1nterpreter

I sometimes worry about that! Often, Members of parliament listen to the interpretation of their own speech and complain if we got anything wrong. It can be taken down from the website if they insist. By then of course, it's too late. All we have is the disclaimer that interpretation should not be taken as a verbatim record of proceedings, and the common sense of a politician to double check before starting the launch codes...

I studied French and German at school, college and university in the Uk. I did a year at a German Uni as part of that, and a semester in France. I met a group of Portuguese people in Germany, and after uni decided to go and live there for a bit. I picked up the language, did two Master degrees and spent a couple of months in Spain over the course of my ten year stay on the Iberian Peninsula.

Weirdest: (as a man) interpreting the account of a woman who'd been victim of FGM. Having to talk in the first person about parts of the anatomy was a weird (and harrowing) experience. I also once had to interpret a group of kids (aged about 7-8) addressing a conference on poverty. It was weird because I had to use a completely different register.

Well, I'm English so that is my A language. They test my ability to communicate in that language only. The other languages are passives, meaning that I listen to them and interpret them into English...no need to speak them professionally. The test consists of several speeches in all of the passive languages, which I interpret into English. If my ability to communicate the speech isn't good enough, I fail because of my A language. If the content of the speech doesn't match the original closely enough, then my knowledge of my four passives is at fault, and I also fail.

No time for a dictionary, this is simultaneous. We do a bit of prep before the meeting, make sure we know any words likely to come up, then hope we're good to go.