Long

conversation 2

M:Todaymy guest is Dana who has worked for thelast twenty years as aninterpreter. Dana, welcome.

W:ThankYou.

M:Now,I’d like to begin by saying that I haveon the occasions used an interpretermyself as a foreign correspondent.So I’mfull of memo rations for what youdo.6. But Ithink your profession is sometimes underrated and many people thinkanyone whospeaks more than one language can do it.

W:Thereare any interpreters I know who don’thave professional qualifications and

training. You only really get profession aftermany years in the job.

M:Andsay you can divide what you do into twodistinct methods simultaneous and

consecutive interpreting.

W:That’sright.7.The techniques you use aredifferent.And a lot of interpreters wouldsay one is easier than the other,less stressful.

M:Simultaneousinterpreting, putting someone’swords into another language more or less asthey speak, sounds to me like themore difficult.

W:Well,actually no.8.Mostpeople in the business would agree that consecutiveinterpreting is the morestressful. You have to wait for the speaker to deliverquite a chunk of languagebefore you then put it into the second language whichputs your short termmemory under in tense stress.

M:Youmight know presumably?

W:Absolutely.Anythinglike numbers, names,places have to be noted down, but the rest is never

translated word for word. You have found theway of summarizing it. So that themessages arethere, turning every single wordinto the target language wouldput too much strain on the interpreter and slowdown the whole process toomuch.

M:Butwhile simultaneous interpreting you starttranslating almost as soon as the

other person starts speaking, you must havesome preparation beforehand.

W:Well,hopefully, the speakers will outline ofthe topic a day or two in advance, you

have a low time to do research preparetechnical expressions and so on

Q:5.Whatare the speakers mainly talking about?

6.Whatdoesthe man think of Dana’s profession?

7.WhatisDana say about the interpreters she knows?

8.Whatdo most of interpreters think ofconsecutive interpreting?