Translation - art & business » Interpreting »
How to gain more experience for simultaneous interpretation?
Thread poster: YZHENG
YZHENG
YZHENG
United States
Local time: 10:20
English to Chinese
Oct 18, 2014

Hi Everybody,

I have been doing freelance interpretation services (Chinese-English language pair) for a couple months now. It been going on really well. I generally get two assignments per week on average, and the clients have been giving me very positive feedback.

Right now I'm more comfortable doing consecutive interpretation. However, more and more potential clients are asking me to provide simultaneous interpretation service. The problem is I don't have much simulta... See more
Hi Everybody,

I have been doing freelance interpretation services (Chinese-English language pair) for a couple months now. It been going on really well. I generally get two assignments per week on average, and the clients have been giving me very positive feedback.

Right now I'm more comfortable doing consecutive interpretation. However, more and more potential clients are asking me to provide simultaneous interpretation service. The problem is I don't have much simultaneous interpretation experience yet. Here's the dilemma: I really want to gain more simultaneous experience in real settings, but I also don't want to risk my clients' satisfaction with my service. So my question is: in this case, how can I gain simultaneous interpretation experience?

Also, I tried practicing simultaneous interpretations with news reports online such as CNN, but most of them were just too difficult for me. My other question is, how do you find practice materials that fits your level?

Please kindly throw in your advice and tips, I really appreciate it! ▲ Collapse
 
Phil Hand
Phil Hand  Identity Verified
China
Local time: 23:20
Chinese to English
Welcome to the internet... Oct 18, 2014

...it has search functions.

http://www.proz.com/forum/interpreting-67.html
... See more
...it has search functions.

http://www.proz.com/forum/interpreting-67.html
http://www.proz.com/forum/interpreting/204071-how_to_learn_simultaneous_interpreting_suggestions_needed.html
http://www.proz.com/forum/interpreting/232283-interpreters_how_do_you_practice.html

I wrote:

The best practice materials are unscripted speeches. They tend to have a reasonable logical structure, be clearly presented, and because they are unscripted they have enough repetition to allow you to keep up. Look for university lectures, or those news discussion programs where they get economists or analysts in to talk about recent events. When we were starting, we all had to do speeches ourselves, to (a) practice making speeches and (b) create easy non-specialist practice material for our classmates. But if you don't have partners to work with, there's loads of good material on Youtube, etc.

Finally, record yourself, find your own problems, and make targeted improvements to your performance. I hate recording myself, and resisted doing it for years, but it really is the best way to improve. ▲ Collapse
 
LilianNekipelov
LilianNekipelov  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 10:20
Russian to English
+ ...
Hi--record the news or whatever you want to practice on, Oct 18, 2014

and play it in slower motion. In fact some of the things online have already been recorded, so you can play them over and over again--at first in quite slow motion--not as slow that you would not able to recognize the words, but slow, and then gradually increase the speed--to the natural speed--it varies from language to language--usually 120-175 words per minute.

And, I agree with Phil--something spontaneous, without a script is easier to interpret--at least initially. After a ... See more
and play it in slower motion. In fact some of the things online have already been recorded, so you can play them over and over again--at first in quite slow motion--not as slow that you would not able to recognize the words, but slow, and then gradually increase the speed--to the natural speed--it varies from language to language--usually 120-175 words per minute.

And, I agree with Phil--something spontaneous, without a script is easier to interpret--at least initially. After a while it doesn't matter--scripted or not.

[Edited at 2014-10-18 08:27 GMT] ▲ Collapse
 


To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator:

Moderator(s) of this forum
NancyLynn[Call to this topic]
Andriy Bublikov[Call to this topic]

You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request »

How to gain more experience for simultaneous interpretation?







Pastey
Your smart companion app

Pastey is an innovative desktop application that bridges the gap between human expertise and artificial intelligence. With intuitive keyboard shortcuts, Pastey transforms your source text into AI-powered draft translations.

Find out more »
Wordfast Pro
Translation Memory Software for Any Platform

Exclusive discount for ProZ.com users! Save over 13% when purchasing Wordfast Pro through ProZ.com. Wordfast is the world's #1 provider of platform-independent Translation Memory software. Consistently ranked the most user-friendly and highest value

Buy now! »