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Cast Your Shadow
Most of our daily lives do not involve activities that naturally contribute to the mechanics of interpretation. Interpretation is quite frankly a “black box” that is foreign to almost all of us, and our brains as well. How do you train for such a thing? One way is to force someone into that uncomfortable position…
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Shadowing II
I hope you are still practicing Shadowing. By far, I think it’s the most important exercise for interpreters. If you are getting a hang of it, let’s add a little twist. Recall from Shadowing I, we repeat the speakers verbatim while they keep talking. The time delay between us and them is called the lag. I…
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Shadowing III
I hope the shadowing exercise is going well with you. By now you already know what it is and how to add a twist to it. It’s time to up the ante again. Previously, you have been instructed to match the speaker word for word with a time lag. Now, instead of repeating, paraphrase! Use your own words, simplify,…
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Put It Together
By now, we’ve seen multiple training exercises including basic shadowing, shadowing with longer lag time, and shadowing by paraphrase. If live interpretation is “running”, these will be the baby steps that get us to that point. There will be more of those on the way. But as some say, sometimes we need to run before we can walk. So, let’s…
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“Preach It”
We’ve talked about how sermon interpretation goes beyond a normal conference interpretation. Now, not all of us are familiar with preaching, so I find it extremely helpful to hear how different pastors preach and let them naturally rub off on us. For Mandarin, FLCC’s got you covered. For English, you can start with Pastor David Pawson…
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Why?
Having walked through so many “what” and “how” about interpretation, I feel it burning in my bones to explore the “why”. Our lives are crowded with so many “what” and “how” that we can barely catch our breath. The laundry list of life is endless and growing. We are exhausted, we are demoralized, and worst of…
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Above and Beyond
There is a reason why our training is largely a collection of different “shadowing” exercises. As I mentioned at the beginning, “shadowing” is the approachable first step to building a bridge toward a successful interpretation. It’s also a simple platform where we can methodically train different cognitive “muscles” to meet the various demands during interpretation….
