French-English interpreting
I started interpreting for people in much the same way as I came into translating:
participating in business meetings with international suppliers;
assisting counsellors in interviewing candidates for immigration applications.
Then one day, by some accident of misunderstanding (lost in translation?) I found myself being asked to do something that I had never done before.
At the heart of a six-day international conference for security organisations, I was shown to a small booth, where I had to put on a pair of headphones and sit in front of a microphone.
Everything that came to me through the earphones, I had to spit back out again immediately into the microphone… and into the earphones of scores of conference attendees.
If it came in French, I had to send it back out in English (not too bad), but if it came in English, then I had to do my best in French.
It was a nightmare of an introduction to the art of simultaneous interpreting, and in the first few minutes I just wanted the floor to open up and swallow me. But with persistence and a lot of concentration, I started to get into the flow of it, and by the end of the six days, I was like a zombie.
Everything anyone said to me, my mind just wanted to translate and repeat, and it took some time to get back to having a normal conversation with people!
That unforgettable experience was also an opportunity to meet up with other language professionals and broaden my network.
If you have an interpreting job that you’d like me to help you with, just get in touch…
