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From a Facebook Post by Turkish Interpreter and Translator Aktan Aydogmus.
« My hardest translation experience: »
«I was supposed to translate a 400-pages annual report for a global oil company. There would be a presentation based on my translation during their annual regional meeting on the upcoming Monday. I had one week, so everything was fine. I took my share and distributed the project to six colleagues evenly; 40-50 pages each. However, I received on Sunday night only four translated sections. The failed translators had various excuses, like power cut, kid got sick and hospitalized, and so on.
So, there I was, looking at 80 pages, still waiting to be translated and I had only Sunday night to finish it. I could impossibly do it alone, so again, I had to find three or four colleagues, offered them double money to convince them made them start working on the project. I did my part, too and worked all night. At 8 o’clock in the next morning, i received the missing parts and added them to the big file, run through it doing ‘find and replace’ for some 30 oil-related words to align the terminology and finally erected the ultimate dossier. I delivered the file and then collapsed. I might have had a nervous breakdown. I think I also had a minor heart attack or a kind of stroke while doing this work. I could feel that something happened to my heart after that project.
After that job, I never took big projects, never distributed work to others and never worked with deadlines set by customers or clients. I had learned my lesson well: I started interpreting full-time instead of translating texts and documents. Moral of the story: Never bite off more food than you can chew.»
« Why do I favor interpretation over translation? »
«Interpretation gives me motion. I am able to travel to get to the location, where the conference, meeting, operation is. During translation, I used to sit on my chair for hours and hours, sometimes even for days or weeks. I used to plunder the fridge for sweets, especially chocolate bars. My blood sugar level was probably fluctuating. Once I stood up and started moving around, the office chair and the home office I used to run seemed to me like prison. It was like a prison-break for me to get out of this vicious circle. Sitting and working alone at home, I became anti-social, too. I was afraid of people and was disturbed by the crowds in public transport, malls, cinemas, concert halls, etc.
Once I started with interpretation, my name and skills were spread from mouth to mouth. I worked myself up to interpreting for top politicians, MPs, public service, law enforcement, intelligence, all kinds of seminars and workshops with international participation. I attended domestic and international trips. Went all the way to China and several African countries not to mention the European countries. After several years of consecutive interpretation, I entered the world of simultaneous interpretation with the kind support of my colleague Mr. Cem Şensoy. So, in this abundance of interpretation work, there was no time and no need to sit down and translate texts. I was constantly on the road. The payment for interpretation was 5 times better than the payment for translation. Also, the time consumption of interpretation vs. translation was 5 times less to the favor of interpretation. I met a lot of experts, scientists, academicians, celebrities, political figures and had the chance to ask them all kinds of questions before, during and after interpretation sessions.
Can you get a chance like this while translating texts at home or at the office? Hardly ever. Everything changed of course with the emergence of the pandemic. I am pretty stationary and work mostly via Zoom or other means of remote interpretation right now. Waiting for Corona and travel restrictions to pass. So, basically, that was my transition from translation to interpretation. I consider it to be a one-way ticket. I hope I won’t have to buy a return ticket.»
Would you like to request Aktan Aydogmus’s services as an English, German, and Turkish Interpreter? Visit Aktan Aydogmus’s website.
Author of this article: Interpreter and Translator Aktan Aydogmus
