How can I train to be an interpreter?

by Frank
(Colombia)

Frank asked: As an aspiring interpreter, how can I retain so much spoken information?



The Spanish Translator: Thanks for your question, Frank. To be honest, when I was first studying how to be a translator, I did some interpretation exercises and one of the most difficult things was retaining the information that was being spoken.

Interpreters do indeed have a skill of being able to comprehend what is being spoken and pass along that information in another language. An interpreter friend of mine explained that this is what happens to him while he is interpreting:

First, he (hopefully) has a general idea of what the topic will be so that he can do some prep work beforehand. Then, when it's time to interpret, he listens to what the speaker is saying in chunks, spits out the corresponding fragment in the other language, promptly forgets the section he interpreted, all the while listening to the next chunk, and repeating the process. I don't claim to know if this is how the majority of interpreters do their job, but I do know that if you ask an interpreter specifics about what they interpreted after the session is over, many times they do not remember because they are simply not storing the information in long-term storage because that would require too much processing power, if you will.

So, as an aspiring interpreter, the main thing you'll need to remember is that you don't have to remember everything you interpret. In fact, the best practice for training to be an efficient and effective interpreter is practice multitasking while interpreting, or just while repeating a speech in the same language. This helps train your mind to focus on multiple things at the same time, which is what interpreters have to do constantly.

If you need more information about interpreting, be sure to check out the Language Interpreters page.

Thanks again, and good luck!