Podcast: interview with Claudia Brauer on interpreting in the Global Village of the 21st Century

Here’s a new ProZ.com podcast. These podcasts are designed to provide an opportunity to hear the week’s news, highlights of site features, interviews with translators and others in the industry, and to have some fun (see announcement).

On August 16, the first online interpreting course in a new series of live online workshops designed for working and aspiring interpreters and linguists will be launched at ProZ.com so I interviewed Certified PRO member and ProZ.com trainer, Claudia Brauer, who will be in charge of some of these online courses to learn more about interpreting in the Global Village of the 21st Century.

At the beginning of the interview we talked about how technology has impacted the interpreting field. Claudia believes that interpreters should embrace technology as a tool to enhance their profession. She explains that today interpreters can provide valuable services of communication via cell phones, land lines and video Web-based technology. Face to face encounters are just one part of this mix.

On the other hand, consumers of interpreting services are also becoming increasingly sophisticated. She explains that interpreters are no longer confined to the face-to-face encounters. At present there are three rapidly growing fields: over-the-phone interpreting, also known as OPI,  video remote interpreting or VRI, which uses high-speed Internet video connections to provide visual access to interpreters in a different physical location and web-base oral communication.

Claudia indicates that the interpreting profession is growing at a rate of 22% per year higher than most of other professions.

She also describes the new series of live online workshops with lessons on a variety of Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) topics, designed for working and aspiring interpreters and linguists that will be available at ProZ.com on August 16. The online workshops will be offered in 15 sessions organized in 5 bundles of progressive knowledge acquisition.

As my last question, I asked Claudia what advice she would give to aspiring interpreters and she indicated that in her opinion to be a good interpreter one should:

• be fast at making decisions,
• have great interpersonal skills (including great patience and empathy)
• be extremely familiar with the cultures of the languages one is interpreting,
• develop a wide variety of technical skills.

She also believes that at the basis of interpreting a good interpreter should:

• have full command of at least two languages,
• be a very creative person and know how to improvise,
• love learning and seek to learn something new every day,
• develop their ability to listen, to speak in public and to take down notes,
• study terminology and  glossaries,
• enroll in a public speaking group,
• practise speaking out loud, and
• develop their memory.

Those interested in learning more about these online interpreting courses can check this link.

Listen to the interview with Claudia here: ProZ.com podcast, 2011-08-12

Feedback and comments are welcome. You can reach me at romina at proz.com or via Twitter @ProZcom .

To listen to previous podcasts, check the podcasts tab in this blog.

Later!

Romina