What are the abilities and conditions for simultaneous interpretation?

Simultaneous interpretation is a very difficult interlingual conversion activity which is strictly limited by time. It requires the interpreter to predict, understand, remember and convert the information in the source language in a very short time with the help of the existing subject knowledge, and at the same time, to monitor, organize, correct and express the target language and speak the translation of the target language.

In various international conferences, simultaneous interpreters need "lightning thinking" and superb language skills to successfully overcome the interweaving and interference between multiple tasks, which easily leads to energy shortage or difficulty in attention distribution.

According to the regulations of AIIC (International Association of Conference Interpreters), a simultaneous interpreter is qualified as long as he translates 8% of the speaker's content (9 %~1% "simultaneous interpretation" is almost impossible).

Many people usually speak very fast, and often only pay attention to their own speeches, and even mix accents and dialects from all over the world, so simultaneous interpreters have to mobilize all their knowledge and experience to go all out. After all, there are not many speakers who can deliberately slow down to take care of simultaneous interpreters, which puts high demands on the quality of practitioners.

Extended information:

As a translation method, simultaneous interpretation is characterized by its high efficiency. The average time interval between the translation of the original text and the translation is three to four seconds, up to more than ten seconds, so it can ensure the speaker to make a coherent speech without affecting or interrupting the speaker's thinking, which is conducive to the audience's understanding of the full text of the speech.

Therefore, "simultaneous interpretation" has become a popular translation method in the world today, and 95% of international conferences in the world adopt simultaneous interpretation. At the same time, simultaneous interpretation is highly academic and professional, and is usually used in formal international conferences, so it requires high quality of interpreters.

besides being widely used in international conferences, simultaneous interpretation is also widely used in foreign affairs, meetings and negotiations, business activities, news media, training and teaching, television broadcasting, international arbitration and many other fields.

Similar to simultaneous interpretation, another translation method called consecutive interpretation (or alternate interpretation) is also widely used. This translation method can wait for the speaker to finish his speech and make oral translation alone, so it takes longer than simultaneous interpretation.

Baidu encyclopedia-simultaneous interpretation