The AIIC Webzine

Mariamne Makri is on a trainee interpreter scheme at the European Parliament and it is all rather daunting: "I've still not quite got the technique" she laments, "I tend to parrot, to interpret word for word, I haven't learnt yet how to relax." Despite this, she knows it's her vocation: "The atmosphere here is so exciting" she enthuses, "as an interpreter here you feel you are helping to facilitate important events."

A few years ago, about the time I won the AIIC Most Promising Newcomer Award, one of my children took a break from her differential calculus homework to fix me with a beady stare. "What do you do?" she asked.

China is in the midst of an exciting transformation that is opening her doors ever wider to the outside world. As international contacts multiply, growing demand for high-quality interpretation is creating the conditions for the emergence of conference interpreting as a true profession. In this article, we give an overview of the development of conference interpreting in the world's largest developing country, and describe the joys - and challenges - of working as conference interpreters in a rapidly changing China.

Du temps que je fréquentais, il y a longtemps, le lycée, on nous parlait de langues vivantes et de langues mortes, ces dernières étant le grec et le latin. Puis le mimétisme anglo-maniaque et la crainte, peut-être, que certains y voient je ne sais quelle nuance péjorative aidant, on connaît maintenant les langues modernes et les langues classiques.

Petit nécessaire de traduction agrémenté de quelques ficelles, astuces et autres tuyaux utiles en la matière, à l'usage des collègues désireux de faire dans la dentelle subtile de la simultanée médicale.