The Complete Interpreter

Hi! Welcome to the Complete Interpreter podcast by the Interpreting Coach.

Why 'Complete Interpreter'? Because you're not just a translation machine, you're also a person and a business owner, and I hope to help you take a 360 view of yourself and share some great tried-and-tested strategies to improve your interpreting skills, mindset, and marketing.

In this episode, I talk about a few expressions whose different meanings in American English and British English could give rise to confusion.

There is of course no one accent or variant of English that is 'superior' to another. We are all fundamentally 'accent-centric' when we speak our native language, because we tend to think of ourselves as NOT having an accent, while other people do; for instance, if you grow up in France, you tend to think Belgians 'have an accent', whereas they think YOU do! The reality is that there are just DIFFERENT accents or pronunciations, and as an interpreter, what is acceptable will depend on your audience (i.e. what they expect to hear and what they understand).

In general, European audiences and interpreters are used to British English, and this is usually what people have learned at school, but the influence of American English (from TV and film) is widely felt. In fact, I wonder if British English will continue to be the norm in language teaching in Europe, or if American English will take over eventually!

In this episode, I have avoided talking about everyday vocabulary that differs significantly between AmEng and BrEng. I'm sure you've all encountered word lists with examples like pants, rubber, suspenders, trunk, sidewalk, etc. Instead, I've focused on two or three expressions that might come up in a work context.

Now that I think about it, there's one more term that has flummoxed non-British colleagues on more than one occasion, and that's a word for zero: 'nought'. When I've used 'nought', American colleagues have wondered if I was saying 'not'.

Do you have any more examples of terms that could cause confusion?

Let me know what you'd like me to talk about next!
 
Sophie (aka The Interpreting Coach)

My website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/
Twitter: @terpcoach
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-interpreting-coach/

Or email me at [email protected]

Support the show

My website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/
Twitter: @terpcoach
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-interpreting-coach/

Or email me at [email protected]

Hi! Welcome to the Complete Interpreter podcast by the Interpreting Coach.

Why 'Complete Interpreter'? Because you're not just a translation machine, you're also a person and a business owner, and I hope to help you take a 360 view of yourself and share some great tried-and-tested strategies to improve your interpreting skills, mindset, and marketing.

In this episode, I go through a series of techniques that can help you avoid procrastination, depending on your REASON for putting off the task you need to do:
- if the task seems too BIG, think about setting clearer boundaries; schedule your time differently, to make sure you've left space to work on this task in chunks.
- if the task seems too HARD, enlist help if necessary; set a time limit to work on it in chunks, pick your best time of day, and remember the Goldilocks principle: human beings get most satisfaction from tasks that are just difficult enough.
- if the task is BORING: find ways to make it fun; 'bundle' it with something more fun; use visual cues to help you see your progress; or set a time limit.
- try using the 'pleasure' principle instead of the 'pain' principle by choosing a small reward for the tasks you accomplish.

Take the time to examine your feelings around the tasks you are putting off: is the pain of doing them (frustration, boredom, fear, feeling threatened) really worse than the pain of NOT doing them?

Try building some accountability into your work, by enlisting an accountability partner (friend, relative, colleague, or Facebook group) or joining a co-working platform.

Finally, take an honest look at your work week: is there anything you could delegate, automate, or simply stop doing?

If you'd like to join my free Focus Sessions (co-working) on Fridays at 5 pm CET, you can register here.

Let me know what you'd like me to talk about next!

Sophie (aka The Interpreting Coach)

Support the show

My website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/
Twitter: @terpcoach
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-interpreting-coach/

Or email me at [email protected]

Hi! Welcome to the Complete Interpreter podcast by the Interpreting Coach.

Why 'Complete Interpreter'? Because you're not just a translation machine, you're also a person and a business owner, and I hope to help you take a 360 view of yourself share some great tried-and-tested strategies to improve your interpreting skills, mindset, and marketing.

In this episode, I talk about being concise: what's the point? How can you reduce your word count (and is that REALLY what's important?).

Here a summary of my suggestions:

• Cut out repetition and redundancy
• Avoid fillers, hesitations and qualifiers (if you're a conference interpreter)
• Don't hedge (unless the speaker is doing so deliberately)
• Be mindful of your word choice; use shorter forms ('use', not 'utilise') and avoid verbose turns of phrase ('due to the fact that'...)
• avoid lengthy and complicated passive constructions

To APPEAR more concise - and clearer! - even if there are just as many words 🙂

• use salami technique: chop the source material into shorter chunks
• connect the chunks with logical connectors
• use SVO word order if your target language lends itself to this, and start sentences with the subject
• keep the subject and verb close to each other
• use intonation as a fantastic shortcut!

The speech I chose (in French) is number 32125 in the SCIC Speech Repository, titled L'Hydrogène.

I wanted to give you transcripts here, but they exceed the permitted word count for show notes. However, you can find them on my blog.

Support the show

My website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/
Twitter: @terpcoach
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-interpreting-coach/

Or email me at [email protected]

Hi! Welcome to the Complete Interpreter podcast by the Interpreting Coach.

Why 'Complete Interpreter'? Because you're not just a translation machine, you're also a person and a business owner, and I hope to help you take a 360 view of yourself share some great tried-and-tested strategies to improve your interpreting skills, mindset, and marketing.

Here are some of the options I mention in this episode:
- the Cambridge Conference Interpreting Course
- WISE workshops (Europe)
- Co>lab (Canada)
- Practice groups, e.g. IBPG, PiPs, AmeriVox, etc. – see list here

If you'd like to join my free Focus Sessions (co-working) on Fridays at 5 pm CET, you can register here. Several members like to devote the 50 minutes to listening back to their simultaneous interpreting and analysing their performance.

Let me know what you'd like me to talk about next!
 
 Sophie (aka The Interpreting Coach)

Support the show

My website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/
Twitter: @terpcoach
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-interpreting-coach/

Or email me at [email protected]

Hi! Welcome to the Complete Interpreter podcast by the Interpreting Coach.

Why 'Complete Interpreter'? Because you're not just a translation machine, you're also a person and a business owner, and I hope to help you take a 360 view of yourself share some great tried-and-tested strategies to improve your interpreting skills, mindset, and marketing.

This episode is all about what you can leave out when doing consecutive. Warning: it was written from the point of view of a conference interpreter.

The book I mention in the podcast, which contains a framework for deciding what to omit when interpreting, is Conference Interpreting: A Complete Course, by Robin Setton and Andrew Dawrant.

Here's a simple summary of this episode:

• When you ask interpreters what they omit when interpreting, they generally list elements that are considered uncontroversial, such as repetition/redundancy, hesitations, fillers, asides, rhetorical devices, and list items.
• Before ditching these elements, you need to think about what the purpose of the original speech is: what effect is the speaker trying to have on the audience?
• Your decisions about what to omit will depend on four factors:

1. your audience/client's expectations of how complete you need to be
2. your assumptions about your audience's knowledge and understanding of the subject
3. the speaker's intentions (what effect they're trying to produce)
4. your abilities as an interpreter (you may have to drop something simply as a survival strategy).

What are your thoughts about omissions?

Please let me know what you'd like me to talk about next!

Sophie (aka The Interpreting Coach)

p.s. The story I told at the end of this episode involves a speaker using the term 'masturbation intellectuelle' in French, which means pointless ruminations about a subject that lead nowhere.
What do you think you would have done with this phrase? Translated it as something like 'navel-gazing'? Used a four letter word?

Support the show

My website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/
Twitter: @terpcoach
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-interpreting-coach/

Or email me at [email protected]

Hi! Welcome to the Complete Interpreter podcast by the Interpreting Coach.

Why 'Complete Interpreter'? Because you're not just a translation machine, you're also a person and a business owner, and I hope to help you take a 360 view of yourself share some great tried-and-tested strategies to improve your interpreting skills, mindset, and marketing.

This episode is devoted to co-working: what it is, who it's for, and whether it's a good idea for interpreters. Hint: yes, for SOME interpreters. There are plenty of things you can knuckle down to doing during co-working sessions. Here are just a few:

• Meeting document prep
• Reviewing your performance and analysing it
• Working on glossaries
• Working on a C language or developing your retour
• Invoicing, booking flights
• Other admin (e.g. holidays, haircuts, etc.)!

If you'd like to join my free Focus Sessions (co-working) on Fridays at 5 pm CET, you can register here.

Let me know what you'd like me to talk about next!
 
 Sophie (aka The Interpreting Coach)

Support the show

My website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/
Twitter: @terpcoach
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-interpreting-coach/

Or email me at [email protected]

Hi! Welcome to the Complete Interpreter podcast by the Interpreting Coach.

Why 'Complete Interpreter'? Because you're not just a translation machine, you're also a person and a business owner, and I hope to help you take a 360 view of yourself share some great tried-and-tested strategies to improve your interpreting skills, mindset, and marketing.

In this episode, I talk about how thinking about stress differently can help you experience it more positively and improve your performance in the booth and during exams.
You can find out a lot more about the 'expectation effect' I describe in this podcast by reading this book by David Robson.

For a free growth mindset challenge that can help you reframe your expectations of yourself, go to my website and scroll down the home page.

Let me know what you'd like me to talk about next!
 
 Sophie (aka The Interpreting Coach)

Support the show

My website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/
Twitter: @terpcoach
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-interpreting-coach/

Or email me at [email protected]

Hi! Welcome to the Complete Interpreter podcast by the Interpreting Coach.

Why 'Complete Interpreter'? Because you're not just a translation machine, you're also a person and a business owner, and I hope to help you take a 360 view of yourself share some great tried-and-tested strategies to improve your interpreting skills, mindset, and marketing.

In this episode, I talk about how to go about refreshing your consecutive note-taking skills if they're a bit rusty!

Here are some of the options I mention:
- Andy Gillies: "Consecutive Interpreting: A Short Course"
- Julia Poger on LinkedIn (recent course: Know your Worth presents Smart Consecutive Interpreting)
- David Violet's practice sessions

My Consecutive Club, with weekly guided practice sessions on Mondays at 1300 CET, tutorial videos, practice speeches in English, and more. Suitable for conference interpreters wishing to practise long consecutive.

My Consecutive Clinic collection of self-paced modules tackling specific note-taking challenges, for those who prefer self-study. Again, suitable for people practising long consecutive, who've already mastered the basics. You can purchase the whole collection, or individual modules.

What are your thoughts about refreshing your consecutive skills? What has worked best for you?

Let me know what you'd like me to talk about next!
 
Sophie (aka The Interpreting Coach)

Support the show

My website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/
Twitter: @terpcoach
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-interpreting-coach/

Or email me at [email protected]

Hi! Welcome to the Complete Interpreter podcast by the Interpreting Coach.

Why 'Complete Interpreter'? Because you're not just a translation machine, you're also a person and a business owner, and I hope to help you take a 360 view of yourself share some great tried-and-tested strategies to improve your interpreting skills, mindset, and marketing.

In this episode (my first! 🥳) I talk about the 3 biggest mistakes I have made in my interpreting career, and what I've learned from them.

Here's a summary:

1. Educate yourself from the start

• Join a professional organisation such as AIIC
• attend global CPD events such as TerpSummit or the Innovation in Interpreting summit
• follow selected blogs and social media accounts

2. Diversify/specialise

• find a mentor
• be open to new opportunities
• network!
• learn how to find and acquire direct clients

3. Maintain your skills with consistent practice

• decide on your goal and schedule time in your diary
• find a practice partner or practice group to keep yourself accountable
• join co-working sessions

You can find a useful list of practice groups here.
If you'd like to join my free Focus Sessions (co-working) on Fridays at 5 pm CET, you can register here.

Let me know what you'd like me to talk about next!

Sophie (aka The Interpreting Coach)

Support the show

My website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/
Twitter: @terpcoach
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-interpreting-coach/

Or email me at [email protected]