I always liked school and I still love to take courses. More than 15 years ago, I learned German in Switzerland taking classes. This helped me build a solid base. It has now been a long time since I last used or studied German, but I can still understand it. Even though it is really hard for me to answer in German if I am asked something, I can answer in Spanish or English because I understand the question. So, I believe that that structure (a language course) and the experience (living where the language is spoken) is the ideal combination.
When we decided we were going to come to France, besides spending quite a while looking for schools and information, I asked many interpreters if they knew of a French teacher or school that was worth it, and nobody was able to recommend one. So, I hope that my experience can be useful to interpreters who want to do something like this.
I spent two weeks in Montpellier taking a French course with a teacher who specializes in teaching French to interpreters. I found her on Google and contacted her. We talked on Skype about how we were going to work. The teacher’s name is Sophie, and her school is called Meditérranez-vous.
Several years ago, interpreters from the European Commission contacted Sophie, and asked her if she could give them French courses. She said yes. The first year she had three interpreter students who were very happy with the course, so they kept coming back every year with more colleagues.
The school has one classroom for about seven people, with a board, projector and audio system. It is close to the city center and offers courses for interpreters and non-interpreters throughout the year. I couldn’t make it to the courses, so I took one-on-one classes with her. We worked for one and a half hours every day for two weeks and also had lunch together twice a week. It was the best French course I’ve ever had.
The classes were highly focused on comprehension, so we worked with current radio shows. Each day, we addressed different topics, listening to the shows first, then, I would answer questions, while she corrected me and we exchanged points of view. She also explained how French society and government are structured. For homework, I had to do some text book exercises focused on specific vocabulary and comprehension, and a little bit of grammar as well. I also had to write sentences using the words that I had learned to make them my own. It was the first time I studied a language specifically for professional purposes and the whole experience was truly positive.
When you do an MA in interpreting, you already have to have an advanced level in your working languages. But if after the MA you plan to work as a freelance interpreter, which almost everybody does, it can seem difficult to add more languages. Probably the market where you work does not require you to have another language; if for some reason you decide to add another one, the options for useful courses are quite limited. In interpreting master’s programs, there are no classes focused on how to add other languages or maintain the ones you already have, which I think would be very useful. Of course, learning languages is a very personal process, but I believe that laying a foundation in school would be helpful, so we could personalize the way we do it later, especially if we are adding a passive language (a language we interpret from).
However, having found a school that knows how to work with interpreters made all the difference this time for me. I highly recommend looking for language teachers who specialize in teaching interpreters. It might be as easy as googling it.
