Virtual Conference with the European Commission

On October 24, the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation held a virtual conference with the European Commission.

The first and the second year MA students took part in the conference. The English speaker – Michael Somers – prepared a speech on dangers at the beach. Lidia Yaitskova performed its consecutive interpretation from English into Russian. Yulia Miller interpreted from English into Russian a speech on Swedish policy of reduction of road deaths, delivered by Liam Long. Olga Afanasyeva interpreted the speech devoted to the “polluter pays” principle from French into Russian. Michael Somers and Liam Long were the commentators. By the way next Monday Liam Long is expected to come to Astrakhan to train our students. Michael and Liam were mainly commenting on background knowledge, note taking, correct understanding of the original speech message and certain words and other problems our students faced during the interpretation. Anastasia Eremeeva, a MA student, had quite  a challenge – she interpreted the speech on phantom calls, delivered by Yulia Ibragimova, from Russian into English. As the European Commission interpreters noted the speech was not an easy one, but the student managed to interpret it and to render the main information and ideas of the original speech. Anastasia also got some advice from Michael and Liam concerning the general structure of interpretation as well as the choice of lexical means in English.

Other MA students of the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation also participated in the virtual conference – they worked in turns in the interpreting booths during the whole conference; the students interpreted original speeches and students’ interpretations as well as the communication between the participants and their comments. When the conference was over our teachers also commented on the simultaneous interpretation explaining main mistakes and proper versions of interpretation.