Simultaneous Translator

Attended a symposium held in Conference Center Shinagawa yesterday and met some old acquaintances of mine. I had a good time catching up on recent news of each other. One of them was a CEO-turned-professor who is now teaching at ETH (Swiss Federal University). He gave a keynote speech. He started his speech with "Most of you are shocked to see I am still not retired." I laughed aloud, followed by only a few. In the front row, there sat a middle aged lady. Immediately after he finished the sentence, the woman spoke up 「皆様方は私がまだ引退していないのをご覧になって驚かれていることと思います」The timing was great. It was not too early nor too late. Like A and UN breathing(阿吽の呼吸^^）
She was a simultaneous interpreter. Every phrase of his speech, she translated throughout his 90-minute-speech.
There are three things I was impressed with about her translation. One is her speed at which she spoke Japanese. She spoke very fast, yet her Japanese was pleasantly clear and articulate. This is important when you translate a speech simultaneously so that you may not disturb the speech flow of the speaker.
The second is the way she used honorifics. As was in the example I gave above, her Japanese honorific was perfect. English is relatively a frank language especially when compared with Japanese. So her use of honorifics means she created words of respect from nothing.
Last but not least, her skill in translation was just amazing. She translated technical words with professional accuracy. There was no mistake, slip of the tongue, stuttering or murmuring whatsoever.
At a coffee break, I had a chance to ask her "tricks" of simultaneous translation if there are any. She answered with more humility than I expected
"nothing special I can say, but if there is, it is experience."
"Meaning your skill is established on failures?"
"Yes, exactly. I have no shortage of blooper anecdotes."
Though I wanted to know what the bloopers of this elegant lady were to compare with mine, I changed the question.
"How did you learn translation? What do you think is the most effective way to learn it?"
"I am not sure... I tried many ways. All of the ways I tried contributed in the end, I should say."
"For example?"
"Shadowing is one of these things and I still enjoy the practice."
Shadowing is to just aurally repeat after natural speed news, conversation, or anything. She continued.
"It is a good training for your tongue. It is like a sport. Your tongue muscle needs physical training to move fast. And with this training you can repeat easily in your mind what was said by the speaker the moment before. The ability to replay the raw English in your mind, as it was spoken before the translation, is indeed very helpful. I like this training because I feel as if I were an actress, news anchor, or cooking instructor..."
I agree. Shadowing is one of the most effective ways to learn English speaking when we reach a certain level of English proficiency. But after I heard her translate beautifully, I think simultaneous interpretation depends greatly on one's given aural ability. Most likely it is something I cannot do. You need a quick response and fast, clear speaking whether in Japanese or English. Plus you need stamina to keep you going back and forth between Japanese and English for a long time. As you see in BBC or CNN news translation, translators change every 5 to 10 minutes. It is hard for anyone to keep that level of attention over ten minutes. But she kept her attention for 90 minutes. I asked her about this. "Oh, that's because I studied the speech slides for full two days, looking up technical jargons and asking the speaker what he meant, in an attempt to understand the slides." Expected as it is, there's enormous efforts behind the elegant translation.
One of the problems with simultaneous translation is that a joke is not funny at all. Audience do not know where to laugh. Only a few people who understood English laughed when the speaker said a joke. But when the joke was translated into Japanese it was not funny anymore. So all in all the joke sounded as if it failed. I admired the translator for her job but it would be better if you can understand English speech without her. That's for sure.