Lomb Kato. Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

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The Linguistic Gift / 181

and you will see in it a sudden outburst of poetic

genius, which will fully conﬁrm my prediction.

e Hungarians themselves do not seem to be

aware of what a treasure they have in their lan-

guage.” (Quoted by Watts, “Transactions of the

Phyl. Society,” 1855)

109

How could anyone not like this kind scholar?

Mezzofanti once wrote in the notebook of one of his

admirers that “Anyone who can comprehend, analyze,

judge, and memorize the essence of languages can equal my

achievement.”

109. e actual source is e Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti by C. W. Russel

(1863), available online at http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/mez-

zofanti/index.html

183

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Language Careers

≈

TO PREVENT depression, psychologists advise us

to ﬁnd a hobby. Admitting bias, I believe that those who

choose languages as their obsession never really feel depres-

sion. In fact linguaphiles may achieve a spiritual balance if

they can make a living oﬀ of languages. G. B. Shaw says as

much in Pygmalion: “Happy is the man who can make a liv-

ing by his hobby!”

How can a linguaphile make a living oﬀ of his or her

passion? ere are three occupations—international busi-

ness, catering, and tourism—that generally require practi-

cal foreign language skills, and three—language instruction,

translation, and interpreting—that require formal foreign

language knowledge. It is the problems of the latter three

that I will discuss in this chapter.

Our public education system is guilty of a grave omis-

sion in preparing students for language careers. Only for

language teaching does it oﬀer a systematic training pro-

gram and thus oﬃcial qualiﬁcation. We—translators and

interpreters—have called attention to this problem several

times at meetings, in professional communications, in sta-

tistical reports, and in the daily newspaper. It is clear to us

that certiﬁable training in the art of translation and inter-

preting is not only demanded by the young, but also by the

184 / POLYGLOT: HOW I LEARN LANGUAGES

translating and interpreting profession.

110

e ﬁnancial, administrative, and pedagogical aspects

of this question are outside the scope of this book. I would

like only to point out that although the main requirement

of these three careers is identical—a high-level knowledge of

a language—the careers are actually very diﬀerent.

For teaching, language knowledge is worth nothing un-

less coupled with pedagogical and psychological knowledge

and a sincere sense of vocation. Likewise, a successful lan-

guage educator will not automatically succeed in the inter-

preting booth. And I could cite examples to show how an

outstanding interpreter produced a poor written translation,

or how a translator with enormous experience was still look-

ing for the predicate of a speaker’s ﬁrst sentence long after

the speaker had bowed and sat down.

It would be easy to argue that some didn’t succeed be-

cause of lack of practice. Experience, however, shows some-

thing else: it is not a matter of practice but of personality

that determines which of the three language careers one can

succeed in.

e most important factor that diﬀerentiates these three

arts—and which is decisive in their success or failure—is

time.

Only those who are not introverted and not deterred

from being in the limelight should become teachers and in-

terpreters. After actors, it is teachers who are most on stage.

e only diﬀerence is that an actor can study all the details

of his or her performance in advance and then play the role

for weeks, months, or in lucky cases for years. A teacher and

an interpreter, on the other hand, can face variables on stage.

Teachers react to their environment but usually in a way

110. is training has been in Hungary since the second edition of this

book. e Department of Translation and Interpreting, formerly known

as the Training Centre for Translation and Interpreting, was established in

1973 (source: http://www.elteftt.hu/index_English.asp?id=2).

Language Careers / 185

controllable by themselves. An interpreter’s life, however, is

nothing but unpredictability.

Consequently, the proposition advocated by Kosztolányi

(“speaking a foreign language always means a compromise”)

applies less to a teacher. It is actually more appropriate to

require educators to be infallible.

When Russian ﬁrst began being taught in Hungary, it

wasn’t unusual for a teacher to rack his brain along with his

pupils about the meaning of a diﬃcult sentence. is parti-

san period, however, is of the past. A teacher’s responsibili-

ties and duties today are usually outlined well in advance;

hence there is no place for uncertainty.

An introverted and hesitant individual who is prone to

self-criticism may only be suitable for written translation.

is job requires a deeper knowledge of language than teach-

ing because, in order to make a decent living, translators

must work with all manner of texts; even the most highly

skilled practitioners, the literary translators, can’t aﬀord to

specialize in a single subject, writer, or style. Technical trans-

lators frequently must translate a wide variety of texts.

I recall an incident where an American guest at an in-

ternational congress took the trouble to come to my inter-

preting booth and tell me that I had chosen the wrong term

for a concept. He then provided the correct expression. I

thanked him for his help and then asked him to tell me the

translation of another expression which I was uncertain of.

“Ah, I don’t know that,” he replied. “I am only an expert in

the polymerization of solid bodies; I am not familiar at all

with the one occurring in the liquid phase!”

How can a literary and a technical translator do their

diverse jobs? By being a universal genius or a polymath? Not

likely. Fortunately, they are treated with mercy by the tyrant

of our trade: time. ey can search for better and better

solutions according to their liking and conscience; they can

consult dictionaries and experts.

Interpreters, however, tacitly agree to compromise from

186 / POLYGLOT: HOW I LEARN LANGUAGES

the start. Only those who don’t suﬀer from perfectionism

should choose this career. An interpreter’s job is an eternal

compromise between the ideal of “I would like it perfect”

and the reality of “that is what my time allowed.” is is the

only ﬁeld where—due to the tyranny of time—the French

saying cannot apply: le bon est l’ennemi du meilleur (good

is the enemy of better). He who cannot accept the good

instead of the better will not reap many laurels in this most

interesting of language careers. Let me devote a special chap-

ter to it.

187

_______________________________

e Interpreting Career

≈

“And the Lord said, ‘Behold, they are one people,

and they have all one language; and this is only

the beginning of what they will do; and noth-

ing that they propose to do will now be impos-

sible for them. Come, let us go down, and there

confuse their language, that they may not under-

stand one another’s speech.’”

Genesis 11.1–2

AND SO it was in Babel, and all the earth. Yet I am

certain that within hours of hearing babble, people found

interpreters to tell them what certain angry sounds directed

at them meant. e interpreting profession was born.

To my knowledge there are no ﬁrsthand accounts by or

about the ﬁrst practitioners of our trade. Pliny the Elder (A.D.

23–79) may be the ﬁrst to mention interpreters: he writes

that there were as many as 130 working in Dioscurias

111

a regular basis.

e fall of the Roman Empire seems to have buried the

profession under its ruins. We know that some synods in

the early Middle Ages argued in Latin, others in Greek, and

111. Today: Sukhumi in Abkhazia, Georgia.

188 / POLYGLOT: HOW I LEARN LANGUAGES

yet others in Hebrew: they didn’t understand each other and

therefore didn’t convince each other, either.

Interpreters played a role at the onset of trade relations

between the East and the West. Foreign-trade “operators”

with a knowledge of Western languages, called dragomans,

appeared at the courts of sultans.

Regarding the origin of dragoman, I have found two ex-

planations. e ﬁrst is that it comes from the Old Arabic

tarjuman (intermediary); the second, from the Anglo-Saxon

druggerman (drudge, coolie). After a whole day’s simultane-

ous interpreting, I always favor the latter hypothesis.

In Naima’s Annals of the Turkish Empire, there is only

one dragoman speciﬁcally mentioned. He spoke 14 lan-

guages. We can be proud of him: he was a Hungarian.

Today it is strange to hear that the reason why the inter-

preter’s trade was on the rise in the Renaissance was because

the dukes of Venice and Genoa didn’t understand each oth-

er. Like painters and sculptors, these ancient representatives

of our trade enjoyed the favor of patrons and enhanced the

splendor of their households.

It was around the beginning of the 19th century when

artists were liberated from their aristocratic patrons; inter-

preters became independent a century later. Interpreting as

an occupation is the eighth sister of the septem artes liberales,

the seven liberal arts.

It took a great thunder to come about. Our profession

gained importance when humankind, still half-blind from

the terror of World War II, started to grope for the paths of

coexistence.

Until that time, diplomacy had been conducted solely

by diplomats, who had their common language: French. It

is food for thought that at the Congress of Vienna assem-

bling after the fall of Napoleon, in 1815, it was in French

that the representatives of the Holy Alliance discussed the

methods of eclipsing French language and culture.

In 1945, nations began to look for cooperation in so

The Interpreting Career / 189

many political, commercial, economic, cultural, and scien-

tiﬁc areas that the situation radically changed. It was not

always possible for governments or businesses to expect

interpreters to have political, commercial, and economic

knowledge (to give just three examples) as well as language

knowledge. Furthermore, the demand for interpreters could

no longer be satisﬁed by those simply raised bi- or trilin-

gual. A systematic training of interpreters began in various

schools, which number perhaps 30–40 worldwide today.

It is diﬃcult to quote an exact ﬁgure because there is

no large city in the West without a school that trains inter-

preters. Worldwide, interpreting is among the better-paid

professions.

e general public thinks of interpreters as being mem-

bers of a uniform profession, in the same way that they be-

lieved peasants to be of a uniform class until the liberation

of 1945. Escort, negotiation, and conference interpreters are

distinct occupations. ey each have diﬀerent requirements,

diﬀerent tasks, and diﬀerent levels of remuneration.

Escort interpreters are employed on a regular basis by

tour groups and on an occasional basis by social organiza-

tions, whose responsibilities include the entertainment of

foreigners. Only those who are specially certiﬁed can be a

tour guide. Obtaining the certiﬁcate is linked to an exami-

nation and the examination to completing a course. Apart

from language knowledge and political cognizance, poten-

tial escort interpreters have to give evidence that they know

history, literature, and art history. e saying that everyone

in contact with a foreigner is also an ambassador of his or

her homeland particularly holds for this category of inter-

preters, through whose eyes the guest can see our country

and through whose words they are acquainted with it. It is

a human trait that we judge whole peoples and even whole

continents through those with whom we have had a per-

sonal relationship. us it is no wonder that we have high

personal, professional, political, and moral requirements

190 / POLYGLOT: HOW I LEARN LANGUAGES

for escort interpreters. Unfortunately, their remuneration is

painfully low for the important work they do.

Negotiation interpreters function within the framework

of a company, an institute, or a corporation. It is the de-

tailed and thorough knowledge of the ﬁeld that matters in

this job, apart from good language knowledge. Translation

is usually done consecutively, that is, after a part of the mes-

sage is spoken. Besides good language knowledge, this job

makes a special demand on interpreters: a good memory,

i.e., that which is able to accumulate information. ere is

a noting system that plays a great role in the curricula of

interpreters’ schools (interestingly, shorthand is completely

unsuitable for this purpose), which enables memory to be

aided to some extent.

is high-level but time-consuming method is more

and more replaced at international meetings by synchro-

nous or simultaneous interpreting. Simultaneous interpret-

ing is when the interpreter listens to the discussion or lecture

in an acoustically isolated booth, through headphones, and

translates what is being said into the target language at the

same time as the speaker. e interpreter speaks into a mi-

crophone, not to a person.

Simultaneous interpreting is one of the most modern

and intellectually interesting professions. Everyone accepts

the former claim; many debate the latter. Doubters claim

that interpreting is not an intellectual function but just its

opposite.

It is undeniable that the transmitted facts don’t always

have to penetrate into the interpreters’ minds. Truly expe-

rienced interpreters can even consciously switch oﬀ part of

their minds from work. But the job is still no less intellectu-

ally strenuous: a simultaneous interpreter needs a rest after

15–20 minutes. is is why there is always a pair of inter-

preters working in a booth.

What makes this job so diﬃcult? What explains why

there are 50–60 really good negotiation interpreters in