On Friday evening, 22^nd November, 2024, MCM College affiliate, Prof. Ka Ian Lam (FSS), hosted an interpretation workshop – the third of the collegiate series for this academic semester.

Prof. Lam began the workshop by introducing the differences between “interpreting” and “translating” as used in the industry and educational career path. She added that translation and interpreting enable communication between cultures across languages. In today’s world where communication is key, the roles of interpreters and translators make communication far more effective.

Prof. Lam also highlighted interpreters and translators have similarities, interpreting and translation involve different skill sets. Interpreters mediate languages orally while translators work with written material. When it comes to language skills, translators need to have solid reading comprehension, transfer, and target language production skills. Interpreters need to optimize their working memory in rendering content much more quickly and with no extensive access to external resources for support. Members of the audience were quickly given opportunities to exercise their interpretation skills, much to Prof. Lam’ delight.