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Russian translation at the International Airport Astana

July 27th, 2010

For a couple of months I’ve been involved in a JICA project first as an English-Russian translator of several documents, then as a Russian interpreter at the meetings.

International Airport Astana, english russian translation

A couple of years ago a huge projest was launched – construction of a new airport of Astana and remodeling of its runway and its facilities. Construction is done, so now the project has entered the  appraisal phase, that is why an independent consultant came to Astana to conduct a survey. That is how I met Mr. Yamaguchi. As I mentioned, first I did the written translation of a questionnaire and of several letters to International Airport Astana, so I got to know the vocabulary related to airport: apron, taxiway, aircraft boarding bridge and other words. Knowing those words was quite helpful when Mr. Yamaguchi arrived to Astana and held several meetings with the airport authorities.

Our first meeting was in the Ministry of Transport and Communication, in the Civil Aviation department, where Mr. Yamaguchi made a presentation of the purpose of his visit. Next  meeting we had was at the airport, where there were discussed issues related to the condition of some airport facilities and, specifically, of the apron. This meeting was followed by another one in the air traffic control tower. That visit was a very interesting experience for me because I got to see the operation of the airport from inside. It looked almost like in a movie when a controller spoke to pilots and gave them directions.  I was definitely amazed by the work of these people! This place has a restrict access to it so if I hadn’t been an interpreter I would have never entered that building. That is another agvantage of being an interpreter!

We continue working together with Mr. Yamaguchi, his next visit is expected in October, so I look forward to more meetings.

Negotiations at the Ministry of Tourism and Sport

February 28th, 2010

The whole week I’ve been translating negotiations at the Ministry of Tourism and Sport, where the Vice Minister Uskenbaev had meetings with Judith Luscomb, the representative of the Buzz Buziness, the film production company.

English interpreters of kazakhstan

There was made an offer to make a documentary film on Kazakhstan which would show the country in all its beauty, both in winter and in summer. The documentary would touch various topics, such as history and religion, handcrafts and culture, adventures and ecotourism, local traditions and kazakh food. There was elaborated a very detailed plan of filming and Vice Minister as well as the Committee Chairperson seemed to like the idea.

At the next meeting they went into more details about tender processing and legal issues. With such a big project one should take every detail into consideration. My translation went rather smoothly since I am quite familiar with the tender processing in Kazakstan. The next day we met with the chief accountant and went through the whole project again, this time focusing on figures.

While translating presentation from English to Russian I was thinking about interpreter’s role in negotiations. Not only should he/she translate word for word thus delivering the message, it is also extremely important to use the right intonation, gestures, smiles and pauses. What the outcome of the negotiations would be if the presentation is done perfectly in English but it looks pale when translated into Russian because of an interpreter? So I came to a conclusion that an interpreter should also know the bacics of marketing and branding, as well as pchycology. It’s not only the matter of language skills, it’as also about the right personality.

With Judith we also did some shopping because she was interested in purchasing some traditional kazakh clothes. Hats were her favoutire item 🙂 Well, kazakh traditional hats are something!

I also did some written translation for Judith since she needed me to translate some official letters to the Ministry. In general it was a very exciting assignment since the topic – mass media- was both familiar and interesting.

Technical translation services in Kazakhstan

May 12th, 2009

I’ve recently come back from Germany where I have studied for 6 months as an exchange  language student.

Had  I barely come through culture shock when a representative of a consulting company contacted me regarding remote translation services. Next day I got a document which consisted of 106 pages. The  topic is technical and it concerns the  reconstruction of the power plant in Southern Kazakhstan.

First I was a bit scared because I had never dealt with technical wording like “impeller”, “rotary-blade system”, “hydraulic unit” and so on.  So I had to consult some handbooks and dictionaries.  The more I was workin on this translation the more  confident I was getting.  Also the same words were repeated several times so I got to learn those words without puttting any effords into it.

There was a problem I tackled- from a  synonymic set of terms I had to pick up the right one. It’s a bit difficult when one isn’t very good at this specific field of knowledge.

When translating the document I realised how important it was for a translator to be a specialist not only in  grammar, syntax or vocabulary but also in the various fields of knowledge he or she has to deal with.