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The side to interpreting nobody tells you about
Interpreting is not a career that immediately comes to most people’s minds. Nevertheless, it is a career with huge-reaching implications and applications that allow seamless and borderless communication between people with different languages and cultures.
In this article, we’ll be looking at three problems interpreters face in the line of duty, and how they often rise above these challenges and deliver a fantastic service.
- The speaker forgets you exist.
Let me explain. You’re contracted as an interpreter to help Spanish speakers communicate to their Czech audience. What could possibly go wrong?
Your first speaker is a very energetic man who gestures a lot and loves to speak as fast as he can.
You’re set to get to work, then our speaker sets off at a rapper’s pace, blurting out word after word too fast for you to catch or even make sense off.
What’s worse, he even tosses in a few Spanish jokes (more on that later) for good measure, and for the life of you, you don’t understand why this man isn’t considering the torture he’s putting you through.
There you are, sitting in your booth, working as furiously as you can, trying to turn that rushed speech into something comprehensible for your calm Czech audience with a bemused smile on their faces.
Just another day in the life of an interpreter.
While my example might be somewhat exaggerated, some interpreters have been in a position where speakers pay little regard to the interpreter and the job they’re there to do.
The way out here is often to do as much background research on the speakers and people you’ll be interpreting as possible. Check out their speaking style and prepare yourself accordingly.
- You have to translate… EVERYTHING.
Remember those movies with negotiation scenes where there’s an interpreter sweating profusely because his boss, a very dangerous man, has just insulted another even more dangerous man. It is now the job of the interpreter to… well, interpret.
This is, of course, another extreme example, but it highlights the difficult position in which speakers can and often do place interpreters.
You often have to find a way to put the more unsavory words in more polite terms without changing the meaning of what’s been said.
Sometimes, the speaker, might unintentionally insult the other speaker. This is where you earn your pay and expertly navigate everyone to safe waters again.
Hug an interpreter next time you see one – they go through a lot.
- Humor and sarcasm.
Nothing spices up a public speaking event like a few well-placed jokes here and there to warm up the audience, except you’re an interpreter and you’re expected to translate a joke steeped in British culture to a Chinese audience who do not have the slightest clue to understanding the references, much less the joke.
Sarcasm is even worse, and is easy to misconstrue as an insult when misinterpreted.
It is often the headache of the interpreter to find a way to get the joke across without it falling flatter than a pancake… See, I just used an English idiom there. Imagine an interpreter working in real-time trying to get that meaning across to a Polish audience and getting them to smile.
Eventually, experience, research, and practice remedy this dilemma. Veteran interpreters sometimes struggle with getting the proper context across for jokes and humor, but it gets better.
- Culture
An interpreter’s learning never ends. A dictionary and thesaurus are only a minute proportion of the preparation needed.
Obviously, you won’t be an interpreter without a skill level well above average in the languages you work with.
Cultural awareness and integration are even more critical because language is more than just words.
As an interpreter, you need a profound knowledge of idioms, jargon, slang, and colloquialisms that ensures you can accurately pass on the true meaning of every word spoken.
