to be held, you may be surprised by thenumber of people on the other side of thetable: two jury members from theCommission, two from the Parliament andone from the Court of Justice, plus thespeakers for the various languages andpossibly some additional assessors. Justremember that they are all there to ensureyour performance is fully and fairly assessed.The test consists of a 6-8 minuteconsecutive interpretation and a 10-12minute simultaneous interpretation from twoof your working languages. At least one ofthe speeches, which are all given byspeakers in the room, will be on an EU-related topic, so as to find out what youknow about your future employer, but noneof the speeches will be on highly-specificsubjects requiring specialist knowledge.They are all intended to be 'do-able' by awell-trained, well-informed interpreter, andwill generally not be very different fromthose used at final university exams,although the assessment criteria may bemore rigorous. You will have to pass all fourtests to gain accreditation.What is the jury looking for? In a nutshell,they will want to be sure that you haveunderstood and analysed the speaker'smessage and conveyed it effectively to thelistener. One jury member may be asked not to listen to the original in order toascertain whether the interpretation makessense in itself. Next, the jury will look at whether thespeaker's message has been distorted - hasthe interpreter actually changed the ideasexpressed by the speaker or altered thelogic of the original? - before looking atwhat has been omitted. Minor omissionsmay be discounted, but the jury will want tosee all the essential elements of themessage included. The message has to beproperly presented: if the listener cannotfollow the interpretation without difficulty,nothing has been achieved, however wellthe interpreter has understood the original.This means that the interpreter has to behighly articulate, with a wide vocabulary anda good grasp of different registers ofspeech. Lastly, the jury will be looking for apleasant voice, a confident delivery andnatural intonation. Delegates sometimeshave to listen to interpreters for hours onend, so these qualities are important.To sum up, then, the points weconcentrate on are mother-tongue, languageknowledge, analysis, presentation - andunderlying all that, general knowledge.Preparing for the testMost candidates will already have attendeda training course at a university, whetherpostgraduate or undergraduate, where they should have acquired the requisite skillsand knowledge. But whether you alreadyhave a qualification in conferenceinterpreting or simply have extensiveexperience as a conference interpreter, itmay well be worth your while attending oneof the summer courses some universitiesnow offer as preparation for the EU and UNaccreditation tests.As far as your own preparation isconcerned, I would suggest the following:. Get as much practice as possible, bothduring your course and afterwards. Use thespeech repository or any other recordedresources you have access to. If at allpossible, work together with othercandidates - making speeches for others isitself a highly beneficial exercise, but evenmore importantly, you need to work for acritical audience. Practising alone for hoursmight sound like a good idea but maysimply reinforce bad habits and make youdepressed as you get tired and make moreand more mistakes. Actually working as aninterpreter, for example as a volunteer for anNGO, is immensely useful, so take anyopportunities that are offered. . Record your performances and listen tothem critically: Did I make sense? Did Isound natural or was I just following theoriginal structure? If I missed things, why?Was it because I didn't understand orbecause I simply didn't hear, or because Igot too far behind?. Spend as much time as you can in thecountries where your languages are spoken.It doesn't matter what you're doing there -picking grapes, working in a bar - as long asyou're immersed in the language. And if youcan't be abroad, use the available resources- internet, DVDs, podcasts, internet radio -to maintain your languages. That will alsohelp you to keep abreast of current events.Vol/51 No/4 2012AUGUST/SEPTEMBERTheLinguist11FEATURESRemember that thejury members arethere to find newinterpreters, not toeliminate themUNDER PRESSUREAn EU interpreter working in Brussels (left);and a candidate for the accreditation testdemonstrates her skills to the jury (far left)

12 TheLinguistAUGUST/SEPTEMBERwww.iol.org.ukFEATURES. At the same time, and this is the reallyhard part, keep up your mother tongue.Somehow you have to strike that balancebetween all your languages, so that whenyou're interpreting into English you're notusing franglais or having to search for words.We tend to take our mother tongue forgranted but it too needs cultivating.. During your studies you will (one hopes)have become accustomed to publicspeaking, but this is another skill that you cantry to improve by, for example, joining adrama club or a debating society, or gettinga job as a tour guide.. And last but decidedly not least, improveyour general knowledge. Here too, theinternet is invaluable, as are radio andtelevision. However, probably the mosteffective way to acquire the broad awarenessyou will need is to read a newspaper everyday and a magazine such as The Economist(as long as you read all the sections, not justthe ones you find interesting). Familiarity with the topics discussed makes it mucheasier to interpret speeches (as long as youdon't allow your own knowledge tocontaminate the original). You may not knowthe names of all the world's capitals or oftheir presidents by heart, but if you've heardthem before you're more likely to recognisethem when mentioned.That's on the substance. For the mechanicsof the test you could look at the extract fromour video 'Testing Times', which gives aninsight into how tests are run. You can find itat .After all that you're probably wondering ifit's possible to pass our test at all. I can assureyou that candidates do pass (if they didn'twe'd have no interpreters), and accordinglymy next piece of advice comes from TheHitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: 'Don'tpanic!' It's easy to say, I know, but rememberthat the jury members are there to find newinterpreters, not to eliminate them, so theyapproach tests in a very positive spirit.IN THE BOOTHA candidate during an assessment in BrusselsEU interpreter FelicityRaikes passed theaccreditation test inFrench and Italian onthe second attempt.She has since passed inPolish and now worksfrom all three languages into English.'I first applied for an accreditation test freshout of interpreting school (Bath), but I wason the waiting list for a few months beforegetting my invitation. I don't rememberhow many people were on the jury, but theoverall impression was encouraging, ratherthan intimidating. The test is structured sothat you start by interpreting two speechesin a row -one simultaneous and oneconsecutive -from two different languages.The order is up to you. I remember notknowing that amidonwas potato starch andfinding the consecutive hard. I waited outside for what seemed likeforever before hearing that I'd beenunsuccessful. However, the panel did givesome very useful feedback: you havepotential, go and get some experience,work on your vocabulary and come backwhen you're ready. Fast forward a couple of years and Idecided to apply again. I'd been workingfreelance and also doing some volunteerinterpreting for NGOs. Working for freemight not sound like much fun, but it is agreat way to travel, make friends and buildup a network of potential colleagues. It alsoprepares you for absolutely anything -fromthe French accents of Kinshasa andQuebec, to consecutive interpreting for twohours on stage. Learning to cope with stressthis way has been invaluable, not only in thetest but ever since.Again, I found the jury friendly and thespeeches interesting. Only one was on anEU topic: of the other three, two were onrecent news stories. In the first simultaneousspeech there was a word I didn't know, so Isaid something a bit more general, trying tosound as confident as possible. I thoughtI'd messed it up, but they called me back,and I later learnt that the jury are just asinterested in seeing how you cope withdifficulties. I also remember hearing an adjective Iwas unsure about in the first consecutivetest and putting a big asterisk in my notes: by the time I got there I'd been ableto think of something that fitted thecontext. The most challenging thing aboutthe test is staying calm under pressure, andbeing able to work even when you arenervous. I also found the Europeanquestions section challenging.In my case, the best preparation for thetest was working as an interpreter. It helpedme to put my nerves to one side and geton with the job. Plus it reminds you that youare there for your listeners, who need aclear and coherent interpretation. Practisingconsecutive with colleagues from otherbooths was also useful and much moreeffective than working alone.'TEST CASE: EU INTERPRETER FELICITY RAIKESIf you suffer from stress you might want to look at stress-relief techniques, such as thebreathing techniques taught in yoga classes.They do help, as does getting a good night's sleep the night before - no staying uplate learning EU policies! Bear in mind, too,that quite a few of our interpreters didn'tpass first time but learned from theexperience and were successful the secondtime around.After the testYou will be given the result of the test as soonas it is over. If you've failed, you can inform usby email that you would like to sit the testagain and you will then be re-considered bythe next screening committee. If you'vepassed, you will be put on the list ofaccredited freelance interpreters withimmediate effect and may be offered contractsby any of the three participating institutions,but bear in mind that to be sure of getting areasonable amount of work it is best to putyour professional domicile in Brussels.Finally, I would advise you to spend sometime looking at our website. There's a mass ofuseful information there about what it's like towork for the EU institutions, as well as links toother relevant sites (see http://bit.ly/q64qcN).And that's all, really, except to wish you thevery best of luck!