A FEW HINTS ON CONSECUTIVE INTERPRETING

What Is Consecutive Interpretation?

Consecutive interpretation can be regarded as the classic form of interpreting, with the discourse being
interpreted into the desired language as soon as the speaker has concluded, or at the end of passages
within the speech, i.e. consecutively. When interpreting consecutively, interpreters use a system of
abbreviations and symbols to take detailed notes during the speech. These systems are developed over
time through a combination of training and experience, making for as many unique note-taking systems
as there are individual interpreters.
The interpreting thus lasts approximately as long as the original speech, quite possibly doubling the
length of the proceedings. As a result, consecutive interpreting has gradually given way to simultaneous
interpreting.
Benefits:
• No simultaneous interpreting equipment required.
• Usually, there is only one interpreter.

Drawbacks:
• Such interpreting doubles the time required, and the scheduled program should take this into
account.

Fields of use:
• After-dinner speeches.
• Addresses on festive occasions.
• Events of political significance (state visits).

Some ideas on the use of symbols

You can get your symbols from anywhere that suits you...as long as you stick to some basic RULES.. Here are a few
ideas.

Remember that the symbols here represent not only the word written alongside them but rather all synonymous
ideas, the exact version of which will be clear to you in the context of the speech you are intepreting. So "change" might
be "reform" or "alter" depending on the context - you will remember. You don't need a symbol for each word.

consequences development

relations agriculture

agreement environment
 role energy

success trade

problem politics

repression democracy

impact work

country money

meeting inflation

industry

deficit surplus

look forward to Change

want to Need

Know Continue

Decide Join

Propose listen/hear

lead to, cause Say

 Promise Attack

Agree Tank

always
on the one hand
(toujours in French)

...on the other hand Until

on behalf of from that time on

as opposed to Before

Recently more than/less than

All Any

Now

Similar End

Start

If you are studying conference interpreting at some stage you will undoubtedly hear, or be told, „that no two interpreters’
notes are the same” and quite possibly, that „every interpreter has to develop their own note-taking system”. The two
ideas are often taken to mean the same thing, however, and this is not quite true.

we talk about ORGANIC SYMBOLS we mean simply that one symbol is taken as the root for several related symbols.

The most obvious example is the underlining...

You can underline any symbol to add emphasis

big ..... big

You can also double underline, draw a squiggly line or a dotted line underneath a symbol or word denote differing
degrees of emphasis or certainty....

There is a system for noting verbs that ties in with this idea....

...verb tenses work work g

work | | work | wôrk

working worked will work would work

Here are some more examples of one symbol giving rise to several more...

al
national (adjective)

ally Nationally

ze to nationalize

tn nationalisation

o national (noun), citizen

return, come back, reverse, regress

rise, increase, grow, climb etc.

fall, decline, slide, slip, drop, shrink,

exchange, relations,
 lead to, consequence of, therefore

continue,

whatever you like!

pleased.
annoyed, unhappy, unimpressed, etc.

very unhappy, disgusted, etc

to think
 to know, (for me, the straight line denotes certainty, in
comparison to the squiggly line for “to think”.)

The circle can also be used to denote a person who is associated with that symbol's
meaning. This can be done by adding a raised circle to another symbol.

al national O
citizen
(adjective)

econ Economy econ economist

O

E Energy EO energy
expert,
supplier,

 Policy O politician

∩ that, which ∩ O who

we talk about ORGANIC SYMBOLS we mean simply that one symbol is taken as the root for several related symbols.

The most obvious example is the underlining...

You can underline any symbol to add emphasis

big ..... big

You can also double underline, draw a squiggly line or a dotted line underneath a symbol or word denote differing
degrees of emphasis or certainty....
There is a system for noting verbs that ties in with this idea....

...verb tenses work work g

work | | work | wôrk

working worked will work would work

Here are some more examples of one symbol giving rise to several more...

al
national (adjective)

ally Nationally

ze to nationalize

tn nationalisation

o national (noun), citizen

return, come back, reverse, regress

rise, increase, grow, climb etc.

fall, decline, slide, slip, drop, shrink,

exchange, relations,

lead to, consequence of, therefore

continue,
 whatever you like!

pleased.

annoyed, unhappy, unimpressed, etc.

very unhappy, disgusted, etc

 to think

to know, (for me, the straight line denotes certainty, in

comparison to the squiggly line for “to think”.)

The circle can also be used to denote a person who is associated with that symbol's
meaning. This can be done by adding a raised circle to another symbol.

al national O
citizen
(adjective)

econ Economy econ economist

O

E Energy EO energy
expert,
supplier,

 Policy O politician
 ∩ that, which ∩ O who

No two interpreters’ notes are the same, and interpreters cannot read each other's notes with any degree of accuracy –
this much is true. However, it is not true to say that every interpreter must develop their own system for note-taking from
scratch (and that by extension no systems for note-taking can be taught or learnt.)

If we look carefully at a several experienced interpreters’ notes and ask each interpreter what is going on in a given
section of notes what we see is, that, through the fog of apparently distinct note-taking systems, a whole array of very
significant similarities appear. The similarities concern the most fundamental building blocks of the „different” note-
taking „systems” that colleagues employ. Most of these fundamentals can actually be traced directly back to the father of
note-taking in consecutive, Jean-Francois Rozan and his seminal work La Prise de notes dans l'interprétation
consécutive.

It is strongly recommended that you make the following the basis of your note-taking system. These suggestions will
allow you to benefit from ideas which have served generations of interpreters very well while leaving plenty of room to
incorporate your own ideas and solutions.

Note the underlying meaning not the Rozan Part 1.1

word used
Separate ideas on the page Often equivalent to a sentence or Subject-Verb-Object group ideas are
divided from one another on the page with a horizontal line. Interestingly
Rozan did not explicitly suggest this in his book, but he did do it in all the
example notes he gave and his example has been widely followed.)
Verticality Noting vertically, from top to bottom on the page, rather than from left to
right is the distinguishing characteristic of Rozan's system, and one that
you will find in almost all interpreters' notes. Together with diagonal
notes (shift) it goes to make up sections of notes that read from top-left to
bottom-right. Click here to see what this looks like Rozan Part 1.6.
Diagonal notation (Shift) Each subsequent element to be noted is written below and to the right of
the previous one. See Verticality above. Rozan Part 1.7
Links ...are essential to the cohesion of a speech and should be noted on the left
of the page.
Symbols ... must be clear and used consistently. Rozan Part 2.2
Rules for abbreviation Clear, efficient (time-saving) and consistent rules for creating
abbreviations. Rozan Part 1.2

You can find more related information about these techniques on ITR's Consecutive Interpreting page and at..

"The first rule of consecutive interpreting is that the real work must already have been done when you start reading
back your notes: the text, its meaning and the links within it, must have been perfectly understood."

Jean-Francois Rozan

Everyone will tell you to note ideas and not words. But what constitutes an idea?

Below is a simple introduction to recognizing ideas which can help in the early stages of learning consecutive
interpreting.

What is an idea?/ Well let's ask ourselves what is the basic unit for communicating an idea in language.
 Answer: the sentence.

And what arethe basic units of a sentence?

Answer: Subject, Verb, (Complement, often but not always, an Object)

This may sound simplistic but see how it works in the text below. This is a speech given by Chris Patten to the European
Parliament on July 3rd 2000.

The exercise is then to ignore all the padding and additional information and to identify the essential Subject Verb
(Object) units that make up the backbone of the speech and seperate them from one another...for example by hitting the
'return' key twice.

In the areas for which I have some responsibility, there were also, as the Prime Minister has mentioned,
some important developments at Feira. We took stock of the European Union's relations with Russia and
the situation there, including in Chechnya, in the light of the recent EU-Russia Summit, which I think was
regarded as fairly successful. It is too early to judge President Putin's economic programme; however, our
basic message is that a sound programme will be vital to boost investor confidence.

In Chechnya, there have, it is true, been some recent moderately positive developments in response to
international and European Union pressure: for example the recent ECHO mission was able to take place
and western humanitarian agencies have greater access to the area. The conflict nevertheless continues and
we still have considerable concerns. In particular, we want to see much greater access for humanitarian aid
agencies. We want to see genuinely independent investigation into reports of human rights abuses, and we
want to see a real dialogue between the Russian government and the Chechens.

The first unit of Subject Verb (Complement) is....

S V C
There.... were..... developments

Yes grammatically one can argue about the correctness of calling "there" the subject but you get my drift. It's a long
sentence but all of the rest of the information is secondary and has been tacked onto the basic framework which is "
There........ were........developments. ".

S V C
relations (with Russia)
We.... took stock of...
and the situation there

If we continue to do the same throughout the passage we might arrive at the following. Notice that the 'sentences' range
in length from 4 - 21 words, but each contains only one S V O unit, only one idea.

In the areas for which I have some responsibility, there were also, as the Prime Minister has mentioned,
some important developments at Feira.

We took stock of the European Union's relations with Russia and the situation there, including in Chechnya,
in the light of the recent EU-Russia Summit, which I think was regarded as fairly successful.

It is too early to judge President Putin's economic programme;

however, our basic message is that a sound programme will be vital to boost investor confidence.

On Chechnya, there have, it is true, been some recent moderately positive developments in response to
international and European Union pressure:

for example the recent ECHO mission was able to take place and western humanitarian agencies have
greater access to the area.

The conflict nevertheless continues

and we still have considerable concerns.

In particular, we want to see much greater access for humanitarian aid agencies.

We want to see genuinely independent investigation into reports of human rights abuses,

and we want to see a real dialogue between the Russian government and the Chechens.

Try doing the same thing with a nubmer of texts. Compare with your colleagues and see if you agree on the divisions.

How does this help in consecutive? Imagine each S V O group above as section of your notes. On one page of your note
pad you have room for two sections of notes, in which you note the Subject Verb and Object diagonally across the page.
The sections are seperated by a horizontal line.

Note the passage above in this way....

There
were
developments
____________
We
took stock of
relations

+ situation

Now you are ready to try doing the same thing with the spoken word. Listen for the idea, the 'who is doing what to who'.
Note only that. At the initial stages it would be a mistake to try and get all the detail. Work on the essence first and the
detail will come with practice.

Many colleagues use a margin on the left hand side of the page when taking notes in consecutive. Be it real or virtual, a
margin can be a very useful part of note-taking technique.

WHY use a margin?

- when reading your eyes automatically come back to the left hand side of page to start next idea (a la typewriter)

- clarity - words in margin stand out

WHAT do we note in the margin?

1. Links

The table below represents a note-pad onto which we have drawn a margin near the left-hand side of the page (and a
horizontal line across the page after the "idea" - see splitting ideas) links are noted on same level on the page as the
Subject, for example

cos USA
 decided

stop exports

2. Contrasting the actions of two subjects

....the EU is doing this, the US is doing that....

EU doing

.......

US doing

.......

3. Structural markers

Paragraphs ||
list numbering 1.....2.....
Digressions { }
question marks ?

1.

2.

4. dates

5. anything important !

LINK WORDS:

"Link words"s a misleading concept. We should talk about "links". Links create a relationship between 2 or more ideas in
a speech and can be conveyed by words, expressions or implicitly.

The following is a breakdown of links as volunteered by one of our colleagues. Numbered are 10 types of link, words that
fall under that category and possible symbols to represent that link.

See also margins

1. effect -> cause cos

because, the main reason for this, what is causing this, what’s behind this?
2. cause -> effect So
hence, this means that, the result of this is, the consequence of this is, so that
 3. so we can conclude, therefore, this would suggest that,
because, the main reason for this, what is causing this, what’s behind this?
4. purpose, objective To
(in order) to, in such a way as to, so that, with the aim of, the purpose being to,
5. following limit, contradiction But
however, nonetheless, on the other hand, in spite of this
6. preceding limit, contradiction Tho
although, despite (the fact that), even though
7. condition and consequence If
if .....then... (or inversion of same), had I known, were this to happen

8. question wot, wen, y, wer, who, ?

question mark at beginning NB a rhetorical question is just 1.

COS

plus a question mark

9. in addition +
also, in addition, and, not only, on top of that there is,
10. NO LINK ||

The ideas below are compiled from pages 50-51, 55 and 68 of Pedagogie Raisonnee de l'Interpretation, by Lederer
and Seleskovitch. Didier Erudition 2002. This is the only book of its kind so far, written by two of the biggest names
in the short history of interpreting and interpreter training. Originally written in 1989 the 2002 edition is also sponsored
by the J. European Commission. It is also now available in translation as "A systematic approach to interpreter training",
Harmer,

1. The ideas. The essence. A single symbol or word can represent an entire idea.

2. Fulcra. Causality, consequence, links etc. and the relation of the ideas to one another in time.

3. Transcodable terms. Words than must be repeated rather than deverbalised and interpreted.

4. Numbers. Note the numbers immediately, interrupting whatever you are noting to note the number as they cannot be
remembered from context and noted later as ideas can.

5. Proper names. If you don't know a name, note it phonetically and see if you can work out how to say it properly in your
target language later. If you can't then substitute a generic like "the UK delegate" rather than mangling the name.

6. Technical terms. Specific to the context of the speech.

7. Lists. Lists of words which are not integral parts of the sentences in which they are held overload the memory. So note
them.

8. The first sentence of each new idea should be noted with particular care. This does not mean verbatim but with care.

9. LAST sentence of the speech should be noted with particular care.

10. Striking usage. If the speaker uses a word or expression that stands out he has probably used it deliberately and will
want it to appear in the intepretation.