ILEA Interpreters János and Márk Wodala

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Video Transcript

I am János Wodala. And by profession I am a teacher of English and Hungarian. But I’ve been doing interpretation since 1976.

My name is Márk A. Wodala and I am actually also a teacher of English as a foreign language and also a licensed interpreter by profession. And I had my first interpretation assignment in 1999. It was a simultaneous assignment. As for ILEA, I think my first assignment at ILEA was in 2003.

Janos: I introduced him to ILEA and I’m very proud of that because he’s a very good interpreter I think.

Mark: Well that’s kind of you.

Mark: You have to listen to what’s being spoken and speak at the same time with a small lag between the two. And it can be very demanding at times.

Janos: It is really demanding. And one interpreter can do it at the same level or can maintain the same quality of interpretation for about approximately 20 to 30 minutes. And then we take turns.

Mark: You have to take turns. Otherwise you get exhausted. It’s pretty exhausting as it is.

Janos: But it’s also very satisfying. So you can sort of sense if you do a good job of it. I compare the situation to soccer referee. So if it’s a good game, you don’t even notice that the referee is on the field. So if interpretation goes well, and if it goes smoothly, you don’t even notice that there’s an interpreter, or there are interpreters in the booths. And this is what gives us a lot of satisfaction.