022 |
Hi,
For a very long time I shied away from interpretation. I saw it as a very stressful job, I imagined every assignment to be like a much-dreaded exam. Then I slowly began to read about it, met other interpreters, and started getting interested. It was a skill, and as such, it required training and lots of practice. I could do that. I was actually offered a simultaneous interpreting job before I was trained, and although I still think I did an awful job, they called me again and ag... See more Hi,
For a very long time I shied away from interpretation. I saw it as a very stressful job, I imagined every assignment to be like a much-dreaded exam. Then I slowly began to read about it, met other interpreters, and started getting interested. It was a skill, and as such, it required training and lots of practice. I could do that. I was actually offered a simultaneous interpreting job before I was trained, and although I still think I did an awful job, they called me again and again after that. That was my turning point. I completed an intensive and highly effective interpreting course and loved it. Half of my invoicing now is from interpreting.
Hope it helps!
Regards,
Nadia. ▲ Collapse
| | | | katiej
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:55
French to English
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TOPIC STARTER
Thanks Nadia, that's really useful. Yes, am worried about the stress factor too!
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 21:55
Member
English to Turkish
| Panic attacks, anxiety... | May 25, 2022 |
katiej wrote:
Has anyone had experience of moving over from translation to interpreting (specifically conference interpreting) after a fairly long career in translation?
The last time I did an interpreting job was 10 years ago when my agency (I was working in-house then) sent me to a hotel for what they said 'a short consecutive interpreting' at the very last minute in replacement of another interpreter who couldn't make it that day. That "consecutive interpreting" job turned out to be an annual dealers' conference where 2 French ladies appeared on a podium in front of a sea of dealers coming from all over the country (there were hundreds of them) to do a presentation for a well known ballpoint pen company. I arrived at the five star hotel 2 hours earlier, in my casual clothes and with no idea what was in store for me, and was hastily given the presentation material (which seemed like pretty straightforward/easy stuff talking about the history and objectives of the company in bullet points) to study, and basically had no time to think whether or not I could pull this thing off (I noticed the size of the room, but couldn't imagine the number of folk that would fill that room). After smoking a few cigarettes downstairs to calm my nerves and deciding I was ready for what was ahead, I entered the room and had the shock of my life...
I won't go into the embarrassing details, but I'll just say that from that day onwards I never took another 'interpreting job' that required me to address more than 3 persons at the same time.. I just did one-on-one consecutive interpreting jobs at notaries or government buildings, that's it. I'm not even sure if I can handle online interpreting jobs on Zoom. I turned down a job like that last summer which paid very well..
Anyways, the long and short of it is this: be careful going into interpreting after a long time, you may have developed social anxiety without realizing it, and you don't want to find that out like I did.
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katiej
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:55
French to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Your experience sounds very | May 25, 2022 |
nerve-wracking.
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 20:55
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
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| Badly organized event… | May 25, 2022 |
The setting Baran described calls for conference SI interpreting, given the number of participants (hundreds?), and not “simple consecutive interpreting”. It’s the organizer’s fault.
I was at events with just 50 participants and interpreted from a booth.
Trained interpreters know how to ask questions, explain why a setting is “impossible and efficient”, and then either turn down the job or ask the employer to sign liability for silly consequences on their end.
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 20:55
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
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| Highly skilled people. | May 25, 2022 |
In my study years interpreting was only for the most highly skilled translators at university level. You didn't choose to become an interpreter, you were chosen (meaning you had to have a certain score to be allowed to do interpreter studies, which was after the first two years of the translation degree). If you weren't chosen becoming a 'normal' translator was the highest achievable goal.
Not sure if that's still the way things go these days, but it could give you an idea that a tr... See more In my study years interpreting was only for the most highly skilled translators at university level. You didn't choose to become an interpreter, you were chosen (meaning you had to have a certain score to be allowed to do interpreter studies, which was after the first two years of the translation degree). If you weren't chosen becoming a 'normal' translator was the highest achievable goal.
Not sure if that's still the way things go these days, but it could give you an idea that a translator doesn't simply turn into an interpreter. It demands high skills.
Of course everybody could offer his interpretation services, but my guess is that the high-level jobs would only be for graduated interpreters. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Liviu-Lee Roth
United States
Local time: 14:55
Romanian to English
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| sorry, I disagree | May 25, 2022 |
Lieven Malaise wrote:
In my study years interpreting was only for the most highly skilled translators at university level. You didn't choose to become an interpreter, you were chosen (meaning you had to have a certain score to be allowed to do interpreter studies, which was after the first two years of the translation degree). If you weren't chosen becoming a 'normal' translator was the highest achievable goal.
Not sure if that's still the way things go these days, but it could give you an idea that a translator doesn't simply turn into an interpreter. It demands high skills.
Of course everybody could offer his interpretation services, but my guess is that the high-level jobs would only be for graduated interpreters.
I never took an interpreting course in my life and for the last 25 years, besides translating official documents for the US. Government, I interpret in court, high level international delegations and conferences. Honestly, I do not enjoy the simultaneous booth interpreting, love the interactive consecutive. In my humble opinion, I think that women are a much better fit for simultaneous interp. than men, because our brains are wired differently.
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katiej
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:55
French to English
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TOPIC STARTER
I have a degree in interpreting & translating, but have just focused on translation so far.
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