15.2. Type of notes

The notes needed by the interpreter are of a totally different type from those made by the student during lectures, by the précis-writer or verbatim-reporter during meetings. They are exclusively intended for immediate use, to serve as mile-stones in a speech which is still quite fresh to the mind. It is quite unnecessary that the interpreter should still be able to read them a year, or a month, or a day, or even an hour after he has finished his translation. For this reason, it is highly inadvisable that an interpreter should undertake also to write the minutes of a meeting, as he is frequently asked to do in a small organization. Should he agree to do it, either both tasks would be badly performed, or one of them would be sacrificed to the other.

15.3. Logical analysis

As far as possible, the interpreter should proceed to a logical analysis of the speech while it is being made, and take his notes accordingly. This implies that divisions and subdivisions which are seldom apparent, except with the best of speakers, should be brought out and duly classified. Since capital letters, underlining, the surrounding of words with a square or a circle, are generally used for other purposes for which they can hardly be replaced, the most convenient thing is to take highly synoptic notes, and in particular to leave margins of varying widths. This method proves more valuable still when the interpreter is informed only at the end of the speech that he should make his interpretation much shorter than had been expected – which very frequently happens at the end of a meeting, when the audience is tired. Many interpreters also draw a horizontal line across the page to separate various sections of the same speech.

Such a logical analysis is often strenuous, and careful preparation is a necessity. The aspirant interpreter may go through it by himself by taking a few pages of a book, possibly philosophical, where the ideas are presented with very little method, and practice transcribing them into clear and logical interpreter’s notes. With sufficient practice, this comes to be done almost automatically.

15.4. Language of the notes

In order to facilitate the reading of the notes and to improve the speaking, it is preferable to solve all problems of translation while the notes are being taken. For this reason it is best to take notes in the language in which the interpretation will be given. The only normally justified departure from this rule is when the interpreter feels extremely tired. He can then seek comparative rest in a lesser mental tension while the original speech is being delivered. An exception may also be made for such phrases which can be noted much more briefly and easily in one language than in another, and in such cases nothing prevents the interpreter from occasionally using even a third language.

The first point about the notes is that they should be easy to read and therefore as visual as possible. The interpreter cannot afford to hesitate and cogitate before he can decipher them.

The handwriting must therefore be perfectly clear and allow of no ambiguity; all that relates to one idea in the speech should preferably be on the same page, and therefore the size of the page should be sufficiently large, taking account of the type of handwriting, the margins, etc.

It is a well known fact that:

a) The very best stenographers cannot read several lines of their notes at one glance, as can usually be done in longhand; and still more so when many signs and symbols are used. Such global reading is indispensable when a speech has to be abbreviated, duplications removed, etc.

b) It is impossible to correct or supplement a stenogram sufficiently quickly when the speaker modifies what he has said, or to reconstruct a sentence which the speaker has not finished, or to change the grammatical construction en route.

c) Even the very best specialists cannot read the shorthand of a speech at the speed and with the assurance required from an interpreter.

There is no objection, however, to using a small number of shorthand signs as symbols and abbreviations under the conditions mentioned below.