The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
Issue link: https://thelinguist.uberflip.com/i/271849
8 The Linguist FEBRUARY/MARCH www.iol.org.uk FEATURES CK You're often working in an atmosphere that is really very adversarial. Sometimes parties are extremely rude to one another. FDR If they swear, we swear. CK Françoise has a law degree, so that helps a great deal. FDR It helps, but then the suit could be about anything. I remember we were working with American and French companies that were suing each other with regard to rockets that were not firing properly. They had models of the rockets in the arbitration room and we kept on looking at each other and saying, 'Well this is rocket science!' [laughs]. So suddenly you're thrown into something that isn't your specialism. Normally, with conference interpreting, the main thing is not to stop, not to be hesitant. You say something that is close enough, you can't say 'Er, it will come to me'. If you can come up with perfection, great, but otherwise you should satisfy yourself with good enough. But that's not true with legal. Legal interpretation is often done simultaneously and you have to find the right word. An approximation won't do. CK You've got to be unbelievably precise and I think that, because we've done a great deal of legal, it has followed that we work in the same way for other subject matters. You really train yourself to realise that every single nuance, every single word counts. In media work you're particularly exposed because your interpretation is broadcast live. I was Chief Interpreter for Bloomberg television and every month we had to interpret [US Federal Reserve Chairman] Alan Greenspan, who actually said in interviews 'Of course I want to be obtuse. Of course I don't want to be understood.' You can imagine that these live broadcasts were terrifying. FDR In interpreting you do three things: you listen, you produce, but there's also a control – that's the third function. You control what you're hearing, you control what you're producing. But with Greenspan that poor controller was going completely mad. You'd just said something and then you thought, 'No, he meant exactly the opposite.' CK You felt that if you managed and Bloomberg were happy with your performance, you could do anything. Sadly, Bloomberg closed down their foreign channels. Some bean counter must have said to Michael Bloomberg, 'Television may be the jewel in your crown but you shouldn't have so many diamonds.' FDR Oh that's a nice idea! To think we were one of the little diamonds. CK You can only be as good as the speaker. But you need to get the message across, A former languages teacher, Jan Rausch MCIL has been working as a conference interpreter in the UK and Germany since completing an MA in Translation and Interpreting at Salford University in 2010. "At the end of the course I started being quite active on ProZ and that's where I had my first offer of work. I also did a lot of research on the different agencies, and I contacted the best ones via email. Now I don't really look for assignments; I look for places where I can make myself known or can network. I'm listed on Find-a-linguist, I'm a member of the BDÜ, the North-West Translators' Network and LinkedIn. I did a week at the United Nations in Vienna. You can do a dummy booth or practise somewhere. A year after becoming a freelance interpreter I launched my website. I get a real buzz out of interpreting and that's what I do as a main profession. You need to present yourself as one service provider mainly, but you also need to keep it flexible. I've got a lot of work as a translator as well. When you start off, you don't have a full agenda of interpreting, so that's helpful. There's a massive range of rates and you need to ask yourself, 'where do I position myself without looking too cheap or not getting jobs because I am too expensive'. For the first year, you may not be able to make a living from interpreting alone, and establishing yourself without making a loss financially is difficult. My partner's job took us to Frankfurt for a year, which turned out to be beneficial because there is more demand for interpreting there and financially it is better. When selecting a course, it is important to choose an institution that does specific conference interpreting training, and if you want to work overseas, check which international associations list the university as acceptable. My final advice is to have some savings, be patient, network, establish yourself, and don't sell yourself too cheaply. www.interrausch.com ADVICE FROM A NEWCOMER TO THE PROFESSION and to ensure that it is as comprehensible as possible. FDR You get rid of all the err's and so on. When it works well, you feel that somehow you're in the brain of the person you're interpreting and your thoughts are moving in the same direction. And at other times, you're… in French you would say 'pedalling in yoghurt'. You don't know where they're going, they don't seem to know where they're going. TL So would you ask each other to take over? CK Occasionally. If the subject is particularly obscure. TL How do you prepare for conferences? FDR Medical conferences are hard. So for a one-day conference sometimes I prepare for three days. Things have changed tremendously with the internet. Fifteen years ago you had to write to the pharmaceutical company in France to get information, you had to call colleagues, go to medical libraries, have subscriptions to medical journals. Nowadays, thanks to the internet, you can prepare well and faster. CK You do as much preparation in advance as possible. And both of us do a lot of legal interpretation… FDR It can happen that you practically get a van that arrives at your house with enormous bundles – they've just flung everything at you. CK So I always say, 'We charge for preparation time; if you want to save some money then make sure you only give us the most relevant things.' In general, though, people don't realise how much better you feel about the work if Really the Queen didn't need me at all. I was an insurance policy: she understood what was being said