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One should see the clear difference between the lingual and non-lingual knowledge of the simultaneous
interpreter. The role of the thematic constituent on both text level and on the level of the communicative
situation of the simultaneous interpreting (CSsi) is important.

It is intuitively and theoretically clear that the simultaneous interpreter should have the perfect command
of two languages, moreover he/she should speak smoothly both languages. One can speak about bilingualism but
it would be more correct to talk the dominant language (the native tongue) and the second language (the learned
one). It should be also admitted that the nature of the difficulties in the combinations SL 1 → TL 2 and SL 2 → TL 1
is not similar as the balance of the model levels is different while interpreting from the dominant language into
the second one and vice versa.

Another peculiarity of the simultaneous interpreter training is the necessity to get used to not only the
standard sounding of the English language – British or American but to the other non-official varieties of
English, Australian, African, and Indo-Pakistanian including. The specificity is felt not only in the phoneme
variants but also in the intonation varieties of non-official English. The situation is still more difficult because
for most the most speakers who participate in the conference English is the foreign language thus a great
interference of the native tongue on the phonetic and intonation levels is felt. That is why the simultaneous
interpreter should be trained to understand different varieties of English.
Sometimes the simultaneous interpreter can predict the following word, word-combination or certain
structure of the sentence thus the most important fact of a text redundancy for the interpreter is a profound
knowledge of the syntax (natural categories of the language which can be easily predicted) and typical

connection of foreign language lexical units.
For the creation of the necessary subjective redundancy in the “interpretative mechanism” the area
studies training is needed. This will allow the interpreter to perceive allusions, typical for the foreign speech

culture when the interpreter interprets from the foreign language.
Thus the simultaneous interpreter should:

a) know the most spread names and surnames in the English-speaking countries;
b) know mythological, biblical names and names of the famous literature heroes;
c) gain the skill of on the independent preparation to the conference – to find out the list of the
conference participants, the names of the main political, public, and scientific celebrities which can be
mentioned during the conference;
d) gain the skill of perceiving the numerals to render at least the order of sizes.
We suggest some additional exercises which are rather useful for training both consecutive and
simultaneous interpreters. They may be interchangeable as for their place, depending on the level of students’
knowledge, their age and skills.

d
1. For the 3 year students, undergraduates and graduates the first activity can be interpreting of short
then long phrases (the students do not have the script of, in our case, the programme). It depends on the kind of
memory you want to train. As Professor W. Zhong stated, the interpreter should posses both STM and LTM, that
is why we may start with a number of short phrases and then go on with the longer once.
Through the third activity we are going to train bilateral interpreting. Bilateral interpreting can be done
both consecutively and simultaneously. In both cases it needs the mobilisation of the skill of the constant
switching, from one language into another. However, side-by-side with the automatisation of the very skill of
switching the psychological training of the stability and reliability is necessary. It can be consolidated only in the
1
process of bilateral translating of the coherent text in the long period of time. According to I.S. Alekseyeva, this
activity can be exemplified on the so-called “echo-translating” exercise. A student listens to the phrase, interprets

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