Interpreting and Translation
Translation is a cultural activity in which translators transfer information between two symbolic systems which have different rules. (Wenjun, 2000) This is also true of interpreting — a cultural activity in which an interpreter transfers information between two symbolic systems which have different rules. Both serving to bridge the source language and the target language, interpreting and translation have something in common. But at the same time, differences do exist between the two means of transferring of information.
Similarities
Both interpreting and translation presuppose a certain love of language and deep knowledge of more than one tongue. It is difficult or almost impossible for one who knows only his mother tongue to interpret or translate one language into another. Although there was once the extreme example that the Chinese translator Lin Qin-nan who knew little about English translated many English works into Chinese, he was helped by someone else who knew English well — he would dictate to Lin the meaning of the source text in Chinese, and Lin, in
turn, would note down his words and process them into a Chinese text. Without the help of others, he could not have succeeded. The need for deep knowledge of more than one tongue is also essential for an interpreter: how could he understand what one said in source language and interpret it to his mother tongue if he did not know the source language?
Besides, both interpreters and translators must understand the subject matter of the text or speech they are interpreting or translating. One of the main reasons why the Automatic Translation projects that were popular since 1950’s failed is precisely that reason. Translation is not a matter of substituting words in one language for words in another. It is a matter of understanding the thought expressed in one language and then explaining it using the resources of another language. In other words, what an interpreter / translator does is to change words into meaning, and then change meaning back into words — of a different language. And just like you can’t explain to someone a thought you didn’t fully understand, nor can you interpret or translate something without mastery of the subject matter being relayed. In practice, according to Nida (1998), “more errors in translation are
made because of failure to comprehend the source text than for any other reason”. This shows how important the full understanding of the subject matter of the source text or speech.
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Differences
On the surface, the difference between interpreting and translation is only the difference in the medium: the interpreter translates orally, while a translator interprets written text. However, the differences in the training, skills, and talents needed for each job are vast. The key skill of a very good translator is the ability to “write effectively” (Nida, 1998), to express him/herself clearly in the target language. That is why professional translators almost always work in only one direction, i.e. translating only into their native language. Even bilingual individuals rarely can express themselves in a given subject equally well in two languages. And many excellent translators are far from being bilingual — they may not be, and need not be, fluent speakers of the source language. The qualities a translator has to possess are as follows: first, he has to be bilingual; second, he has to be bicultural; third,
he has to specialize in one or more areas of knowledge; and fourth, he has to have the ability to write effectively. (Nida, 1998)
An interpreter, on the other hand, has to be able to translate in both directions, without the use of any dictionaries, on the spot. There are basically two types of interpreting: consecutive and simultaneous. In the most popular form of simultaneous interpreting the interpreter sits in a booth wearing a pair of headphones and speaking into a microphone. Strictly speaking, “simultaneous” is not proper in its real sense: the interpreter can’t start interpreting until he or she understands the general meaning of the sentence. Depending on how far in the sentence the subject and the verb are located, the interpreter into English may not be able to utter a single word until he or she heard the very end of the sentence in the source language. This makes it evident how hard the task of the interpreter really is: he or she needs to be translating the sentence into the target language while simultaneously listening to and comprehending the next sentence. You can experience the difficulty of the task even if you are monolingual: just try paraphrasing someone’s speech with a half-sentence delay, making sure you understand the next sentence while paraphrasing the pre
vious one. One of the key skills of the simultaneous interpreter is decisiveness: there is simply no time to think over the merits of variant translations or to recall just the right idiom in the target language. If there is any delay you may loose a few words (and possibly a thought) that the speaker uttered. And since the speaker may be far away, or even in a different room than the interpreter, the loss may be permanent.
During consecutive interpreting the speaker stops every 1-5 minutes (usually at the end of every “paragraph” or a complete thought) and the interpreter then steps in to render what was said into the target language. A key skill involved in consecutive interpreting is note-taking, since few interpreters can memorize a full paragraph at a time without loss of detail. But interpreter's notes are very unique, because writing down words in the source language makes interpreter’s job harder when he or she has to translate the speech into the target language. Many professional interpreters develop their own “ideogramic” symbology, which allows them to take down not the words, but the thoughts of the speaker in language-independent form. Then the interpreter’s output is more idiomatic and less source-language bound.

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