On April, 18-22 I worked as a conference interpreter at Nazarbayev University. I was doing simultaneous translation – professors of Public Policy from National university of Singapore were invited as lectors for a week long seminar for government officials.
Seminar was divided into several parts: Professor Asher made a presentation on what makes countries grow: implications for Kazakhstan. Professor spoke about main drivers of growth, knowledge economy and knowledge management, national and firm competitiveness. Second lecture was dedicated to the public finance and budgeting, that lecture mostly covered accrual accounting in comparison to cash accounting. Pr. Asher gave many examples of international practice, including IMF code of good practices on fiscal transparency.
Next lecture was on the State Enterprise reform and on Public Private Partnership, including different models, risk classification, etc.
Two following days lectures were held by Vice dean and Associate Professor, Dr. Fritzen. His main topic was transformational leadership in the public sector with the focus on strategic triangle of effective policy desing, effective implementation and strong stakeholder support. Participants took a great interest in that lecture, as well as in that on controlling corruption. Dr. Fritzen made his two sessions interactive, he encouraged participants to come up with the examples that are relevant to Kazakhstan.
The seminar was a great experience for me since I worked in a pair with a very experienced conference interpreter, I had a chance to learn from her and ask for her opinion on different aspects of being an interpreter.
I just got back from Berlin and there is already more work ahead: on February, 28th I provided interpretation services for the National Business Forum in Astana.
National Business Forum (NBF) serves as a kind of bridge between government and business, so there were representatives from both sides. Prime Minister Mr.Massimov was the first one to deliver a speech, then there was the panel discussion followed by more discussions at the round tables. My task was to interpret for Mr. Shinsato, who was invited to the NBF as an international expert. Mr.Shinsato delivered an extremely interesting speech on change management focusing on lean production and kaizen. I really love my job since it allows me to constantly learn from the people I work with. If not for the forum, how would have I found out about kaizen?
Having delivered his speech, Mr.Shinsato was actively participating in the discussion, so I was doing what is called „chuchotage“ – a kind of simultaneous interpretation without any special equipment. Interpreter just sits next to a person he/she translates for and does the simultaneous translation while another speaker delivers a speech.
The discussions were vivid, participants were active and genuinely interested in the topic, so there was a lot to translate. Mr.Shinsato was also interviewed by a local channel and I translated that as well.
It was a real pleasure to translate Mr. Shinsato as he is a very experienced speaker, he attracted and involved the audience, made some jokes and at the same time got his message across, so everybody enjoyed the time with him.
On the 10-11th of November I worked as a simultaneous interpreter at the ECO Conference on disaster risk management. There were presented 8 countries of the Organization as well as UN, WHO, UNISEF and other international organizations. The conference was hosted by the Minister of Emergency situations, so he was the first one to be interpreted, followed by ECO Deputy Secretary General, UNDP Resident Representative in Kazakhstan and by the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General.
Unlike previous simultaneous translation, this one was quite specific: there were presentations on seismic risk reduction, on global campaign „Making cities resilient“, and others. The main topic was the natural disasters: earthquakes, landslides, floods, wildfire and the impact that they have on overall safety with the focus on school and hospitals safety.
There were some hectic moments for the interpreters when one of the speakers delivered his speach in Persian instead of English. It was quite a surprise for us but we managed with the help of his colleague who volunteered to interpret into English so we could intrepret him into Russian. The other presentations were fine although sometimes overwelmed with figures, dates and places. But being a simultaneous interpreter, we have to deal with this fact, as well as with the lenght of a presentation and with the speed at which this presentation is given.
Totally I worked 14 hours the first day and then some more hours the following day. It’s not easy, I must admit, but it is very interesting at the same time.
I worked as a simultaneous translator at the World forum of spiritual culture which gathered people from all over the world in Astana on the 18th -20th of October, 2010.
Simultaneous translation is known as the most difficult type of translation since it is done at the same time as the speech itself. Being one of the two simultaneous translators who are located in the booth at the end of a conference room, I enter the booth, put a headset on, check a microphone, three, two, one, go: „Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the world forum of spiritual culture!“. My work day starts.
I translated both from Russian into English and from English into Russian. The reports that were read mostly touched upon the concepts such as moral responsibility,power and conscience, morality and its values.
There were several difficulties connected to the translation: first of all, all the reports were read, which means that the speed was significant. Taking into account that translators had no reports at all, this was quite a challenge. Some accents also caused troubles: not only native speakers were present, so sometimes it really took some moments to get a speaker. And as a simultaneous translator you simply don’t have those moments. On the other hand, translating from Russian into English was quite easy and I would even say relaxing. The big advantage of the simultaneous translation is that there is no need to memorize anything as a translator is only 2-3 words behind a speaker. Another important thing is that the translators (who always work in pair) change every 15 minutes, that also gives some time for recovery. Report after report, we made it to the lunch break and a couple of hours later to the end of the forum.
In other words, simultaneous translation is no doubt a challenge but it is also a pleasure when you realize that the audience is satisfied with what it has been hearing in the headphones for the whole day 🙂
