[Dolmetscher wissen alles] Interpreters know everything
A blog on knowledge & conference interpreting
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No paper, no travel – can we get any greener these days?
No more traveling, paper coffee cups and the like … instead it’s videoconference interpreting, paperless office, and paperless booth (or no booth at all, for that matter) … so could we be any more eco-friendly at all? We could indeed – after all, we are generating tons of digital waste in our “new normal” everyday…
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New normal conferences – virtual or in person?
One year into the pandemic, I thought it might be time to think about what our new normal work environment as conference interpreters will look like. Will new normal meetings and conferences return to the “real world”, or will most of them remain virtual? I very much hope that our new reality brings the best…
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How to be boothmates without sharing a booth – My impressions from the #Innov1nt Summit 2021
Just in case you missed out on last week’s Innovation In Interpreting Summit by @adrechsel and @Goldsmith_Josh, aka Techforword, here comes my short and personal recap. The good news is: If you want to watch all the panels and loads of useful video contributions around how technology can support you in the booth, setting up your…
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Save the Date – Innovation in Interpreting Summit – February 23-25, 2021
Looking forward to talking about How to be boothmates without sharing a booth on the Innovation in Interpreting Summit, hosted by our two favourite tech geeks, Josh Goldsmith & Alex Drechsel, aka @techforword. Registration for free tickets will start soon! Hope to see you there on 23-25 February 🙂 Anja About the author Anja Rütten…
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Wishing you Happy Holidays and plenty of time for coffee breaks
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The Unfinished Handbook for Remote Simultaneous Interpreters
Together with Angelika Eberhardt and Peter Sand, I have compiled tips and tricks around remote simultaneous interpreting (be it from a hub or from home) that we have been collecting ourselves or that colleagues have shared with us. It is meant as an informal collection of personal experiences that work for some while others may…
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Natural Language Processing – What’s in it for interpreters?
“Natural Language Processing? Hey, that’s what I do for a living!” That’s what I thought when I heard about the live talk “A Glimpse at the Future of NLP” (big thank you to Julia Böhm for pointing this out to me). As I am always curious about what happens in AI and language processing, I…
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Will 3D audio make remote simultaneous interpreting a pleasure?
Now THAT’S what I want: Virtual Reality for my ears! Apparently, simultaneous interpreters are not the only ones suffering from Zoom fatigue, i.e. the confusion and inability to physically locate a speaker using our ears can lead to a condition that’s sometimes referred to as “Zoom Fatigue”. But it looks like there is still reason…
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Ein Hoch auf den guten Ton beim hybriden #DfD2020 | Good sound and vibes at Interpreters for Interpreters Workshop
+++ for English version see below +++ In einer Mischung aus ESC (“Hello from Berlin”) und Abiprüfung (getrennte Tische) hat am heutigen 18. Juli 2020 der bislang teilnehmerstärkste Dolmetscher-für-Dolmetscher-Workshop als Hybridveranstaltung in Bonn stattgefunden. 169 Dolmetscher*innen waren angemeldet, davon 80 Dolmetscher corona-konform persönlich vor Ort. Dies alles organisiert vom Fortbildungs-Dreamteam der AIIC Deutschland, Inés de…
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You can never have too many screens, can you?
I don’t know about you, but I sometimes struggle, when using my laptop in the booth, to squeeze the agenda, list of participants, glossary, dictionary, web browser and meeting documents/presentations onto one screen. Not to mention email, messenger or shared notepad when working in separate booths in times of COVID-19 … Or even the soft…
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Was kostet Remote-Dolmetschen und warum?
Wann ist es sinnvoll, mit Dolmetschern vor Ort zu tagen, und wann ist Dolmetschen über das Internet sinnvoll? Nach unserem Web-Meeting der AIIC Deutschland am vergangenen Freitag (22. Mai 2020) mit dem herzerfrischenden Titel “TACHELES – RSI auf dem deutschen Markt” teile ich hier gerne mit Euch meine in eine rechnende Tabelle gegossenen Überlegungen zum…
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Videos on fee calculation for conference interpreters | Videos sobre como calcular honorarios para intérpretes de conferencias
My tutorials on how to use the Time&money calculator, an Excel spreadsheet developed by AIIC Germany’s former profitability working group, finally have English and Spanish subtitles! Comments and questions welcome 🙂 Video on calculating working hours and fees for conference interpreters | Video sobre como calcular horas de trabajo y honorarios para intérpretes de conferencias…
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Simultaneous interpreting in the time of coronavirus – Boothmates behind glass walls
Yesterday was one of the rare occasions where conference interpreters were still brought to the client’s premises for a multilingual meeting. Participants from abroad were connected via a web meeting platform, while the few people who were on-site anyway were sitting at tables 2 meters apart from each other. But what about the interpreters, who…
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How to Make CAI Tools Work for You – a Guest Article by Bianca Prandi
After conducting research and providing training on Computer-Assisted Interpreting (CAI) for the past 6 years, I feel quite confident in affirming that there are three indisputable truths about CAI tools: they can potentially provide a lot of advantages, do more harm than good if not used strategically, and most interpreters know very little about them.…
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Preparing on numbers: Yes, we CAN (and SHOULD)! – A Guest Article by Francesca Maria Frittella
A new client requested you to interpret at his business’s annual press conference. It’s quite a big assignment and the event takes place in only five days, but you are not worried: the best practices that you have developed through your training and professional experience allow you to prepare efficiently and effectively. So, you get…
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Vögelchen füttern nicht vergessen! | Don’t forget to feed the birds! | ¡No se olviden de dar de comer a los pajaritos!
Frohe Festtage! * ¡Felices Fiestas! * Happy Holidays! * Joyeuses Fêtes!
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#multitalkingfähig – Eindrücke vom BDÜ-Kongress 2019 in Bonn
Das Potpourri aus über 100 Vorträgen, Diskussionen, Seminaren und Workshops, das der BDÜ vergangenes Wochenende beim BDÜ-Kongress in Bonn hingezaubert hat, kann ein einzelner Mensch gewiss nicht würdigen. Deshalb ist mein kleiner Bericht auch nur ein ganz persönlicher Erfahrungsausschnitt. Sämtliche Abstracts und Artikel lassen sich viel besser im Tagungsband nachlesen. Mein erster Gedanke auf dem…
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DeepL – not too bad, even if it turns marriage into war
After Microsoft Translate and Google Translate, last week I decided to take a closer look at DeepL‘s beta desktop application. I had to prepare over 50 Power Point slides filled with text about quite a number of rulings of the European Court of Justice. I was pretty sure these would be read out at high…
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Deliberate Practice – What’s in it for Conference Interpreters
The one thing that strikes me most about deliberate practice is the notion of immediate feedback. How could that possibly work in simultaneous interpreting? You can’t just interrupt each other when interpreting, can you? Well, most certainly not while on the job, but could you give immediate feedback when practising in a silent booth or…
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Neues vom Dolmetscher-für-Dolmetscher-Workshop in Bonn #aiicDfD2019
Die Sommerpause 2019 geht dem Ende entgegen, Zeit also für den traditionell von der AIIC Deutschland organisierten Workshop Dolmetscher für Dolmetscher. 71 Dolmetscherinnen und Dolmetscher haben am heutigen 31. August bei mindestens 31 Grad Außentemperatur in Bonn den ganzen Tag über Themen rund um das “Konferenzdolmetschen 4.0” diskutiert. Eine vollständige Zusammenfassung des Tages gibt es…
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Remote Simultaneous Interpreting … muss das denn sein – und geht das überhaupt?!
In einem von AIIC und VKD gemeinsam organisierten Workshop unter der Regie von Klaus Ziegler hatten wir Mitte Mai in Hamburg die Gelegenheit, diese Fragen ausführlich zu ergründen. In einem Coworkingspace wurde in einer Gruppe organisierender Dolmetscher zwei Tage lang gelernt, diskutiert und in einem Dolmetschhub das Remote Simultaneous Interpreting über die cloud-basierte Simultandolmetsch-Software Kudo…
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Great Piece of Research on Terminology Assistance for Conference Interpreters
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No me canso, ganso – mis impresiones del Foro Lenguas 2019 en CDMX
En medio del desabasto de gasolina llegué a la ciudad de México para asistir al Foro Lenguas 2019 la semana pasada. En este congreso, con representación de 20 lenguas amerindias y 7 lenguas extranjeras, me lancé a la aventura para discutir la gramática, la importancia de las asociaciones profesionales y el papel que desempeñan las…
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What do conference interpreters’ booth notes tell us about their information management?
First of all, a big thank you to all of you who followed my call and provided copies of their booth notes for my little study – I finally managed to collect booth notes from 25 colleagues! Now, what was this study all about? The purpose was to see what interpreters write down intuitively on…
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Honorarkalkulator für Dolmetscher – Excel-Datei und Video Tutorials aus #aiicDfD2018
“Grundhonorare, Projekthonorare, Vorbereitungshonorare – nicht immer funktionieren Tagessätze” – laut Inés de Chavarría (der ein megagroßes Dankeschön für die Orga gebührt!) eine zentrale Erkenntnis aus den Diskussionen des AIIC-Workshops Dolmetscher für Dolmetscher 2018 in Stuttgart. In diesem Sinne nun also ran ans Kalkulieren! Hier zum Ansehen in Google Sheets oder zum Herunterladen im Excel-Format der…
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Nicht für Geld – kleines Einmaleins für Dolmetscher
Zur Einstimmung auf den bevorstehenden Dolmetscher-für-Dolmetscher-Workshop, wo es unter anderem um betriebswirtschaftliche Themen gehen wird, möchte ich heute ein paar Gedanken zu einem meiner Lieblingsthemen, dem lieben Geld, mit Euch teilen. Denn den schönsten Beruf der Welt macht man zwar nicht nur des Geldes wegen, aber ohne wäre irgendwie auch schlecht. Und wenn Dolmetscher auch…
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Green Season’s Greetings | Grüne Weihnachtsgrüße | Saludos navideños verdes
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Neurophysiologie des Simultandolmetschens | Neurophysiology of simultaneous interpreting – by Eliza Kalderon
+++ for English, scroll down +++ Etwa eineinhalb Jahre nach Beenden der Promotion freue ich mich über die Möglichkeit, im Blog meiner Kollegin, die das Projekt “Neurophysiologie des Simultandolmetschens: eine fMRI-Studie mit Konferenzdolmetschern” von Anfang an voller Begeisterung und Engagement unterstützte, eines der spannendsten Ergebnisse vorstellen zu dürfen. Die drei nachfolgenden Abbildungen stellen sogenannte Render-Bilder…
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Macht mehr Monotasking?
Ich kann es ja eigentlich nicht mehr hören: “Wir fummeln viel zu oft an unseren Handys herum! Wir sind immer abgelenkt. Wir müssen mal wieder ein Buch umarmen! Und in ein Geschäft gehen!” Hallo? WIR sind erwachsen und lieben Computer und Handys auch, weil sie einen Ausknopf haben. Den haben nämlich weder Aktenberge noch vollgestopfte…
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How to Build Your Self-Translating Glossary in Google Sheets
I am certainly not saying that Google can create your glossaries for you when preparing for a technical conference on African wildlife or nanotubes. But if you know your languages well enough to tell a bad translation from a good one, it may still be a time-saver. Especially for those words you don’t use every…
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Word Clouds – much nicer than Word Lists
I have been wondering for quite some time if word lists are the best thing I can come up with as a visual support in the booth. They are not exactly appealing to the eye, after all … So I started to play around with word cloud generators a bit to see if they are…
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Microsoft Office Translator – Can it be of any help in the booth?
When it comes to Computer-Aided Interpreting (CAI), a question widely discussed in the interpreting community is whether information being provided automatically by a computer in the booth could be helpful for simultaneous interpreters or if would rather be a distraction. Or to put it differently: Would the cognitive load of simultaneous interpreting be increased by…
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How to measure the efficiency of your conference preparation
Half of the time we dedicate to a specific interpreting assignment is often spent on preparation. But while many a thought is given to the actual interpreting performance and the different ways to evaluate it, I hardly ever hear anyone discuss their (or others’) preparation performance. However, if we want to be good information and…
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About Term Extraction, Guesswork and Backronyms – Impressions from JIAMCATT 2018 in Geneva
JIAMCATT is the International Annual Meeting on Computer-Assisted Translation and Terminology, a IAMLAP taskforce where most international organizations, various national institutions and academic bodies exchange information and experience in the field of terminology and translation. For this year’s JIAMCATT edition in Geneva, I had the honour of running a workshop on Tools for Interpreters –…
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You love keyboard shortcuts? Meet GT4T!
GT4T – key shortcuts made for translators and interpreters (for German and Spanish, scroll down) If you asked me, everyone should learn key shortcuts at school together with their ABC. Once memorised, they are so convenient to use … unlike buttons on the screen, you just feeeeel them without having to look. It seems like…
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Speechpool, InterpretimeBank & InterpretersHelp – the Perfect Trio for Deliberate Practice in Conference Interpreting
After testing the practice module of InterpretersHelp last month, the whole practice thing got me hooked. Whilst InterpretersHelp gives us the technical means to record our interpretation together with the original and receive feedback from peers, there are two more platforms out there which cover further aspects of the practice workflow: InterpretimeBank and Speechpool. To…
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Cleopatra: an App for Automating Symbols for Consecutive Interpreting Note-Taking – Guest Article by Lourdes de la Torre Salceda
+++ For Spanish scroll down +++ The perfect symbol has just come to mind! I’ve been racking my brain for ages and I got it, finally! I’ve been inspired! But where should I write it down, now that I’m sunbathing on the beach! Has something similar ever occurred to you? As a millennial the first…
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New Term Extraction Features in InterpretBank and InterpretersHelp – Thumbs up!
Extracting terminology from preparatory texts into a term database seems to be the hot topic of the moment, judging by what the two most active and innovative CAI (computer-assisted interpreting) tools, InterpretBank and InterpretersHelp, are working on at the moment. So while I am still waiting to become a Windows beta tester of Intragloss, the…
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InterpretersHelp’s new Practice Module – Great Peer-Reviewing Tool for Students and Grownup Interpreters alike
I have been wondering for quite a while now why peer feedback plays such a small role in the professional lives of conference interpreters. Whatwith AIIC relying on peer review as its only admission criterion, why not follow the logic and have some kind of a routine in place to reflect upon our performance every…