Aka. "Destination Anywhere", "The Boy and Girl from County Bavaria"... After a very intense year in Würzburg (Germany), I'm back in Salamanca. I probably won't have that many experiences to write, but there's always an excuse to post a new entry!

I thought, following the tradition I started in Dublin and continued in Würzburg, I could tell you something about this year's courses too. As I said last time, this is my final year (if everything goes right and I don't decide to do something else) and there will only be an entry about it this time, as the courses I'm taking will last two semesters instead of one and there's nothing new in the summer semester.

1. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!

Real title: Interpreting practice

Lecturer: the United Nations threesome

What it is about: Theoretically, the main aim is to show us what working as a professional interpreter looks like and introduce us to some of the problems we might face in the future. In truth, the main thing we learn is that we should have never chosen this job, how terrible it is to be an interpreter and why we'll never be good enough at that. Funny enough, all the lecturers are professional interpreters themselves... 

How to get marks: We have to take part in different workshops ( = lectures in which we're told how terrible our future job is), do some interpreting practice as the title says (with NGOs, in mock conferences...) until we've worked for 60 hours in both our languages and hand in reports about what we did, the problems we had and how useful it was. And if by the end of the year we haven't worked the 60 hours I've already mentioned, we also have to take an interpreting exam.

2. BOREDOM

Real title: Spanish-German Specialized Translation

Lecturer: la Petra

What it is about: Take a wild guess... translating! We translate business letters, standard form contracts and birth certificates. Yippieee! To be honest, it isn't as terrible as it sounds, but let's say it's my least favourite course this year.

How to get marks: Handing in our translations in time, two marked translations and a presentation about topics such as pay forms in online shopping.

3. THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BOOTH

Real title: English Simultaneous Interpreting

Lecturer: the model

What it is about: We listen to speeches about topics that change every two weeks (climate change, peacekeeping, pandemics, social forums...) and interpret them from the booth. The lecturer (I'm just referring to her as the model because she's young, skinny and sort of fashionable) listens to us in turns and then tells us what we've done right and wrong. It's been my first experience in simultaneous interpreting, and I have to say that I really like it, even though I think I should do it much better...

How to get marks: We'll have an exam in May, but besides that, we've had to record ourselves interpreting and comment it and we have to give a presentation on an English-speaking country (guess which one I've chosen).

4. THE WONDERFUL WORLD OUTSIDE THE BOOTH

Real title: English Consecutive Interpreting

Lecturer: the model

What it is about: Pretty much the same as above (same language, same topics), but instead of doing it in the booth with a headset at the same time, we listen and take notes and then one of us has to volunteer to repeat the same thing in Spanish in front of the class. Unfortunately, not many people volunteer...

How to get marks: Exactly the same as above, minus the presentation (as far as I know).

5. WAITING FOR THE VERB

Real title: German Simultaneous Interpreting

Lecturer: the comedian

What it is about: Someone gives a speech on one of the topics (they are the same for all languages and forms of interpreting)... in German and we have to interpret it from the booth... at the same time. I have to say that I was terrified by this course, but the truth is that I like it. I think I've found my technique to do it and it's working pretty well. The lecturer is sort of... alternative. Apparently, although he's a professional, bilingual interpreter, it's the first time he's ever taught interpreting, so he sometimes makes us do some strange exercises (listening to a speech, counting at the same time and then explaining all we remember about it, repeating words, summarizing short text paragraphs...) However, I think I'm learning a lot and the lecturer has surprised me positively, especially in the tutorials... let's hope things'll stay like this until the end of the year.

How to get marks: Again, same as above (no presentation either?) By the way, some of you might be wondering why I chose that title for this course. It's simple - there's a joke amongst interpreters which is that German interpreters are always the last ones to leave because they have to wait for the speaker to say the verb (in German, the main verb is often said at the end of the sentence).