Simultaneous Interpreting_3695

[on11an49]

Simultaneous Interpreting
If you don’t speak French yet want to read Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu, you can buy a translation, which will have been produced over a number of years or perhaps decades.  However,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, if you are in Paris and someone shouts at you,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, ‘Attention au lion qui s’est échappé du zoo et qui se cache dans les ruelles!’, you will need a quicker translation; you do not want to reflect decades later that, had you known what the sentence meant – ‘Watch out for the lion which has escaped from the zoo and is hiding in the back streets!’ – you would have kept to the main roads.
     
  Translations can be provided at different speeds.  Often, people are happy to wait, if not decades,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, then at least a day or a week.  Equally, though, translation is sometimes needed immediately, even if the information is not quite as urgent as that concerning an escaped lion.  Politicians and lawyers are particularly dependent on simultaneous translation.  So how does it work, and who are the people involved?
       
  The protagonist of Javier Marias’s novel A Heart So White is a simultaneous interpreter.  At one point, he describes how he provided interpretation at a meeting between a leading British politician and the Spanish Prime Minister.  The politicians make stilted small talk.  Deciding to move proceedings in a different direction, the interpreter ignores one question and replaces it with: ‘Tell me, do you feel as if the people in your country really love you?’  The other politician replies in an animated fashion, and the interpreter continues to direct the conversation, replacing any questions or remarks that he finds uninteresting with his own, and smoothing over the transitions.
       
  Marias’ story playfully signals the importance of simultaneous interpreting, and whilst the reality is slightly more banal, the job is demanding and in demand.  In general, an interpreter will attend an event where, say, two people are talking to each other.  Everyone will be equipped with headphones and microphones; the interpreter will sit in a booth to avoid intruding on the conversation.  One person will speak, and will pause at the end of the sentence; the interpreter will translate.
   
  Performing this role requires complete mastery of the two languages in question, along with linguistic dexterity and great speed of thought.  Simultaneous interpreters are therefore a sought-after breed, and are remunerated accordingly; moreover, as they offer such crucial and specialized skills, their opinions and needs are respected.  Even at an extremely high level in business or politics, simultaneous interpreters might insist on a certain amount of time at lunch or on particular settings for the meeting.
     
  There can, of course, be slight problems.  One French sports correspondent, Nelson Monfort, is infamous for his bilingual interviews at football matches or at athletics meetings – interviews in which he asks the questions in French, translates them into English, receives the answer in English, and translates it into French.  This is a high-speed version of simultaneous interpreting, because athletes are rarely eager to wait around after a race.  It requires great skill, yet the speed and unwieldiness of the process, coupled with the exuberant manner of Nelson Monfort, means that the correspondent is often parodied in other sections of the media.
       
  One final difficulty can arise when one or more of the speakers at a meeting fail to understand the principle of simultaneous interpreting.  This happened recently when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Russia and gave a five-minute speech at a press conference,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, leaving the Russian interpreter to scribble furiously before offering a summary when Rice finished.  Rice apologized, but, as a Russian speaker, she commented that the interpretation provided was ‘close enough’.
   
     
    Gordon Rich is a self published author and translation expert. He regularly contributes articles on english to arabic translation and arabic interpretation. To know more visit You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login