首先要勤于练习。每周五天，每天上午练两个30分钟，下午练一个一小时。要找到最适合自己的练习方法，同时在不在状态时不要强迫自己练习。
其次要找到合适的练习材料。例如，第0－2周可以在周围人对你讲话时同传他们的讲话，第3－4周可以用电视或报纸的简单新闻（如犯罪相关的新闻）来练习，第5－6周可以用比较复杂的新闻（如政治新闻）来练习，第7－8周可以用简单的发言来练习，第9－10周可以用较为复杂的发言来练习。
There follow certain ideas, which aim to maximize the benefits gained from time spent practicing interpreting. These ideas are based on very straightforward pedagogical principles and a certain amount of common sense. The structures suggested also show the value of time spent not interpreting. Too often we simply go into the booth and interpret, engaging in no other practice activity, or analysis of our work, unaware of the fact that the skills that go to make up interpreting can be practiced in isolation.
1 The basics
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1.1 Practice often - 5 days per week
1.2 Be aware of what type of practice is best for you - 2 x 30 minutes in one day, am. then pm. may be better than 1x 60 minutes etc.
1.3 Practice does not have to be interpreting to be useful.
1.4 Don’t practice if you don't want to
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2 Material used should be appropriate for the stage of the course and for interpretation purposes. By this I mean that debates in national parliaments are not suitable for the first week of a course (too difficult / fast) and news broadcasts are not suitable for interpretation at all (they bear little relation to what is interpreted by working interpreters in respect of variety of content/ speed/ grammatical structure of language etc.). Likewise if you want to concentrate on good intonation during delivery then a slower speech will be more useful than a very fast one.
In all things start with the simple and work upwards. A natural progression for texts and speeches used in practice might be as follows,
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Week 0-2 Personal narratives (something that happened to me)
Week 3-4 General narratives (eg. newspaper accounts of criminal events)
Week 5-6 Political narrative (eg. the events surrounding scandal/ outbreak of war)
Week 7-8 General speeches (simple political speech)
Week 9=10 More abstract political speeches
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3 Practice in groups of 2-4 for consecutive, 3-6 for simultaneous (minimum 3 = 1 speaking, 1 interpreting, one listening). For consecutive practice all students will listen to a given interpretation, for simultaneous half of a given group will listen, half interpret. In multi-lingual groups not all the listeners need have the language combination being interpreted but at least one listener should. The listener may listen only to the interpreter or to the interpreter and original simultaneously, both are valid and useful exercises, depending on which element of the interpretation they wish to concentrate their attention.
Practicing in this way the listener is training his/her ability to analyze interpretation performance (that of the other student), this is easier to do through objectively and thoroughly listening to someone other than yourself. It is relevant because most students make similar mistakes and this type of evaluation is an essential skill if you are one day to supervise your own work competently. Meanwhile the student interpreter benefits from the opportunity to interpret to a real audience.
Obviously simultaneous interpreting can and should also be practiced alone with a walkman and a dictaphone, however, the comments of others, and the opportunity to listen to their work yourself are invaluable aids.
4 Always practice with a specific aim. Isolate various aspects of interpretation technique (ie. fluency, intonation, content, register and concentrate on them individually. Early in the course this selection should probably reflect the content of your lessons. Most courses, for example, teach delivery and memory skills first and say note-taking later. A new element can be chosen each time you return to the booth or one element worked on consistently for a period of time. For example, "Today (or this week) I'm going to concentrate on good delivery."
Knowing why we are doing something is crucial in creating motivation. Nobody likes doing things that are pointless. Having an aim and achieving it (practicing one element and improving in it) also allows us to see progress being made (thus increasing motivation) and perceive more clearly problems encountered.
Within reason other aspects (even content) are of secondary importance when we practice a chosen element of interpretation technique, say, delivery. At later stages in the course, with increasing regularity we try to combine all the elements at the same time.
5 Analyze problems encountered and how you dealt with them. What caused difficulties? Be aware of why something is difficult or easy. Isolate problem constructions, record examples on tape and practice interpreting them. This applies both to consecutive and simultaneous interpretation.
6 Interpret - take comments - interpret again. When learning to interpret we should have the opportunity to return to the booth (or do a second consecutive interpretation) immediately after hearing comments. 2 x 5 minutes with comments in the middle is better than 1 x 10 minutes. The same text can be repeated or a new text taken. Ideally we would have a continuation of the first text.
This affords the best chance of correcting those technique errors mentioned by your colleague since everything is fresh in your mind and specific examples of a problem can still be recalled.
For the same reasons recap at the end of practice sessions rather than introducing new comments which between now and the next practice session will be forgotten.
N.B. When repeating the same text the aim of this is not to get a word-perfect interpretation but rather to highlight difficulties and think carefully about how to avoid falling into the same traps next time round.
7 Remind yourself of technique issues. One useful exercise is to take a piece of paper into the booth (or note at the top of your consecutive pad) with one word on it to remind yourself of the element of technique which you want to work on, i.e. "ER" to remind you not to say Er or Em?
8 Keep a logbook in which to note comments made about your interpreting performances. Make a distinction between vocab and technique issues? perhaps noting technique related comments from the front and vocab from the back.
You can flick through the padding how the same problems recur, or what progress is being made (as comments noted change over time). It can also be used in the booth to remind you of certain “do” and "don’t".
9 Keep a logbook in which to note ways of interpreting certain common expressions and ideas that do not lend themselves ready translation (no cognates) or also to note particularly good renderings of expressions from one language in another.
10 Record everything and listen to at least some of your own output - correct it! Buy a dictaphone!
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