[QUOTE=Least Original User Name Ever]
Where did you go to school?
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This one I’d rather not answer, honestly… it’s nothing personal, but I’m a privacy nut when it comes to online stuff.
If you’d like to become an interpreter though, Monterrey is by far the best specialized institution. They offer an m.a. in interpretation, among other things… a few of my profs were trained there, and absolutely loved it.
[QUOTE=Kythereia]
What’s the biggest goof you’ve ever made translating from one language to another?
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Hmm, that’s a tough one, and it’s quite possible that I’ve made huge errors and just never noticed them. Plus, to minimize errors at big conferences and the like simultaneous interpreters tend to work in pairs, and at the UN they pretty much HAVE to work in pairs. Both interpreters will wear headsets, but only one will actually interpret at a time. While they’re speaking their partner will listen, keep an eye on them, and generally tend to any technical stuff or issues in the booth. (Occasionally we get broken equipment, technical bugs, run out of water, or get hungry. Big conferences don’t tend to have very many breaks, so the “off” interpreter is usually in charge of communicating issues to the support staff and repairing equipment on the fly.) Most importantly though, the off interpreter is responsible for catching errors that their partner makes, or stepping in if their partner gets too far behind or doesn’t know how to translate a specific term. We tend to split the work about 50/50, so at an eight hour conference you can expect to be on for two two hour shifts, and off for two two hour shifts.
Some of my own particularly memorable mistakes are probably as follows:
While interpreting for a surf instructor at a resort in Japan I accidentally mixed up the Japanese for “lay down” and “undress” in my head, and told some poor Australian woman that the first step in surfing was to get naked on the board.
[QUOTE=dotchan]
- What are the rates charged for interpretation (side-by-side, simultaneous, text)?
- Where are interpreters in good demand?
- Are you required to be able to translate to and from both languages?
[/QUOTE]
Hmm, all three of these depend a lot on the individual context, but I’ll try to answer them:
- What are the rates charged for interpretation?
There are two different services we’re talking about here: interpretation, which is listening to speech in one language and reproducing it in another, and translation, which is actually converting written stuff from one language to another. I understand that translation often charges on a word-for-word basis, but I’ve never done it so I couldn’t say.
As for interpretation, there are three major types: Consecutive, Simultaneous, and Sight Reading.
Consecutive interpretation was practically the only type practiced on a large scale before the 1940s, due to logistic concerns, and involves a speaker talking uninterrupted for anywhere from several sentences to ten minutes, at which point he pauses and allows the interpreters to repeat his entire spiel in the target language. (We use an extremely condensed type of shorthand to help with this. Most good interpreters can remember about 4-5 minutes of dense speech unaided, and about 8-10 minutes with one page of notes on a flip-top pad.)
Simultaneous, on the other hand, is just what it sounds like: the interpreter listens to speech in one language, and as soon as he’s able he begins to reproduce it in the target language while still listening. This really took off during the warcrimes trials held after WWII, where they actually issued the interpreters headphones and microphones that were attached to mics on the floor and earpieces that each individual delegate was equipped with. (Actually, one interesting trick to tell whether or not an interpreter has been formally trained is to watch how they wear their headset: almost without exception, interpreters who’ve recieved substantial training tend to wear headphones on one ear and keep the other uncovered, while a fairly big chunk of talented, untrained interpreters cover both ears).
Sight reading is a related area, and it involves looking at text written in one language and reading it aloud in another.
As for wages, it really depends on the language. Working as a Japanese-English interpreter I usually made around $130-$170 an hour at conferences and meetings, and slightly less at smaller venues or on individual assignments.
The work isn’t guaranteed, however, so in practice a good interpreter will usually make a minimum of $40,000 a year, and often around $60,000-$80,000 in a good region. (There do exist regulated, waged positions, most notably UN and military jobs, but I’ve never worked in either.)
- Where are interpreters in good demand?
Anywhere that hosts one of the following: a large population of speakers native in a language other than that of the region, an international airport and large business concerns, or a large diplomatic community. Hawai’i, for instance, can provide pretty regular work if you speak Ilokano, Vietnamese, or Japanese.
- Are you required to be able to translate to and from both languages?
Absolutely. This isn’t always the case, especially for employees who are hired into non-specialized positions and asked to interpret as an additional service, but professional interpreters must have native or near-native proficiency in every language they work in. Large conferences might only hire you to interpret into one language (translating Japanese into English, for instance, and letting someone else do English to Japanese), but in almost every scenario you’ll have to do both jobs. Continuing education is another big issue for interpreters; I used to carry around a pocket full of index cards covered with words I didn’t know (the card I’m carrying right now contains, among other things, niransei-souseiji and
ichiransei-souseiji, which are respectively the words for biovular and monovular). Another great trick is to buy college-level textbooks in the language you don’t speak natively, and troll through them looking for words you don’t know. I used to have a whole stack of elementary legal and medical books in Japanese for that exact purpose.
[QUOTE=Least Original User Name Ever]
Also, what’s the most “important” thing you’ve had to translate?
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Well I don’t work in diplomatic circles, but even if I did I think I’d have to say that the medical interpretation I used to do was the most important. Hospitals in high-traffic areas will usually retain a couple of interpreters, and so I’d be mediating between Japanese or English-speaking tourists who, for some reason, had to seek medical care in a foreign country. I never actually had to deal with someone with anything worse than flu or food poisoning, but it was understandably critical that I was extremely accurate in both languages, and more to the point that I minimized the differences between the two medical systems. (Actually, English speakers tend to either not notice or get mildly pissed off at Japanese doctors… it’s the Japanese patients who you really have to worry about. In Japan the doctor is supposed to be the expert, and as such his word is nearly absolute: he asks you about your symptoms, looks at you, pronounces a diagnoses, and pronounces a solution. He’s the doctor, so you’re theoretically supposed to accept his advice without question. American doctors, on the other hand, like to give patients options. Most English speakers will find it perfectly reasonable to hear something like “Well I could give you something for the nausea, but it’ll make you drowsy for the rest of the day. You might just be happier dealing with the symptoms, and they should go away within an hour or two,” but that type of statement tends to scare the shit out of Japanese patients: since the doctor is asking them, they tend to assume that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. I’ve actually had patients turn to me and ask “This doctor isn’t very skilled, is he?”.)
