Giovanna Lester’s Post

View profile for Giovanna Lester

Interpreter || Translator Brazilian Portuguese x English - helping businesses, individuals, lawyers, and LSPs communicate.

This article was written for The NAJIT Observer, a blog I curate. I hope the #interpreters in my network find something useful here and I invite you to contribute in your comments. Cyril Flerov Ewandro Magalhaes Dr. Izabel Souza Jorge U. Ungo Gabriela Jenicek Gabriela Cleefi Ana Lucia Amaral Paul Urwin Jonathan Downie Judy Jenner Cris Silva, M.A., CT Barbara Werderitsch Yilda Ruiz Monroy #interpreter #conferenceinterpreting

Interpreting: Stepping into the Booth for the First Time

https://najit.org

Paul Urwin

CFO @ There is Talent | Scaling US Businesses with Virtual Assistants and Remote Talent | Host of the Remote Business Growth Podcast

4y

Fantastic stuff, Gio!   A mountain of resources in one post! Interpreting is definitely a pretty intense activity, and lots of the tips you've given can really help interpreters to get it right, there's quite a lot to consider! You mentioned accents and YouTube videos - excellent!  Many presenters now have material online and this offers a chance to prepare properly.  A different style or accent can catch out even the most experienced of interpreters if they are not used to it. I would also add that mic positioning / management is important.  Make sure you have the mic at the right distance (too close can cause distortion, for example), and be careful to avoid too many unwanted sounds (such as sighing etc.).  Even moving cables around can be picked up and can be distracting to the listeners. Finally, most business is about relationships and interpreting is no different.  If you are able to create a good relationship with the event organizer and if possible meet and engage with the presenter before you step into the booth then that's going to help you no end.

Cyril Belange

solving interpreting problems for you

4y

A gem of a text and a treasure trove of relevant advice for any conference interpreter not only novices! Good job Giovanna Lester!

Cyril Flerov

Russian Conference Interpreter at InterStar Translations, Member of AIIC and Executive Secretary of TAALS

4y

And thank you for mentioning our book!

Cyril Flerov

Russian Conference Interpreter at InterStar Translations, Member of AIIC and Executive Secretary of TAALS

4y

Very well written congrats. Re # 2: - if you do not have a complete syntagm/meaning unit then learn to use stalling and pausing - that is one of the ways to “play” with decalage. See my writeup from 2016: https://app.box.com/s/wtdkdee73x1ovndujzw1 - I personally like to test myself and try probability prediction: occasionally I begin to translate “good , kind, honest “ even before I hear the noun. It is even more fun with languages that have gender in adjectives. If the noun I hear is a different gender I pick up a synonym to it to fit the adjective. It stimulates your wbrain and is a very important skill to handle false starts. If it happens spontaneously in “real” life your brain will have an automatic habit to handle it. Think about other strategies to handle the situation when you have a long chain that you cannot translate “as is” immediately. Eg you do not even wait for the noun and “ Good, kind, honest boy” becomes: “goodness, kindness, honestly. These are the qualities the boy has”. This transformation is important in actual simul if you have a long string you cannot immediately interpret but cannot use stalling either because it will overload your short term memory. - Playing with decalage is a very important skill especially learning to increase it instantly by using stalling and reduce instantly by using omission, digestion and compression. So leaning to keep decalage is one one half of the equation. The secret is to understand that it is a dynamic and changes all the time like the percentage of the computer processor load. -

Steve Rainwater

Linguist-Writer☀️Catholic Convert

4y

Very interesting!

See more comments

To view or add a comment, sign in

Explore topics