Before the fall break, we had an opportunity to enhance our interpreting and problem-solving skills. Another faculty of the university organized an international art therapy conference and the EMCI students (that's us!) were invited to interpret. Four of us applied and our teacher wanted to give everyone a chance so we split the work among us. Without looking at the abstracts, I opted for the afternoon session (I hate getting up early and I'm fed up with commuting from Érd - but that's another story).
You might think that a perfectly prepared conference (with all speeches emailed to the interpreters in advance) would be better for beginners (that's what we are in simultaneous interpreting) but I think it was a great experience to face more realistic circumstances. The speakers were probably not used to being interpreted and as they didn't see us (the "booth" was in another room), they sometimes even forgot to use the microphone...
You might think that a perfectly prepared conference (with all speeches emailed to the interpreters in advance) would be better for beginners (that's what we are in simultaneous interpreting) but I think it was a great experience to face more realistic circumstances. The speakers were probably not used to being interpreted and as they didn't see us (the "booth" was in another room), they sometimes even forgot to use the microphone...
But back to the preparations. After receiving some of the texts, I chose an English presentation about photo therapy (it's about memories, has nothing to do with light) and a Hungarian one about an autistic artist. Those two were my main responsibilities. I made the glossaries and practiced sight translation. It turned out to be an excellent idea. For some of the speakers, presenting in English meant reading out an essay at a breathtaking pace. After three of such 20-minute sessions I felt if I managed to do this, I am capable of anything. :)
Additionally, I had to be familiar with all the other topics from the afternoon session. The first difficulty was understanding titles such as "Spiritually-ecologic existential art therapy concept". Googling didn't help. And there was another presentation about tattoos, as well. We were hoping to get some information from the speakers on the day of the conference. Finally we did, though not exactly what we had expected. At lunch break, one of them gave us her ppt and said: "I'm just going to talk about these pictures. There will be no difficult terminology." (That sentence is the nightmare of interpreters!) She kept her promise (or at least the second part of it) but when you are bombarded with numbers like 46,25%, it's nice to have the data at hand.
The presentation with the mysterious title was much more challenging. It was the first after the coffee break and we had about 10 minutes to read through 13 pages filled with quotes, definitions, explanation of a Hebrew word and even a poem! Of course (OF COURSE!) these were just clues.
I have to say we were more than surprised when she started her presentation using Power Point! Due to technical difficulties, we couldn't see the slides on our monitors. Quite some information got lost this way. We struggled, used the mute button way more often than usually (at least nobody heard us saying "What???" or laughing). Anyway, we did our best and we were still the best interpreters available...
All in all, it was an exciting and exhausting day. But hey, that's why I prefer interpreting over translating! :)
Additionally, I had to be familiar with all the other topics from the afternoon session. The first difficulty was understanding titles such as "Spiritually-ecologic existential art therapy concept". Googling didn't help. And there was another presentation about tattoos, as well. We were hoping to get some information from the speakers on the day of the conference. Finally we did, though not exactly what we had expected. At lunch break, one of them gave us her ppt and said: "I'm just going to talk about these pictures. There will be no difficult terminology." (That sentence is the nightmare of interpreters!) She kept her promise (or at least the second part of it) but when you are bombarded with numbers like 46,25%, it's nice to have the data at hand.
The presentation with the mysterious title was much more challenging. It was the first after the coffee break and we had about 10 minutes to read through 13 pages filled with quotes, definitions, explanation of a Hebrew word and even a poem! Of course (OF COURSE!) these were just clues.
All in all, it was an exciting and exhausting day. But hey, that's why I prefer interpreting over translating! :)
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