As I promised, I shall boldly attempt to share some tips on upgrading our working memory during live interpretation. Working memory is the technical term for our ability to keep track of the original speech while comprehending it and figuring out how to interpret it (see the anatomy of interpretation). Not exactly a champion of memory skills, I may sound like the guy on a crutch telling you how to run a marathon. But hear me out, because these tips have markedly helped me with my interpretation, and I’m sure you will find at least one of them helpful to you. (However, if you have an eidetic memory, you can just ignore me.)
Counting
If you share my difficulty remembering lists of random things on the fly, then this one is for you. The difficulty with lists is apparent when we compare the effort in memorizing these two sets of words during interpretation, “fright, doubt, frustration, disappointment” (this is an actual list from a Sunday sermon) vs “You shall not kill”. They have the same length, but the former contains four things to memorize, whereas the latter, one.
By grace, I stumbled upon a method that helps me a lot. When the speaker starts a list, I start to count the items with my fingers. Each time a new item is spoken, I move my fingers. ☝🏼✌🏼👌🏼… That’s all. I don’t keep track of the total number of items. Nor do I try to memorize which finger is related to which item. The only thing extra here is moving my hand.
By doing this, I’m outsourcing the mental effort of memorizing a list to a body movement by associating the “random” items with something concrete, i.e. my fingers. The hope here is that this movement cements the items better in my memory than having them floating around and taking up extra space. When it’s my turn to interpret, I just repeat the same counting movement as I interpret the list, ☝🏼✌🏼👌🏼… It requires minimal extra effort on a body part that is not actively engaged during interpretation, so we are talking about freebies here.
Check out this sermon for what I mean. (My hand was hidden when I counted during listening, but you can see how I counted during interpretation.) The method is not bulletproof, but without it, I know I will do much worse.
Chunking
Occasionally, the speaker can go on for a long period of time before we get a chance to interpret. The longer they talk, the more hopeless it is to replicate their every single word. That’s where chunking comes in. During interpretation, chunking can be used to group a large number of words into much fewer chunks of ideas.
We may get a sentence or three as long as 70 Chinese characters (as in this sermon), but there are usually just a handful of ideas to remember. In this case, we have “mother’s reaction to a mistreated kid”, “animal’s reaction to a kid in danger”, “compare the above”, and “protect”. It’s child’s play to remember 4 ideas and replicate them in English. Meanwhile, we may have naturally picked up some keywords such as “Discovery Channel” and “mama bear” to help us capture more precise details and emotions.
We set ourselves up for failure if we intend to remember every word and every tone. Instead, let’s focus primarily on the ideas. This is the approach and priority I take for every interpretation:
1) Idea: Based on the progression of this message, what is the speaker trying to say? What are the main ideas here? So far, this is nothing different from having a normal conversation during a coffee break with your friend. We do this every day.
2) Characters: On top of that, notice “who” and “what” are involved in the ideas. Still, nothing fancy.
3) Details: Next, what are the key details that jump out? Our brains help us here because the more critical the detail, the easier it is to naturally latch on to our memories.
These are all low-hanging fruits in terms of memory and are not hard to capture even for long sentences. Nevertheless, they are sufficient to recreate the original message in another language with reasonable fidelity. Better yet, we usually pick up many more details without even trying, which only makes things better.
Visualizing
Once we have the ideas and key details, they exist like clouds in our minds ready to puff out at any time. How do we keep them in our skulls a bit longer and stronger? Let me introduce you to the Method of Loci, AKA Memory Palace. This method also employs the principle of association as used in counting. Instead of association by hand movements, the ideas are associated with imageries and locations. Here’s how I use it in interpretation.
While I listen to the speakers, I sometimes imagine their messages taking place right there in front of my eyes. In the example above, I see a mother rushing to a child whose toy got stolen by another kid, right there on the left side at the back under the balcony. Meanwhile, a mama bear appears from the entrance attacking a stranger feeding her cub.
Words disappear fast. Imageries stick around longer. Use the objects in the room to anchor these ideas, such as the camera at the back, the nursery room, the flags on the balcony, the high-intensity light, the clock, and so on. Be creative, be bold, be unconstrained. The wilder the imagery, the easier it sticks.
Relaxing
These methods may or may not work for everyone. To be honest, when you first try them, it may feel like they get in the way more than they help. Just like with any other tool or weapon, we need to keep using them and tune them to our liking in order to reap the benefit. It does take time, but we wouldn’t build a table without tools or march into battles without weapons, would we?
What I know for sure that won’t work, is filling our minds with nervousness, regret, fixation on mistakes, focus on performance, or how others look at us. If we crowd our already precious mental resources with these emotional distractions, what can we expect?
The counterintuitive truth is that the less we care about the outcome, the better we do. We do care of course, which is why we practice, why we learn, and why you are reading this. But when the mic is on, it’s no longer time to care, but time to let the fruit of our practice flow unhindered by any focus on ourselves.
One More Thing
I hope I’m not just addressing aspiring UN interpreters here, but children of the Almighty God aspiring to serve Him. Should we not anticipate the supernatural? Should we not remember that interpretation is about more than our power and might but the Spirit of God? Should we leave the Holy Spirit in the aisle? Who made the lips that utter languages? Who made the minds that think? Isn’t He the same God who empowers, enables, and inspires us to serve Him with our gifts? If that’s true, let’s act as such, think as such, and interpret as such.
Photo by Shubham Rana on pixabay