Problems at simultaneous interpreting education: linguadidactic aspect

Abstract

This article is devoted to the problems which students are facing while mastering the skills of a simultaneous interpreting. The article offers a number of exercises to help solve these problems. The authors underline that it is hardly possible to prepare professional simultaneous interpreters among undergraduates for some reasons, and above all because of insufficient time and absence of technical equipment. Nevertheless, the authors conclude by stating the importance of systematic development of students' perceptive skills, attention, memory and reaction required for providing simultaneous interpreting. The main difficulties in simultaneous interpreting training can be connected with three stages of interpreting: listening, comprehension and speaking. Listening challenges deal with a bad speaker’s pronunciation, some technical problems, as well as regional accents or pigeons. As for comprehension problems they are usually connected with the fact that the interpreter isn’t well grounded in the discussion topic, or he isn’t good at topic terminology. It stands to reason that a well-skilled interpreter should prepare to the interpreting topic beforehand. Speaking difficulties can be connected with a poor interpreter’s pronunciation, often caused a stress factor and a lack of topic knowledge. As a rule an excellent pronunciation, a good articulation and a trained voice are necessary for a professional interpreter. The main principal of training exercises given in this article covers all interpreting difficulties mentioned above.

Keywords

• simultaneous interpreting
• interpreting competence
• interpreting skills
• training exercises