Hi! Welcome to the Complete Interpreter podcast by the Interpreting Coach.

Support the show

Why 'Complete Interpreter'? Because you're not just a translation machine, you're also a person and a business owner, and I hope to help you take a 360 view of yourself and share some great tried-and-tested strategies to improve your interpreting skills, mindset, use of target language, and marketing.

This episode is dedicated to impostor syndrome.

Here are some of the approaches I suggest (I've added chapter markers to help you navigate):

OBJECTIVE METHODS to fight negative self-talk

• Check the facts/zoom out
• Feedback (client, peer) - keep a file. Document your successes.
• Questioning your assumptions/expectations - journal of self-discovery
• Is my reaction based on fact or conjecture? Am I just making up stories in my heard?
• Develop the thought: does this person’s opinion matter to my happiness or job security? What would happen if they thought badly of me?

PRACTISING SELF-COMPASSION

• How would you talk to a friend?
• Affirmations
• Learn to accept praise (thank you)
• Embrace progress, not perfection
• Celebrate your successes. Don’t belittle yourself.

GET HELP

• Open up to trusted people (and get a reality check or emotional support)
• Life coach or therapy – low self-esteem

REDEFINE ‘SUCCESS’ i.e. progress, not perfection

• Challenge yourself to fail - did it hurt? e.g. write with wrong hand, art course.

CPD RESOURCES

• Andy Gillies fantastic CPD website: https://interpreterscpd.eu/contributors/
• Andy's post about doing simultaneous for his students
• Skilliga (directory of courses, webinars etc.)
• Rock your Retour - membership site for English retourists
• Stress management ecourse - 8 science-backed body techniques, 5 'mind' techniques to help you with performance anxiety

OTHER MATERIAL

• My blog post about art: "What art taught me about interpreter training"
• My podcast about what to do when you have a bad day in the booth

Let me know what you'd like me to talk about next!

Sophie (aka The Interpreting Coach)

Support the show

My website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/
Twitter: @terpcoach
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-interpreting-coach/

Or email me at info@theinterpretingcoach.com

Hi! Welcome to the Complete Interpreter podcast by the Interpreting Coach.

Why 'Complete Interpreter'? Because you're not just a translation machine, you're also a person and a business owner, and I hope to help you take a 360 view of yourself and share some great tried-and-tested strategies to improve your interpreting skills, mindset, use of target language, and marketing.

This episode is dedicated to linguistic interference.

Here are some of the exercises I suggest:
- in simultaneous, start every sentence in a different place from the original.
- try making your EVS (décalage) longer.
- practise sight translation, giving yourself time to think about whether the output sounds natural.
- do gap filling exercises (Cloze tests).
- in simultaneous, press pause after an idea, then reformulate it, looking for concise and natural formulations, as opposed to parroting.
- work on your target language (collocations, particularly).
- when you encounter a tricky word to translate, where it's tempting to use a calque (e.g. précarité in French), look it up and consider the various contexts in which it is used. How can you make sure you're expressing the idea, rather than translating the word?
- think about how speakers frame/introduce ideas in your source language(s). Can you think of good ways to render these introductory phrases in your target language?


Let me know what you'd like me to talk about next!

Sophie (aka The Interpreting Coach)

Support the show

My website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/
Twitter: @terpcoach
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-interpreting-coach/

Or email me at info@theinterpretingcoach.com

Hi! Welcome to the Complete Interpreter podcast by the Interpreting Coach.

Why 'Complete Interpreter'? Because you're not just a translation machine, you're also a person and a business owner, and I hope to help you take a 360 view of yourself and share some great tried-and-tested strategies to improve your interpreting skills, mindset, use of target language, and marketing.

This episode is dedicated to one of my hobby horses: analytical skills.

I gave several examples from a French speech on the EU's Speech Repository. It's by Michael Picq (speech number 32840).

Here are some of the exercises I suggest:
- listen to a speech and enter the information in a 4-column table (links, main info, secondary, details)
- listen to a speech then write the outline (e.g. bullet points)
- work on summarising texts/speeches
- do a 'bare bones' simultaneous, just getting the main ideas across
- pick an interview, listen to the question and the first few words of the answer. See if you can anticipate what the speaker will say next.
- gap filling exercises (Cloze)
- listen to a speech in chunks and ask yourself questions: why is the speaker saying this? What are they likely to say next? Is this fact or opinion? What biases does the speaker have? etc.
- get a speech transcript and annotate it. You can write little notes based on your background knowledge, or link parts of the speech with arrows, or circle the logical connectors, etc.

I highly recommend the Listening & Analysis resource on the ORCIT website (orcit.eu) for more 'theory' and exercises to help with analysis.

Let me know what you'd like me to talk about next!

Sophie (aka The Interpreting Coach)

Support the show

My website and blog: https://theinterpretingcoach.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/interpretingcoach/
Twitter: @terpcoach
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-interpreting-coach/

Or email me at info@theinterpretingcoach.com