Welcome to the Blog of a Freelance Interpreter and Translator
by Tatiana Kaplun
Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch painter, whom some only know for going crazy (some say) and cutting off his ear. Others know him for painting bright flowers, a large number of self-portraits, and landscapes of Provence, as he got to spend quite some time in the south of France, although a large share of it… Continue reading The Pros and Cons of Dummy-boothing, or does your Brain need tricking?
As interpreters, we complain quite a lot. To be fair though, most of the complaints we have are not totally unfounded. That is why I would like to share with you today this brilliant post by Ewandro Magalhães: http://ewandro.com/public-speaking-secret-3/ It would be only fair to say that interpreters have a unique position to judge whether a speeach is… Continue reading Some useful tips from the booth
I guess there is nothing left to add to this post except that practice takes a lot of time, it’s almost never easy, but is always rewarding. Maybe not right away, but most likely sooner than later. And I would also like to express my gratitude for such a thoughtful and comprehensive list of links and sources of practice material.
Readers of the Diaries will have noticed that I have not been very active on this blog lately. Yes, well, busy busy and all that… Still, I’m pleased to say that I have not given up writing altogether!
Just this week I produced my first piece for AIB’s new blog, Simultaneous Interpretation. It’s all about where you can go to find useful speech resources for practicing interpreting. If you’re interested in finding out more, go and check it out!
Practice makes perfect – but where do I find the speeches?
Image courtesy of winnond at freedigitalphotos.net
It is true that learning new things, and in our case, new languages, is always a challenge. So is translation. So is interpreting. So is life in general. But I have always found that it is this challenging part that is the most exiting. At least for me.
For it gives us adrenaline, it brings us speed and energy, makes life and work more interesting, and drives us to better ourselves.
I have also found that it takes time to turn quantity into quality, as they say in Russian, “количество в качество“. And it is important not to give up along the way. You should always remember that despite the ups and downs you are working towards your goal, and that should be worth the pain, the effort, and the challenge.
Thank you for the post.
I just wanted to share this fantastic article on language learning with you. Sometimes being in an environment where our foreign language is spoken can indeed feel like we have had some sort of “brain injury” which prevents us from understanding! How much more so when you are interpreting! And I thought that the purpose of this blog is also, as Coates says, to get better at a very difficult thing slowly, in my case interpreting.
Being a speaker of foreign languages enables us to step through the door into another world, that of a different culture and people, where everything is new and we are constantly learning. But it can also bring with it a feeling of ineptitude and inability until we become masters at the next stage in the learning process. Hopefully our angst and feelings of childishness in a foreign environment can be more than made up…
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Welcome to the Blog of a Freelance Interpreter and Translator 