Welcome to the real world

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...

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! :)

Video-conference

Last Friday we had an experience that was very important professionally, hence awaited with some anxiety. Our department maintains a strong relationship with the European Commission's DG Interpretation (SCIC). Interpreters come here regularly to practice Hungarian so that they can add it to their language profile.

As EMCI students we also have the opportunity to get feedback from Brussels during a video-conference. This one was the first in the semester. Initially we were supposed to have two English and two German speeches interpreted by those who had completed the MA in Interpreting at ELTE. However, plans changed, we got four German speeches. I was the only one with German as a C language...

There were two German and two Hungarian interpreters, one of the latter was chairing this virtual meeting. Everyone was cordial and helpful, the speeches were interpreter-friendly, all of us performed well. ("Did you pick your best students or is everyone that good in this class?")

Sitting close to them, I saw how nervous my peers were: frowning, shaking a bit... but the assessors only mentioned my uneasiness. "You have no reason for that" they told me. My life would be soo much easier if the symptoms of my stage fright weren't that obvious...

Only after finding the Facebook profile of the chairman (by chance), I realized that there was absolutely no need to worry. People working in Brussels are human beings, too. Maybe they have no idea about privacy settings - or was it just him who didn't care? :)

The first "sim"

Last Friday I had the opportunity to interpret as a trainee at a one-day conference. Applying for it was quite daring because according to preliminary information it would have been whispered interpreting from Hungarian into English, for two British guests. I've never done this before, simultaneous interpreting is not part of the MA course, we've only learned consecutive. However, I didn't want to miss any opportunity for practice. The organizers were aware of the fact that students are not as professional as experienced interpreters. This way we were less stressed but striving for excellence anyway. The conference room turned out to be a well equipped one with booths, we were pleased to use one of them. This was a more convenient way of working and the guests got headsets, nobody was disturbed by persistent whispering.

Fortunately there was no need for English-Hungarian translation, we could use the time during the first presentation to warm up and our teacher gave us some advice. We alternated every 10 minutes (pros can work for 20 minutes but we are not pros yet) and we managed to share the work optimally: I didn't have to talk about theoretical linguistics, which is not my cup of tea (I'm an economist) but the software demo was meant for me. It didn't pose a challenge, I've used Trados before.

The whole conference was a great experience, much more fun than I expected, pure flow! During lunch break, one of the British guests listening to us complimented on our work. I think it's a great recognition! All day long I felt that I've found my place in the world. :)