Andrew Gillies: interpreter, trainer, author

By Helen Eby and Christina Green

Andrew Gillies is considered one of the best trainers of interpreters and interpreter trainers in Europe. Now, the Educators Division and the Interpreters Division have the opportunity to bring this master interpreter and educator to share his insights with our members at the upcoming 61^st Annual Conference of the American Translators Association.

We had read his books on note-taking for consecutive interpreting, consecutive interpreting, and conference interpreting and found much that would benefit our members. As interpreters, we find that the people we work with often speak not in “short sentences” but in complete units of meaning, more similar to the length of a written paragraph. A person describing a car accident, or someone talking about why they did not go to the abuser’s office to submit a report and formally tender their resignation, or a doctor who is explaining a procedure, may find it disruptive when the interpreter interrupts after a 10 word sentence. This is especially relevant when providing interpreting services remotely. Therefore, we need to be ready to interpret the paragraphs that people use to construct meaning. Note-taking for long consecutive interpreting is one of the techniques we expect to learn from this engaging master trainer.

Andrew Gillies is a freelance conference interpreter working from French, German, and Polish into English. He teaches conference interpreting at the Institute of Intercultural Management and Communication (France) and the Master of Conference Interpreting program at Glendon College (Canada), and wrote consecutive curricula for both. He has also provided training for interpreters for the International Association of Conference Interpreters and the European Parliament. In addition, he is the author of two books on consecutive interpreting and has translated Jean-François Rozan’s La Prise de Notes into English.

His conference presentation schedule, as listed in the #ATA61 program, is provided below. All dates refer to events taking place from Wednesday, October 21, 2020 through Saturday, October 24, 2020. All times are in Eastern Daylight Time. You can learn more about Andrew Gillies at his website.

We look forward to welcoming Mr. Gillies to the conference as our Distinguished Speaker and know that we will all benefit from his presentations.  

 

Helen Eby and Christina Green are members of the ATA Interpreters Division Leadership Council