Today I spotted this flock of parrots in front of my house. No, I did not emigrate to a tropical island – the parrot population in Heidelberg is an old one. At some point a couple of parrots “bolted” from the Heidelberg zoo and settled on the other bank of the local river Neckar. Obviously the parrots feel so much at ease in this habitat that they breed and continuously grow in numbers. By now you can come across parrots in all quarters of Heidelberg.
Are interpreters like parrots?
Unfortunately it is generally assumed that simultaneous interpreters “only” repeat what they hear, just like the parrot… Mind you, the process is quite complex. Let me give you an example:
The German speakers says: Our product “Kruxlipuxli” is a great success….
The parrot version would be: Our product “Kruxlipuxli” is a great success…
Your simultaneous interpreter will say: Our product “Wondersmooth” is a great success…
What happened to Kruxlipuxli? Why did it transform and become Wondersmooth? The reason is simple: The company decided to market the product out of Germany under a different, more catchy brand name. A well-prepared interpreter will know that and will quite naturally exchange brand names in her translation. Otherwise a member of the audience who comes e.g. from the United States wouldn’t even understand what the presenter is talking about…
So everything is in perfect order: parrots sit on trees (or in aviaries), interpreters sit in the interpreting booth.
