Simultaneous interpretation

[Thunter]

Hi,

Is somebody here who could give me some advice for simultaneous interpretation? The last two times I tried it, it was really hard. The difficulty is neither the vocabulary nor the grammar... it's the speed.
This results mainly in two problems.
1) I make grammatical incorrect sentences because of the speed... and mostly the speaker is not speaking in full sentences.
2) While I translate a certain phrase I have three different expressions in mind and sadly the one that pops up the fastest will be spoken.

Are there any useful techniques?

[jeff_lindqvist]

This may be of interest:
https://howtogetfluent.com/how-do-you-b ... eter-like/

The Pleasures and Pains of Working as an Interpreter (Lýdia Machová at the Polyglot Gathering 2015 - ~50 minutes)

[aokoye]

The Middlebury Institute of International Studies has some interesting videos that talk about this.

10 Ways to Prepare for Our Translation, Interpretation and Localization Programs - this one is an hour and the person talking talks more about interpretation than she does translation or localization. She's also a practicing interpreter and the video is useful not only for learning about their programs but also interpretation (and translation - not really localization - in general). The presenter mentions shadowing, among other things.
They also have a video about their interpreting programs here which, beginning at 1:10, talks about some aspects that are true of skilled interpreters.

[Pekoral]

Merely knowing a language is not enough to do simultaneous interpretation. Learning how to speak and listen at the same time is a skill that takes up to a year of practice to learn. As far as I've understood, they begin by merely repeating in their native language at the same time as they listen to it, and only when that is mastered they progress to translating from another language. Unless aiming for simultaneous interpretation as career, most people will probably be very satisfied with consecutive interpretation.

[allhandsondex]

I'm an interpreter at the European Commission, so I guess I know a few things about it

Most interpreter training courses do not begin by teaching simultaneous interpretation; they teach consecutive first (in some institutions where the Masters lasts 2 years, simultaneous isn't taught until the second year). This is because while consecutive interpretation is increasingly rare (I've never done it in three years as an interpreter), it teaches you the basic skills you need to know. The websites I've linked to below have speeches for simultaneous and consecutive interpreting, at different levels. If you're serious about interpreting, start with consecutive. That said, you ask specifically about simultaneous, so...

Firstly, don't dive straight into interpretation from L2>L1; instead, shadow stuff in your L1 for a while (half an hour a day for a couple of weeks?) to get used to listening and speaking at the same time. (By the way, we generally only interpret with one headphone, leaving the other ear free to monitor output - this is a good habit to get into early on). Then, after some time, listen to stuff in your L1 and paraphrase it also in your L1 - this trains you to not only listen and speak at the same time, but to extract and process a message and deliver it while doing so. These steps often seem boring, but they're essential in learning to interpret well.
*EDIT* Also, play around with seeing how far behind the speaker you can be. The gap between your speech and theirs is known as a décollage, and having more distance can help you get a clearer idea of where a sentence is heading before you commit yourself to it. This is very useful in one of my language combinations (DE>EN) because, of course, of the whole verb thing, but if your L1 is DE, I don't know whether it would be better to have a shorter décollage or not...

When you can paraphrase well from your L1, that's the time to bring in the L2. You can find speeches suitable for trainee interpreters on speechpool, which was set up by a colleague who also trains new interpreters, and on the Commission's own Speech Repository in a range of languages and at different levels of difficulty. Start off with basic stuff and work your way up, basically.

Leave one ear uncovered to monitor output, record yourself and listen back. Always have a pen and paper handy to write down things like numbers (only very few of my colleagues can interpret more than a number or two at a time without writing things down, and if someone's giving you a lot of statistics and don't have a powerpoint you can also read off it becomes a nightmare); I also tend to doodle while interpreting, I don't know why but I find it helps (for instance, if the speaker says that something is "an overarching theme with three main sections" I draw a curved horizontal line with three vertical lines coming off it; if the speaker says "there are three main points here," I draw three bullet-points or dashes. I don't know that it really does help).

You say you're concerned that "While I translate a certain phrase I have three different expressions in mind and sadly the one that pops up the fastest will be spoken." I don't think that's really too much of a problem. The crucial thing to remember about interpreting is that we don't interpret words, we interpret ideas. As long as whatever expression you say conveys the same image or idea (or as close as is reasonably possible to it) to the listener as the original expression gives to those listening to the original, you've done your job.

If you have any more questions or want to talk about it a bit more, feel free to drop me a private message

[Montmorency]

(By the way, we generally only interpret with one headphone, leaving the other ear free to monitor output - this is a good habit to get into early on)

A few weeks ago, someone posted a thread about a type of microphone which allowed you to listen to your own voice (with no delay), while speaking (as well as being able to hear someone else speaking, of course).

Do you think something like that would work as well as just using one headphone?

(By the way, it turns out there are several makes and models of microphone that offer such a capability, so this is definitely not a commercial plug (and I have no commercial connections in any case)).

[allhandsondex]

(By the way, we generally only interpret with one headphone, leaving the other ear free to monitor output - this is a good habit to get into early on)

A few weeks ago, someone posted a thread about a type of microphone which allowed you to listen to your own voice (with no delay), while speaking (as well as being able to hear someone else speaking, of course).

Do you think something like that would work as well as just using one headphone?

(By the way, it turns out there are several makes and models of microphone that offer such a capability, so this is definitely not a commercial plug (and I have no commercial connections in any case)).

I guess as long as you have the equipment that lets you do it, I don't see why it wouldn't work. At work, while some of us use our own headphones (Bang and Olufsen are the most popular, for some reason. I just use the ones they give us) the microphones are obviously wired into the system, but for the purpose of practicing yourself I guess it would work as long as you can clearly separate the two voices in the same ear. I don't think I'd like to switch to that way of working now, but if you're used to it from the start (as long as you're aware you probably can't interpret like that in the real world) I guess it could work.