An interview with a teacher-turned-translator

This post is an interview with my friend Olga Kolesnikova. Olga and I went to university together, where we were both trained to be teachers of English. I am now a teacher, as trained. However, Olga decided to pursue a career as a translator and an interpreter. I’ve always been curious to pick Olga's brain about her career path as it is very different from mine despite the same background. In this post, I am asking her my burning questions about her choice and her experience.

1 Tell my readers a bit about yourself.

Just like you, I graduated from Pskov Pedagogical University. I worked as a teacher of English there for three years, and I always had a nagging idea that I didn’t have enough life experience to broadcast my ideas and my personality to students. So, I took a step to change it all and leave Pskov for St. Petersburg to become something different.

2 We went to the university together, where we were both trained to become teachers. But you decided to pursue a career as a translator. Why?

What else can you do with the English language? I desperately needed a change. I felt I was about to hit the glass ceiling as a teacher working at a university level and I realized I lacked something truly vital, and that was experience and knowledge of life. So, I was weighing in my options. My aspiration was to be a translator, so why not give it a try? I moved to St. Petersburg and found one promising vacancy on HeadHunter that seemed a way too challenging for me as I had zero experience in finance and conference interpreting. I got the job.

3 Tell us about different kinds of translation that there are.

Let’s start with written translation. There is a widespread belief that if you want to be a literary translator, the only option you can stick to is translating from a foreign language into your mother tongue just because you’ll never write like a native speaker and since it’s a book the language is expected to be flawless and idiomatic. Of course, there are editors, but the initial premise is like that. 

Then there’s consecutive and simultaneous interpreting. The idea is that you talk in turns or simultaneously with the speaker. 

4 I know you are passionate about simultaneous interpretation. Can you tell us more about this type of translation?

Simultaneous interpreting is basically talking in parallel with the speaker. In case of conference interpreting, there is a booth you sit in with our colleague, the sound comes into your headphones, and you convey the content into the microphone. You can interpret simultaneously without any equipment at all by whispering in the listener’s ear (a French word “chuchotage” is used to describe this technique).

5 To me, it sounds incredibly hard, almost impossible. Why did you decide to go for it?

It was a coincidence. I was employed by a financial data vendor at the time, and they were also a conference organizer. There was one freelance interpreter working with them on a regular basis, and I saw a slot there. So, I took two courses in simultaneous and consecutive interpretation at the Chamber for Commerce and Industry in St Petersburg, and then practiced a lot at home on conference recordings. Six months later, I interpreted at my first financial conference in Vilnius organized by my employer. I’ve been their in-house and freelance interpreter for over 10 years. It’s a shame it’s just a handful of events a year now.

For me, simultaneous interpreting is a source of inspiration and drive. When I do conference interpreting, I feel I’m living my dream. It’s tremendously rewarding when I know I’m performing well. It’s about challenges, the level of complexity, the speed and reaction, improvisation and coming up with instant solutions in a split second. And meeting extraordinary people, talking to strangers of the sidelines of various events and learning their stories.

6 What’s the hardest thing about simultaneous interpretation?

For me, the hardest thing is to realize that what I’m saying is not accurate and still go on speaking because stopping mid-sentence and keeping silent is not an option. The ground rule is never to abandon your sentence midway through, rephrase your thought or correct yourself. This rule stems from situations where there are other interpreters using your translation as a source text to interpret into their languages at a multilingual conference, but it generally applies to all cases. Then, if you take time to correct yourself you can lose the idea and miss what happens next. So, if you don’t hear or understand something you invent it or skip it, and in your heart of hearts you know that you’ve just done that. Some interpreters would say they never do that. 

The takeaway for me is that I am human, and I make mistakes. The best option is to acknowledge them, learn from them and move on.

7 Would you like to go back to teaching?

That’s an interesting question because I might. I might go back to teaching children as I have a 5-year old daughter. I’m toying with the idea now, but I have no clue how to approach it. When she was a baby and then a two-year old, I tried to teach her English, and she was OK with it. Then she started opposing me, telling me that I should speak only Russian to her, and I gave up. Now she is four and I can’t teach her English just by talking to her because her instant reaction is that she doesn’t understand me. But she’s interested as other children in her kindergarten start learning English, so that might be my next challenge.

To many people, teaching and translating careers are fluid and interchangeable. To me, they are two different universes, which I have always been curious to compare. Olga, thank you for this opportunity and for an insightful interview! 

Image credit: Photo by Romain Vignes on Unsplash