Being a translator in
Astana I quite often provide military translation services – for trainings,
general discussions and strategic planning.
Last week I had a chance to interpreter a course on Psychology in Leadership run by the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, UK.
Military translation
is always a challenge but it is also extremely interesting. Special terminology
plays a huge role as well as background knowledge – it’s important to be up to
date with military conflicts, both past and present. Knowledge of ranks,
military branches and units is a must.
Working with military is also very different to working with civilians so an interpreter should be familiar with such military concepts as hierarchy, discipline, punctuality.
It was a great honor
for me to receive a certificate of attendance of the course; I am grateful for
all the knowledge and skills I have acquired during the training.
COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a lot of changes into our professional and personal lives. Conference interpreting industry was hit very hard as all the big (and small) events got cancelled. Many clients postponed everything that they planned until things got back to “normal”. Half a year into pandemic and “normal” isn’t really back. Instead, there is a “new normal” – working remotely and providing RSI – remote simultaneous interpretation services.
RSI has its advantages and disadvantages: while interpreters have many more responsibilities now (we basically became our own simultaneous interpretation technicians), new opportunities opened up as well. It became so much easier to get access to new markets, to work all around the globe in different time zones while never leaving your home office and not even being in the same room as your booth partner. Many love it, many hate, most tolerate it and everybody misses offline events and coffee breaks 🙂
Zoom has become our main means of communication, zoom calls and zoom
call tests are daily occurrence in our lives these days. Since no one really
know when the pandemic is going to be over we might as well embrace all the new
technologies, platforms and handover functions.
All in all, like many other professionals, simultaneous interpreters are
doing their best to make lemonade out of 2020 lemons.
On March 1-2nd I worked as a simultaneous translator for the Industry Outreach event within the EU project in Kazakhstan on dual-use goods.
Simultaneous translation in Astana
Starting in August 2015 the Implementation Phase of EU-Kazakhstan Cooperation has achieved another stage. After conducting several Outreach activities for licensing and customs officers in the Republic of Kazakhstan, this event was dedicated to Kazakh companies involved in foreign trade activities. Involving EU licensing and customs experts as well as European industry representatives this activity demonstrated the importance of constant and transparent communication between the public and private sectors. The main objective of this event was to bring both parties together and to provide best practices of cooperation models in the EU as well as to engage the industry.
It was my pleasure to work for yet another event with the EU project in Kazakhstan.
On May, 11-12th I worked as a simultaneous English-Russian interpreter in Astana, at the Nazarbayev University at the 4th International Scientific Conference on regenerative medicine and healthy aging.
English translator at Nazarbayev University
The conference was really multidisciplenary as it touched upon such issues as risk factors of the coronary heart disease, rodon-induced lung cancer, treatment of end-stage liver desease as well as targeted sequencing and carbon wound dressings. As it happens quite often at medical conferences, the speaker do not provide organizers with their presentations ahead of time due to intellectual property reasons, so interpreters cannot prepare for the conference which make the work so much more difficult. The topics were also very varied: they ranged frm cardiology to oncology, from gerontology to neurology which means as a translator you have to be prepared for everythign and anything.
Finally two challenging but interesting days are over and among other things that I learnt at the conference I now know there is an app for mobile phones that can track wrinkles on one’s face 🙂
On February 24-25th the second Expo 2017 International Participants Meeting was held in Astana where I worked as a simultaneous French-Russian interpreter. The first IPM was held in November 2014 where I worked as an English-Russian translator.
French translator for Expo 2017 in Astana
International participants were presented with the information on work progress in terms of organization of and preparation for Expo 2017 in Astana. They learned about how the construction is going, what is done in th area of marketing, ticketing, how Kazakhstan is planning on attracting millions of visitors to the Expo 2017.
The participants were very active during these two days, they asked questions about safety and security, about a possibility to have a day or even a week of African culture during Expo. After two vety intensive days they were able to see the construction site with their own eyes and get an idea of what Expo 2017 in Astana will look like.
About 10 participation countries were signed during IPM, it is expected that Expo 2017 in Astana will host about 100 countries, some will be represented as a region, international organizations and NGOs will be present as well.
I have been involved in Expo since 2012 when Kazakhstan just submitted its application dossier and hosted an Equiry Mission. Back then 2017 seem very far away and now we are at the finish line just a year away from this exciting event. I am really looking forward to Expo 2017 in Astana!
Last week I had a great honor of translating the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. He participated in the Nazarbayev University graduation ceremony in order to personaly issue diplomas to the best students; I was providing English-Russian simultaneous translation services during the ceremony.
Translating for the President N.Nazarbayev in Astana
Eventhough translating the President is a great responsibility (and quite a lot of pressure, too), it went very smoothly: the President is a great speaker; he knows how to deliver a speech keeping in mind he is being interpreted at the moment.
The President opened the ceremony which was continued by speeches delivered by university’s faculty members; diplomas were issued to bachelor and master degree students.
I am sure it was a great honor for them too to receive such an important document from the hands of the President.
I wish all the best to alumni of the Nazarbayev University, let theor professional lives be as impressive as their graduation ceremony!
In June 2015 I was lucky to be invited to Milan as an English-Russian interpreter for Expo 2015. Kazakhstan participates in the Expo 2015 and its pavillion is one of the most popular ones. On June,27th Kazakhstan celebrates its National day: a big official delegation from Astana came to Milan, Kazakhstan’s pavillion was visited by several high-level delegations from other countries, including one from Italy headed by its Prime-Minister. I was there to provide translation services from English to Russian and vice versa.
Together with the Kazakh delegation I had a chance to visit other pavillions, for example UAE pavillion, the country to host Expo 20202. Some other impressive pavillions were those of Germany, Japan, Azerbajan, etc.
Unfortunately I didn’t have much time for visiting other pavillions as I was mainly involved in the negitiations in the Kazakh pavillion between different delegations.
Celebration continued with a big concert which starred famous Kazakh dancers, singers, craftsmen. The idea of the National Day is to show a country’s culture and in the case of Kazakhstan also get people intetersted in visiting Expo 2017 in Astana.
Eventful but short trip to Italy came to an end and so I am headed home for more translation work in Astana.
