Interpreting lessons given by Vladimir Lakeev, an interpreter of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation!

On May, 26 the MA students of the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation had a lesson with Vladimir Lakeev, an interpreter for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, who came to our School for holding interpreting classes. Vladimir devoted his lesson to the practical issues of the interpreter’s work. Firstly, he talked about “interpreter’s safety technique”, i.e. his/her thorough preparation: before any meeting an interpreter is to know a topic of the meeting or conference, participates of the event, issues to be discussed, etc. If an interpreter isn’t ready it can result in serious problems during his/her work.

Vladimir also touched upon such issues as emotionality of interpreting (an interpreter can, to some extent, transmit emotionality of a speaker but he/she must always be half a tone lower), physical state (one must take care of his/her health because even some slightest cold or allergy take an interpreter off the job), correlation between interpreting and translating (interpreters often have to translate so they shouldn’t lose their translating skills) and many other topics. The MA students asked our guest several questions, for example: “Do the UN interpreters have to learn the UN Charter by heart to quote it freely and to use cliché when interpreting?”; “Do an interpreter have to frequently fall back upon experts’ help when preparing some specific topics?”; “Should interpreters have any additional education which is related to a specific sphere where he/she is planning to work?”; “How often do interpreters render jokes and what is the best solution when instantaneous interpreting of a joke is impossible?”, etc.

During the whole week the first and second year MA students will attend interpreting classes where Vladimir Lakeev will assess the students’ training level and give them some practical advice. Within the classes which have already passed on Monday and Tuesday the MA students had an opportunity to practice sight interpretation as well as simultaneous interpreting of speeches by Russian and foreign politicians. Vladimir mainly commented on a right choice of words in Russian and English, an accurate sentence structuring and pronunciation.