Summer practice sessions

Over the summer, you’ve probably seen loads of hashtags flying around the social media pages of interpreters about events like #WISE Valencia and #WISE Brussels, and #LeedsENIT but what’s this all about?

As interpreters already know, the old adage – practice makes perfect – or practice makes better (as I prefer to say) – definitely is true for our line of work. Translators may also get a lull in the summer, although I have to say that depends on your specialism and whether most of the other people working for your client have gone off on holiday. For interpreters the lull in conference work allows for the perfect moment to practice, and what better way to do it than together?

This summer I was lucky enough to attend both WISE and Leeds EN IT. WISE had its fifth anniversary this year and was born out of the need to practice together over the summer. After finishing my Master’s degree I was well-aware of the fact that I had only begun developing the skills I would need in the big scary world of conference interpreting so I put a practice schedule in place as you might remember from one of my early posts on the blog. This need to practice more and with other like-minded individuals is what prompted Joe Burbidge and Jose Sentamans to create WISE five years ago.

I was already familiar with the WISE YouTube channel but I didn’t know quite how everything would be run when I got there myself. In order to attend WISE there is a selection process where you need to tell the organisers a bit about yourself, your experience and your language combinations. Prior to the workshops commencing I was a bit nervous but also excited, we got our timetables through with a list of all the sessions we could attend either as an interpreter, listener or speaker and I got to writing my speeches. The WISE timetable covers 30+ language combinations (EN, ES, FR, DE, IT, NL + retours) in a single week, with the same practice time for each in simultaneous and consecutive.

When I arrived in Valencia we had a welcome night to get to know each other and I immediately felt at home (despite not speaking much Spanish) and part of the group. Every day was split into sessions that varied between language combinations and consecutive and simultaneous sessions that ran in parallel. We also had a mock conference titled “Everything You Always Wanted to Know and Never Dared to Ask” or #EYAWKANDA which gave us the chance to openly discuss big issues like handling social media use.

Of course, we didn’t only practice – we also managed to see the best bits of Valencia with great city tours provided by Jose and other participants, as well as sampling local cuisine such as the traditional drink – Horchata/Orxata – which my British palate wasn’t convinced by!

For me this was a unique opportunity to meet people from many different backgrounds who had much advice to offer and were all willing to help each other whilst working on my full range of language combinations. The community spirit soon led to us all also adopting the hashtag #colleaguesnotcompetition and that’s probably what stuck with me most from this week in Valencia – we are colleagues and I’m still in touch with many of those who attended WISE with me this year. I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to work on my skills in an intense but constructive week and to have been surrounded by so many brilliant colleagues.

If you want to know more about how WISE works then you can check out their website.

The WISE Valencia II 2017 Group

After WISE, my summer of intense interpreting practice was far from over as I went back to Leeds to attend the Leeds EN IT sessions which two of the Apertis Verbis team (Lara and myself) helped Andrea Alvisi to organise this year! Leeds EN IT is a new initiative – this was our second year however you may already be familiar with the YouTube channel that we have running.

The Leeds EN IT week was inspired by WISE with a few little tweaks as they are two different initiatives, both equally useful for interpreters. This week is aimed at interpreters with Italian and English in their combination and only focuses on those two languages (apart from our wild card exception this year who had Spanish A, English B and Italian C). Participants had to prepare speeches and be willing to act as interpreters, speakers and listeners. We assigned topics to each day and even had an EU focused day with an EU interpreter (Sophie Llewellyn-Smith) there to give us feedback.

Again, the week was full of a lot of intense practice and I found it more intense than WISE as participants generally attend every session every day because we only have one language combination that we’re working on (IT<>EN)! However, as well as the mix of consecutive and simultaneous practice Andrea had the great idea of using “real material” this year which meant that we got to travel to the Oscars, the White House, and to many other occasions to act as the interpreters. Also, we had pure customers – both interpreters and not – to listen to us as well as a mock debate including Merkel, Trump and Sturgeon!

Of course, we didn’t only practice during the Leeds week, we also had some social events planned so that we could make the most of getting to know a whole new group of wonderful colleagues who also found practice so important that they had come all the way to the cold North of the UK to dedicate their week to helping each other improve.

The Leeds EN IT now has its own website if you would like more information about the week please click here. And for a more detailed review (in Spanish) check out Aida (our Spanish wild card)’s post on her blog.

In my opinion attending both weeks is a great way to practice as they are very complementary – WISE allowed me to practice all my combinations in a relaxed setting with material provided directly by interpreters whilst Leeds EN IT helped me to focus specifically on one combination with some more challenging “live” material. I feel that the combination of both weeks was very useful for me and as I wasn’t the only interpreter attending both weeks this summer I’m sure other people would agree with this comment. Both weeks are also a great opportunity to meet and socialise with different groups of interpreters too as well, of course, getting more feedback to continue working on.

All in all it’s been a great, intense summer and I feel like thanks to WISE and Leeds EN IT I have made a lot of progress as an interpreter and am even more prepared to put all of this feedback into practice during my next assignments. I hope that this will inspire any new interpreters who just finished their MAs, as well as more experienced ones, to keep up their practice routines now that the summer is over and I hope to see you at a practice session soon or at least next summer whether it be in Leeds, Valencia, Brussels or who knows where!