I am sure that many people have heard of the Universal Exhibition – for example the one for which the Eiffel Tower was built. Something similar but of a smaller scale (not a universal but a so-called recognized exhibition) is planned for 2017 and Astana is bidding to host this exhibition. Astana’s main competitor is Liege (Belgium). The decision on the host country will be made by the end of 2012 and in order to facilitate this decision the Enquiry mission visited both Astana and Liege to see if the cities are able to host several millions of visitors that will come to see the exhibitions. This is how 9 delegates of BIE found themselves in Astana in March, 12-16. It was my job to provide both simultaneous and consecutive translation during the visit. It goes without saying the programme was very tight so I will only mention events in which I was involved myself.

March, 11 – arrival day. Organizers of the visit decided to make it an “easy” day for the delegates and use some time before the official part of the visit to introduce guests to the Kazakh culture. That is why the first day was spent in Khan Shatyr, Pyramid and Palace of Independence where guests got a chance to visit the Ethnical Kazakh Village where the Kazakh traditions (including a traditional wedding, dances, jewellery, handcraft, etc) were shown.

March, 12 – beginning of the official programme

My main task on that day was to provide simultaneous translation during the presentations aimed at proving that Astana has enough capacity to host the EXPO 2017 – financial, economic, political.

March, 13 started with the meeting with the Minister of the Interior Mr.Kassymov at which the political situation in the country was discussed.

It was then followed by the excursion to the newly built TV and radio center where we were shown the future news rooms, studios and other facilities of the center.

After a number of presentations delegates left for a working lunch with the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Foreign Affairs where I was translating as well.

March, 14 was marked by the meeting with the President Mr. Nazarbayev who emphasized the political will to support the idea of EXPO 2017 being held in Astana. The delegates then visited Eurasian National university where a meeting with the Minister of Education and Science, students and academicians was planned. I graduated from this university 2 years ago and it was a very interesting feeling to come back to my alma mater not as a student but as a simultaneous translator. I continued my translation at yet another working lunch, this time with the Mayor of Astana.
March, 15 was another day of presentations on the future site of the EXPO and the future use of EXPO facilities since it is very important to invest in something that will last longer than just 3 months of the EXPO.
When I wasn’t in a booth doing simultaneous translation, I was down in the conference room to help with the consecutive English-Russian translation.

On the March, 16 together with the delegates I left for Almaty where a tour of the city and its surroundings by helicopter was organized. The official visit of the Enquiry mission finished with the internal meeting the results of which will hopefully have a positive impact on the final decision.

The good thing about the seminar is that I was informed well in advance which gave me enough time to familiarize myself with the subject.  I was reading up on loans, debt crisis, world financial crisis, remediation management, austerity - it was quite a journey in which one article led to another one, one term to another one, one concept to another one.  I should also mention that I had a presentation for the seminar beforehand and I felt more or less fine when I entered the bank on the first day of the seminar.

The trainer for the seminar turned out to be a nice Hungarian lady who had more than 20 years of experience in working in the banking sphere.  Before the seminar I had a chance to ask her a couple questions to clarify some of the concepts that were still unknown to me and at 9.00 am we started our seminar.  First 15 minutes went very well – the trainer stack to the presentation which started off with some theoretical background on loans, portfolio and corporate client.  But already 15 minutes later participants started saying that they know the theory and they are more interested in its practical application.  That means the trainer had to change her strategy and improvise. This means I had to improvise, too. Participants  were happy they were no longer in “a school mode” with a lecturer but with someone who can actually answer many questions they have about loan restructuring and bad loan management.  Our conversation got immediately livelier and more interactive. I was glad, too, because for an interpreter it is also much easier to work with the audience that is interested and active rather than with people that hardly stop themselves from falling asleep.

Mrs. Esther (our trainer) talked about case studies that she was personally involved in, we learned that something a banker has to run a sausage factory and that a bank might have 65 bouchers  among its personnel – all this being a part of crisis management.  We also learned that it’s not always all about business, it’s about personal relationships, too, when it comes to bad loan management. We have learned other tricks, too. I always use the pronoun “we” because at any seminar I learn as much as other participants do and this is something I simply love in my job that is a source of my constant development.  Without the seminar I would have never looked up  “collateral”, “outstanding account”, “coverage”, and others.

Looking forward to more seminars and more things to learn!

As easy as it may sound, it was not easy at all: first of all, subtitles were shown for a fraction of a second so I had to read and translate with the speed of light. Secondly, it is a movie, not a contract where the translation is very dry and straight to the point. If an actor shouts (silently) “Oh my God”, I can’t simply render his words into another language; I need to act, too. At least a bit.

It was a quite unusual yet very interesting experience for me; I had to use all my translation skills: always be ready in case a new line of subtitles appears on the screen, read fast, think even faster and translate in a way that is stylistically relevant to the scene in question. Quite a challenge but a fun one!

The lecturer, Dr. Shonau, who came from the Netherlands, gave an overall view on the education system in the Netherlands, on the role of examinations and test in education. He explained different types of taxonomy models: that of Bloom and Romiszowsky, that are the basis for test constructing.  Lectures touched upon test types: multiple choice tests, open end tests, written and practical tasks and the ways how to best evaluate each of them. The whole day was dedicated to the final examination and its administration and evaluation criteria as it as done in the Netherlands. Participants: those who develop test items, put them together in a test and later assess the results, took great interest in that part since the final exam that combines both school leaving and university entrance exam in Kazakhstan will no longer exist. The discussions are held as to how change the format of the exam and what is the best practice in the world.

It is obvious that there are differences between the education system in the Netherlands and that in Kazakhstan but still there are similarities, too, and both countries win from learning from each other’s experience.

Training was dedicated to the special system and its applications that are used in such medical examinations as electrophysiology and hemodynamics. We started with the general information about the application, with the ways of registering a patient in the system database, with different ways of measuring pressure in heart chambers and vessels, so in the beginning my translation was more IT related. However, when we  moved onto more specific questions such as catheter pullback sequence, translation became very specific in terms of medical vocabulary – atrium, ventricle, shunt, mitral valve,  superior vena cava, end diastolic pressure, etc.

The training was “hands-on”, i.e. hands on the patient, doctors were performing their usual daily procedures while learning about the possibilities of the programme. Over this week I have seen about 15 operations and now feel like a cardiosurgeon  myself I have definitely learnt a lot about heart and the way it functions. I should say I am really impressed by the work that the doctors do every day.  Many of them are very young and yet so professional, you could trust them with your life and heart without any doubts!

The seminar was interactive; it started with a simulation game: participants were split up into groups, each group being Employers, Employees or Consultants. Participants had a very fruitful discussion; they genuinely played their roles and drew some interesting conclusions.

The seminar was not too difficult as far as translation was concerned, it was quite a general discussion, however there were some specific business terms such as BBR (business benefits realisation), KPI and PPI (key performance indicators and process performance indicators), etc.

The seminar was mainly conducted in Russian with some presentations made in English, so for the most of the time it was Russian-English translation.

It was my first time working with ENRC (Eurasian National Resource Corporation), one of the major natural resources groups with mining, processing as well as logistical and marketing operations. As always, it was an interesting experience for me.

First I worked with Air Liquide, a leader in air gases production, doing both French into Russian and English into Russian translation. We had some meetings in KazMunaiGas, Kazakhstan’s national oil and gas company, and we discussed future business opportunities.

Then I worked with Groupe Euralis, one of the most important seed companies in Europe. Mr.Campion, Export Director had a meeting with the Ministry of Agriculture for which he needed a French-Russian interpreter. He made a presentation on the general Groupe Euralis structure and then moved onto a more specific field – company’s seeds products, such as corn, sunflower, rape-seed, sorghym and soybeans. The representatives of the Ministry answered questions regarding Kazakhstani legislation base as far as the use of foreign seeds is concerned, they also explained the procedure for foreign companies to register in order to be able to introduce their products in Kazakhstan.

Hopefully both meetings will lead to a mutually beneficial partnership for Kazakhstan and the French companies.

For two weeks in July I worked as an English speaking assistant/English translator for the National Geographic journalist John Lancaster and photograph Gerd Ludvig. National Geographic will produce an article on Astana so the journalists were sent on “a field trip” to find out about Kazakhstan’s culture, traditions, history as well as picture a modern life of the Kazakhstani society.

I was very excited about the assignment that I had: I did all the administrative work such as fixing appointments, getting entrance permissions, finding the right people to talk to, but also I did things I wouldn’t otherwise have done: attending traditional Kazakh weddings, participating in a ballet performance rehearsal, interviewing dancers, builders, newly-weds, getting into a construction site, etc, etc, etc.

I have learned a lot about the right way of taking pictures: when, where, from what angle and with which lens. I’ve also learned that a good picture requires hours and sometimes days of preparation. For a photographer it is essential to be in the right place in the right moment.

The article will presumably be published in March but I have already read some bits and pieces and I have seen some of the selected pictures. I cannot reveal much but I can say one thing: I simply love it! The pictures are stunning. Having seen the pictures, I now look at my own city with a different perspective.

I am not sure if the National Geographic magazine with the article on Astana will be available in Kazakhstan but the article will be also posted online. Can’t wait to see the complete article!

]]> http://translator-astana.com/astana/english-translatorassistant-for-national-geographic-journalists/feed/ http://translator-astana.com/astana/russian-english-translation-ambassadors-meet-senators/ http://translator-astana.com/astana/russian-english-translation-ambassadors-meet-senators/#comments Wed, 14 Dec 2011 05:06:51 +0000 admin http://translator-astana.com/?p=562 It was a great honor for me to work as a Russian-English translator in the Residence of France where Ambassador of France to Kazakhstan hosted a friendly “Ambassadors’ sandwich club”. Six Ambassadors met with the Member of Senate to discuss some topical issues. Ambassadors emphasized and Senator confirmed the close economic and political ties of Kazakhstan with European and Asian countries. They discussed Kazakhstan’s development over the last 20 years and the progress that the country has made in transition from the planned economy towards a market one.

It was a very friendly discussion where everybody was free to express his opinion; views were shared on the major industrial projects in Kazakhstan, on the implementation of new technologies, on the use of foreign manpower, on the joint projects that Kazakhstan and its foreign partners have, etc.

Ambassadors also touched upon the upcoming Parliamentary elections that will be held in January 2012. Congratulations were exchanged on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the Independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

First day started at 6am when I met with Siemens experts who would be conducting the training and we started our 3 hours car drive to Karaganda. At 9 am we entered the cardio center and met doctors, all of us were given gowns and shoe covers which was a reason for some laughs and we started our training. Our main focus is the equipment for electrophysiological studies, a so-called Sensis. Doctors in the center have worked with the equipment for a year so they were more than just familiar with it, still they had some questions and problems to be solved. Which is exactly what we came here for.

Once I got my head around all the curves and leads that exist in EP – electrophysiology, I felt much better then when I first heard about the upcoming translation- a mix of medical and technical translation, which is quite something, I should tell. But… it’s never time to relax because next day it turned out I would be interpreting during the operation. ‘’Oh my god!”, I said to myself and “yes, no problem” – to the experts. I’ve been in different places because of my job but never in the operation room where –what a surprise!- a person is being operated on.

First come the nurses, they prepare a patient for the operation, next one is the anesthesiologist, then the doctor, then us. Operation starts and lasts for more than 2 hours. I will skip the details but the main goal of the operation is to introduce catheters into the patient’s heart, to find a part of the tissue that instead of being an isolator conducts heart’s signals and to burn- “ablade” that part. By the end of those 2 hours everybody is tired but –just like in a movie- the surgeon is smiling and saying “Operation was successful”, then we all smile and go for a coffee. The training goes on.

Next day was the last day of the training and I am already on my way back home because my next assignment awaits me in Astana on the following day. It was a really good trip, I learned a lot and met nice people and now I am looking forward to the next training which hopefully will take place in Astana in December.