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.For this episode, I was curious to learn whether introverts are more affected by Zoom fatigue than extroverts, and how introverts can recharge their batteries when they're feeling drained.Do you find it difficult to transition between a 'draining' activity and the next item on your to-do list?There are many online quizzes to find out if you're more of an introvert or extrovert. I can't vouch for their accuracy! Here's one.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.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/Twitter: @terpcoachLinkedIn: 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 talk about deliberate practice: what it is and how to do it!Here's the link to the paper by Elisabet Tiselius, titled 'Deliberate Practice: the Unicorn of Interpreting Studies'.Andy Gillies's book, containing all manner of exercises to work on every aspect of your interpreting, is Conference Interpreting: a Student's Practice Book.And Ericsson's paper:K.A. Ericsson, R.Th. Krampe, C. Tesch-RömerThe role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performancePsychological Review, 100 (1993), pp. 363-406, 10.1037/0033-295X.100.3.363Let me know what you'd like me to talk about next! Sophie (aka The Interpreting Coach)Support the showMy website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/Twitter: @terpcoachLinkedIn: 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, use of target language, and marketing.In this episode, I talk about speakers with strong accents.This is a subject I love, and so I may have become a bit carried away and shared lots of anecdotes (or....what some people may consider waffle) at the beginning of the episode. 😊Here are some suggestions for dealing with speakers with strong accents in simultaneous:don't try to 'translate' - in seeking a balance between sentence-level, 'micro' interpreting and 'macro' interpreting ('the big picture'), err towards the big picture.interpret defensively, i.e. don't commit too early. Give yourself time to understand whole ideas - this may involve having a longer décalage.Keep your output simple. You might want to summarise more than usual.Use salami technique to give yourself more space for listening.Say what you HAVE understood and/or know to be true.Listen out for big ideas in the speech, e.g. is a proposal good or bad? Is the budget increasing or decreasing? Is an amount more or less than last year?Pay attention to anything that conveys the speaker's OPINION, including linking words, intonation, and facial expressions or body language.Make sure you use your background knowledge to fill in the gaps in what you can hear/understand.If necessary, use what the audience knows to interpret in a way that is less explicit, but that the audience will still understand.Even when you're not interpreting, listen to the rest of the meeting to make sure you're up to speed.Prepare the assignment very thoroughly, and if you have the speakers' names, search for them on Youtube to see if you can find videos to practise from.These three things will help you improve your comprehension of strong accents:exposure. Get some practice! (If you're looking for interpreting practice with a variety of English accents, why not check out my collection of modules (E4T) focusing on specific topics, and designed to help interpreters improve their English C? Topics include vaccination, fake news, the circular economy, the gig economy, taxation, and supply chains. Just scroll down my home page to find the links to each module.).enlarging your vocabulary.making sure your working memory is in good shape.I mentioned the following podcast episodes:Tips for keeping your memory in top shapeShort decalage vs salami technique in retourBeing concise in simultaneousHere is Tony Rosado's blog post about heavy accents.Let me know what you'd like me to talk about next! Sophie (aka The Interpreting CoachSupport the showMy website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/Twitter: @terpcoachLinkedIn: 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 what it means to interpret 'clearly' (in simultaneous, mostly, although many of the principles apply to consecutive as well).Here's a quick summary.To me, 'clarity' involves both acoustic clarity (the audience needs to HEAR and UNDERSTAND what the interpreter is saying), and semantic clarity (the words you use, and how you put them together).To improve acoustic clarity:- say each word clearly and accurately- pause in the right places- use your voice!If you struggle with pronunciation, enunciation, or intonation, you can try exercises such as reading out loud or shadowing, or work with an accent coach.To improve the semantic clarity of what you're saying:- make short chunks- if it works in your target language, use SVO sentence structure; start with the subject; keep the subject close to the verb- make sure the LINKS between ideas are clear, and use intonation to emphasise them- avoid fillers- use appropriate and precise vocabulary (think about the needs of your audience)To make improvements in this area, you might like to play with your décalage to give you more time to think, practise salami technique, and/or do sight translation or reformulation exercises.A final point: in order to achieve all of this (precise vocabulary, clear links, short chunks, etc.), you need a CLEAR UNDERSTANDING of the speaker's message, which comes from a combination of your understanding of the source language and your ANALYTICAL SKILLS, and a good idea of your audience's needs.Being clear is about being PRECISE and CONCISE, and I've devoted a whole podcast episode to being concise. :-)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 showMy website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/Twitter: @terpcoachLinkedIn: 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:your audience/client's expectations of how complete you need to beyour assumptions about your audience's knowledge and understanding of the subjectthe speaker's intentions (what effect they're trying to produce)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 showMy website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/Twitter: @terpcoachLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-interpreting-coach/Or email me at [email protected]