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Simultaneous translation at the I Convention of Mathematicians

June 1st, 2011

Last Wednesday I did simultaneous translation at the I Convention of Mathematicians of Kazakhstan. I worked together with a Kazakh-Russian translator, whereas I was doing Russian-English translation for the participants of the Convention.

The Convention was held by the Vice Prime Minister and by the Minister of Education and Science, speeches were delivered by academicians, professors, scientists and school teachers. There were representatives from all the regions of Kazakhstan, and also some foreign delegations.

As a Russian translator I have never worked with mathemeticians before and last time I was dealing with equations and derivatives was back in high school, so it was interesting to refresh this knowledge as well as to learn something new. There were quite specific mathematic topics covered but there was also a discussion on the mathematicians in the republic in general and on the problems that they tackle, such as lack of the good modern textbooks, poor translation of Russian books into Kazakh, and lack of young specialist willing to become teachers of mathematics.

Translating mathematics was an interesting and new experience for me which is a good news as I like learning something new every day, I think my school teacher would be proud of my knowledge in mathematics now 🙂

Working as a translator in Moscow and other Russian cities

June 25th, 2010

In May I worked as English-Russian translator in Moscow and other Russian cities together with Mr.Vinther, the regional manager of Unibolt company. We already worked with Mr.Vinther in March when he attended the Agritek exhibition in Astana, so I was familiar with the subject matter, that was the reason why he asked me to fly with him to Moscow.

Translator in Moscow

It was a very hectic trip, our schedule was extremely tight: we had 11 flights within 10 days. Mr. Vinther flew from Danemark and I flew from Astana, we met in Moscow and had several meetings there. We visited a couple of companies involved in agriculture sector and we took our first steps in establishing a business partnership. Then we flew to another Russian city called Samara, where we had a similar meeting. After that we also flew to Rostov-on-Don and Volgograd. Unfortunately there are no direct flights between these cities, so every time we had to come back to Moscow. And there was no time for sightseeing!

Since Unibolt, the company that Mr. Vinther presented, is a manufacture of bolts, our meetings were quite technical, so it was handy to know different types of the bolts, such as wheel bolts, clevis pins, etc. At the same time our meetings touched upon some financial issues, because we met with Directors or Sales Managers as well.

I must say that Russia is very different from Kazakhstan, eventhough these countries have a lot in common. Moscow itself is a crazy city, ecpecially in terms of security. Each time we had to fly to/from Moscow we had to pass security control which would have been fine if we hadn’t have to take our shoes off all the time 🙂 Also they asked us several times about visa, migration card, registration and all these issues.

When our trip to Russia was over, we flew to Astana only to spend here less than 24 hours. Our next destination was Karaganda, it was the first time that I worked as a translator in Karaganda. We had several meeting in the city, then flew to Almaty and worked for a couple of days there.

This was quite a trip, but the good thing is Mr. Vinther is coming back to Kazakhstan in July which means the trip was rather successful!

Figures speaking:

  • 10 days
  • 11 flights
  • 7 cities
  • 2 countries
  • 18 meetings
  • 9 airports
  • 25 hours on the planes
  • 0 crashes 🙂