Typically, while performing Simultaneous Interpreting, the interpreter sits in a booth wearing a pair of headphones and speaks into a microphone. Strictly speaking, simultaneous is a misnomer: the interpreter cannot start interpreting until he or she understands the general meaning of the sentence. Depending for example, on how far apart in the sentence to be interpreted the subject and the verb are located, the interpreter may not be able to utter even a single word until he or she has heard the entire sentence! This fact should make it evident how difficult the task of the interpreter really is: she must translate the sentence into the target language while simultaneously listening to and comprehending the next sentence. You can experience the difficulty of the task even if you only speak one language: try paraphrasing someones speech with a half-sentence delay while making sure you understand the next sentence and paraphrasing the previous one. One of the key skills of the simultaneous interpreter is decisiveness: there is simply no time to weigh the merits of variant translations, or to recall just the right idiom in the target language. Any delay and a few words (and possibly a complete thought) that the speaker uttered could be lost, and since the speaker may be far away, or even in a different room than the interpreter, the loss may be permanent.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 19:00:01 +0000
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