COMPETENCIAS QUE UN INTERPRETE DEBE TENER

COMPETENCES AN INTERPRETER NEEDS TO HAVE.

INTERPRETING SKILLS

Retrieved at http://www.nationalnetworkforinterpreting.ac.uk/tasks/int_skills/player.html 

1.    RESEARCH SKILLS.- you might need to research the topic of the meeting that you have been employed to interpret at. You might need to look up terminology or acronyms, or maybe you want to find out something about the organization that you’re working for.

2.    EMPATHY.- If you really want to understand where someone’s coming from, why they are saying what they are saying, you have to be able to put in their shoes.

3.    TACT AND DIPLOMACY.- As an interpreter,  you might be called in to work on very delicate situations – for instance, in court or for the police, or for someone who is hospital and cannot communicate with their doctor. So you must show some tact in those situations. 

4.    CURIOSITY.- Interpreters tend to be Jack of-all-trades; they need to know a little bit about everything, so it helps if you’re naturally curious and you like learning.

5.    EXCELLENT KNOWLEDGE OF THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE.- This sound obvious but it doesn’t mean “conversational English” or being able to chat  your friends in French, for instance. You must have a very thorough knowledge of your foreign language.

6.    MASTERY OF THE MOTHER TONGUE.- this means things like: having a very wide vocabulary, being able to adapt what you say to the correct register, depending on where you are working and who you are working for.

7.    GOOD PUBLICK SPEAKING.- This encompasses many things, - for instance, making eye contact with your audience, avoiding intrusive noises like “Umm, “s” and “err…s” when you are talking, avoiding fidgeting, using the appropriate register, and using a natural intonation when you speak.

8.    PICKING UP NEW IDEAS QUICKLY.- You have to be able to think on your feet, you have to be able to pick up ideas quickly; as soon as the speaker says something, you must be able to grasp it.

9.    GOOD CULTURAL AWARENESS.- As well as having an excellent knowledge of your foreign language and your mother tongue, you must also have good cultural knowledge. Sometimes a speaker will use culturally-specific words, expressions or phrases, which your listeners won’t understand if you give a literal interpretation. You may have to add extra information to help your listeners out.

10.          ANALYTICAL SKILLS.- This is about really understanding what someone is trying to say; being able to distinguish between important points and trivial points; or being able to follow their arguments so that you can reproduce it.

11.          STAMINA.- Sometimes there are long days in interpreting and they require a great deal of concentration, so you have to build up your stamina for those.

12.          CALM UNDER PRESSURE.- Many people relay on you when you are an interpreter, so you have to be able to stay cool and think on your feet.

13.           GENERAL KNOWLEDGE AND INTEREST IN CURRENT AFFAIRS.- This is something that helps you understand what people is talking about, the background to the points they are making.

14.          SENSE OF INITIATIVE.- You will need to organize your own time as an interpreter – particularly if you are a freelance interpreter – and you will have to do your own research and decide what it is that you need to know.

15.          FLEXIBILITY AND ADAPTABILITY.- Interpreters works in all sorts of different meetings – sometimes a different meeting for every day of the week. They talk about different topics, they might be working in very different settings – for instance, one day for the police and the next day in hospital, so you need to be quite adaptable.

16.          NOTE TAKING.- some interpreters reproduces speeches that last, perhaps,  five or ten minutes and they can’t relay on memory alone to do that, so they have to develop skills in note-taking.

17.          TEAM WORK.- If you are conference interpreter, you might be working in a booth with two or three other people, so you need to be able to, for instance, share the documents between you or help each other out with difficult words, or even coordinate so that you take turns.

18.          PROFFESIONALISM.- There are many aspects to this, one, for instance, Is that certain meetings have to be kept confidential. Imagine that you are working for the police, for instance.