Interpreter

An **interpreter** is a person who receives a non-recorded message spoken in one language, the source language, and repeats the same message in a different language, the target language.
Unlike a translator, an interpreter’s source is volatile:
He cannot simply rewind a recording and hear _the same_ speech again.
This makes an interpreter’s job difficult.
He must remember many parts of speech.

Interpreters help to communicate between people speaking different languages.
Some people do not understand _fast_ speech in the _source_ language and find an interpreter speaking their first language useful, too.
In rare instances, an “interpreter” could also speak a speech in _the same_ language as the speaker, because the speaker’s accent is too difficult to understand for other people.

### Modes

Many interpreters perform _simultaneous interpretation_ (SI).
In this mode of interpretation the interpreter produces the message in the target language at the same time.
There is a certain delay called  before an interpreter starts speaking.
Depending on the source language’s difficulty, this may be 2 to 16 seconds.
This mode is preferred if listeners possibly will reply after a short time.
It is used, for example, in the United Nations General Assembly.

Some interpreters also offer _consecutive interpretation_.
Here, the interpreter listens to a speech for 10 to 15 minutes and takes notes.
After that, the interpreter reproduces the speech in the target language, taking his notes for help.
This mode is sometimes used at conferences, when the audience primarily speaks the target language, but the speaker is an exception.
It does not need headphones for listeners and is more pleasant, because there is no concurrent mix of different voices.

### Modality

There are interpreters acting between modalities:
An interpreter can _listen_ with his ears and _sign_ the speech for deaf people.
There are also interpreters who speak with their mouth while _seeing_ a (possibly deaf) person signing.
There are barely any interpreters _directly_ interpreting between sign languages.

### Performance

Because interpretation is a very difficult task due to the time requirements, interpreters focus on transmitting the _main information_ of a message.
They do not reproduce hesitating discourse markers, like “uhm”, “err”, “hmm”.
Words that only embellish speech are omitted.
Difficult sentence constructions are simplified.

On the other hand, interpreters try their best to transmit ideas _across cultures_.
Proverbs, idioms and figures of speech are mapped to their closest equivalent in the target language, taking account of given context and the audience’s culture.
If applicable, interpreters try to preserve the same register, formal or informal language.

### Training

In order to become a successful interpreter, a candidate must have perfect command of both languages.
Often it is further helpful to have good knowledge of the subject matter.
The job is to transfer _ideas_.
It is difficult to interpret an idea that is not understood by the interpreter.
For that reason, an interpreter, for instance, specialized in court hearings does not only need to know legal terms and their respective translations, but also _what_ they mean and how they correlate to each other.
It is not necessary to become a lawyer, though.

### Labor market

Most interpreters are self-employed.
Even the European Parliament employs _permanently_ only a small subset of needed interpreters, namely those who are also translating documents if there is no parliament meeting.
Interpreters generally also offer translation services.

## Related pages

- Video Relay Service
- Teletypewriter

## Sources

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