Alessio Iacovoni's Weblog
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Ios apps for conference interpreting
This is the first of a series of reviews on some ios apps that I believe can come in very handy to interpreters.
Needless to say, terminology management is an interpreter’s most daunting tasks. In order for glossaries to be effective, they need to be updated regularly, a task which can be tedious and time-consuming.
Among the plethora of IOS apps aimed at streamlining the process of managing and learning new terminology, there is one that stands out for its many interesting features, including a unique text-to-speech function that I will expound on further into the review.
The app is called Flashcards Deluxe.
Despite the name, it’s not merely a flashcards program, but a versatile utility that can cater for most terminology management needs. It has features to backup glossaries on various cloud services (dropbox, google and others), to help practice and memorize the terms with in-built tests (flashcards, multiple choice) and even to automatically convert the lexicon into audio.
The text-to-speech function is available in a large number of languages and does not require an active internet connection: the sound files are downloaded on the device and remain available also when off-line.
Here are some screenshots from the app:
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The following is a list of translation procedures developed by Vinay, Darbelnet, Newmark and Catford. Although they were developed for written translations they can also apply to interpreting.
Compendium of translation procedures
(edited and extended by Alessio Iacovoni, compiled by the author of the Blog Mis Trabajos de Traducción, accessed 11 February 2009)
An optimal segmentation of the source message is by far a simultaneous interpreter’s most important resource to avert the risk of falling behind a fast speaker, of missing some important information or overloading short term memory.
While this may not come as a novelty, few interpreters will be aware that they can learn to master this technique through an apparently unrelated discipline: subtitling.
Here is a brief excerpt from a very informative article that I recently came across in the Translation Journal.
“Segmentation at the highest nodes: Subtitled text should appear segmented at the highest syntactic nodes possible. This means that each subtitle flash should ideally contain one complete sentence. In cases where the sentence cannot fit in a single-line subtitle and has to continue over a second line or even over a new subtitle flash, the segmentation on each of the lines should be arranged to coincide with the highest syntactic node possible.
For example, before we segment the phrase:
- “The destruction of the city was inevitable.” (44 characters),
we first have to think of its syntactic tree as follows:
A segmentation on the fifth node (N5) would create the two-line subtitle
- “The destruction of the
- city was inevitable.”
A segmentation on the second node (N2) would create the two-line subtitle
- “The destruction of the city
- was inevitable.”
Out of the two segmentations, it is the second that flows as more readable. This occurs because the higher the node, the greater the grouping of the semantic load and the more complete the piece of information presented to the brain. When we segment a sentence, we force the brain to pause its linguistic processing for a while, until the eyes trace the next piece of linguistic information. In cases where segmentation is inevitable, therefore, we should try to force this pause on the brain at a point where the semantic load has already managed to convey a satisfactorily complete piece of information.” (From A Proposed Set of Subtitling Standards in Europe, by Fotios Karamitroglou)
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About me
Alessio Iacovoni
Welcome to my Weblog. I'm a freelance conference interpreter from Rome, Italy. My working languages are: Italian (A) English (Bsim) French (C) and my main fields of expertise are the information and communication technologies and other technical domains. In the past seventeen years of work as an interpreter I have also been exposed to a variety of other less technical topics ranging from social sciences to politics, education and interpreting for the media.
