Andrew  Gillies Author of Evaluating Organization Development
FEATURED AUTHOR

Andrew Gillies


AIIC (International Association of Conference Interpreters)

Andy Gillies is a freelance conference interpreter and working from French, German and Polish into English at a number of EU and European institutions as well as for private clients. Before training as an interpreter he trained and worked as a teacher of English as a foreign language. With that background interpreter training was a natural next step, followed by training of interpreter trainers and eventually writing books for student interpreters. https://andrewgillies.eu

Subjects: Language Learning

Biography

I trained in, and taught English as a foreign language in London, Cracow and Cologne in 1994-1995 before studying conference interpreting.
In 1996 I started working as a freelance interpreter at the EU institutions in Luxembourg and I'm currently based in Paris, working for the European Parliament, the European Patent Office and the European Space Agency as well as for other non-institutional customers.
I began teaching conference interpreting in 1999 and since have taught at the interpreting schools at the universities of Łódź, WLS Warsaw, UJ Cracow, and UAM Poznan in Poland; FHK Cologne; ISIT and ESIT in Paris; & EMCI Lisbon and Glendon MCI in Toronto.

I have also taught further training courses for interpreters at the European Parliament; the ECJ; for the interpreters' associations AIIC, ATA and JACI as well as online. I also offer training of trainers courses.

My books came about to fill what seemed to be big gaps in the conference interpreting literature market - starting with the English translation of Rozan's 'La prise de notes...' before writing my own material.

I'm also founder and curator of the websites Interpreter Training Resources and Interpreters CPD Resources

Education

    BA Joint Honours French & German, Durham University
    Diploma in Language studies (Conference Interpreting), Bath
    Polish Language & Culture, Jagiellonian University, Cracow

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

    Conference interpreting, conference interpreter training and training of trainers of conference interpreting.

Websites

Books

Featured Title
 Featured Title - Conference Interpreting - 1st Edition book cover

Articles

Interpreters Soapbox

9 reasons not to automate glossary building


Published: Jun 02, 2023 by Interpreters Soapbox
Authors: Andrew Gillies

The recent explosion of AI into our lives has brought the perennially unfashionable issue of glossary-building back to the fore. Can AI or a computer tool create or complete glossaries for us?1 The idea of automating glossary-building has been around much longer than ChatGPT. Let me tell you why I don’t think any of them are worth the time… yet, at least.

Interpreters Soapbox

Why interpreters need better sound than normal listeners. Bad sound explained


Published: Jul 05, 2022 by Interpreters Soapbox
Authors: Andrew Gillies

Why do interpreters say they need better sound than normal listeners? And what’s wrong with sound quality in video-conferencing? Here’s a quick guide.

Interpreters Soapbox

5 reasons why boothmates should share a physical space


Published: Apr 07, 2022 by Interpreters Soapbox
Authors: Andrew Gillies

haring a physical space with your boothmate has numerous professional and personal advantages over working alone from home. Covid lockdowns and the rise of the Remote Simultaneous Interpreting (RSI) platform have had an extraordinary effect on the interpreting profession. One of the big changes is that conference interpreters are no longer sharing a physical space with their boothmates...

ATA

Inside Specialization – Conference Interpreting ATA podcast


Published: Sep 13, 2021 by ATA
Authors: Gillies & Demichelis

From the outside looking in, a career as a conference interpreter can often seem glamorous. Perhaps it's the travel and nights in hotels around the world. Or maybe it's the sense of being part of an exclusive community of interpreters working at high-stakes meetings. Episode 63 of The ATA Podcast is your chance to find out what it's really all about as Host Veronika Demichelis interviews conference interpreter Andrew Gillies for this installment of Inside Specialization.

LinkedIn

Getting the most out of CPD training


Published: Sep 11, 2021 by LinkedIn
Authors: Andrew Gillies
Subjects: Applied Linguistics

22 simple tips that will help you learn, remember and enjoy when you take training courses. Continuous Professional Development for interpreters can mean lots of different things. AIIC, for example, breaks it down into 4 types - interpreting skills; language learning; ancillary skills (relevant but not actually interpreting, like accounting or negotiating); and knowledge-based courses... These tips below apply to all of the above.

AIIC.org Webzine

The Green Interpreter


Published: Jan 19, 2020 by AIIC.org Webzine
Authors: Andrew Gillies
Subjects: Environment and Sustainability

A conversation about single-use plastic bottles led me to question my environmental footprint as an interpreter and look for solutions. There are plenty and they involve minimal effort!

AIIC.org Webzine

Continued professional development is a win-win


Published: Nov 07, 2018 by AIIC.org Webzine
Authors: Andrew Gillies

The nominal benefits of continued professional development (CPD) – learning something new or honing existing skills – are just the tip of the iceberg. Regardless of whether you ‘need’ to do a course or not, CPD courses are personally and financially rewarding.

AIIC.org Webzine

Book review: Being a Successful Interpreter: Adding Value and Delivering Exce...


Published: Aug 21, 2016 by AIIC.org Webzine
Authors: Andrew Gillies
Subjects: Language Learning

This article is a book review of one of very few Continued Professional Development books available (or ever published) for conference interpreters (as opposed to books for students and trainers)

ProZ.com

How to practice interpreting? Stop interpreting


Published: Nov 07, 2015 by ProZ.com
Authors: Andrew Gillies
Subjects: Language Learning

In this short post I’d like to show why interpreting is not necessarily the best way to improve your interpreting and suggest a few ways of practising that are not interpreting. It’s natural enough to think that best way to improve your interpreting is to interpret. However, interpreting is not the ONLY way to improve your interpreting. And indeed, when practise means only interpreting it’s not even the best way to improve any more.

AIIC.org Webzine

Interpreters, what does your email address say about you?


Published: Jul 30, 2015 by AIIC.org Webzine
Authors: Andrew Gillies

What does your email address say about you (as an interpreter)? More than perhaps you think. The image projected by many domain names may be costing you work. Having your own can be a game-changer.

News

New CPD website for conference interpreters

By: Andrew Gillies

This site is a compilation of material and links that can be of direct practical help to practising conference interpreters. It comprises content written for this site by conference interpreters, extracts from CPD literature for conference interpreters,  as well as links to other websites and material there for conference interpreters.

Contributions are welcome as the site will remain work in progress.

Videos

AI or DIY? Glossaries, terminology & AI tools in conference interpreting

Published: Jan 19, 2024

AI or DIY? A pragmatic look at glossaries, terminology and AI tools in conference interpreting (auf Englisch) Montagskonferenz am IÜD der Universität Heidelberg: Andrew Gillies, Konferenzdolmetscher, Dozent und Autor Organisation und Moderation: Thilo Hatscher Datum: 11.12.2023

Trying to define Conference Interpreting

Published: Apr 22, 2020

What is conference interpreting? Andy Gillies embarks on the search for a surprisingly elusive definition.

Note-taking in Simultaneous Interpreting

Published: Feb 23, 2021

How and why you might want to make notes during simultaneous (not consecutive) interpreting

Consecutive interpreting without notes

Published: Sep 17, 2019

Student interpreters are often given little or no instruction as to how to best recall information in a speech. In this video we’ll see that by applying a number of simple techniques you are able to recall far more information than you might have thought possible.

Interview on interpreter training with The Troublesome Terps

Published: Sep 17, 2019

An interview about interpreter training, books and language learning

EU Parliament : The EU still needs EN interpreters

Published: Mar 29, 2019

EU Parliament : The EU still needs EN interpreters Promotional video from the EP aimed at young linguists

AIIC Conversations II Aptitude for Interpreting

Published: Feb 25, 2018

Part of AIIC's (International Association of Conference Interpreters) Conversations series about the profession.

Symbols in consecutive interpreting: dos and don’ts

Published: Feb 17, 2017

When note-taking for consecutive interpreting is mentioned the first thing that student interpreters ask about are symbols. This film explains why we use symbols in the first place; what you might want to replaces with symbols; and how to use symbols effectively.

Language enhancement exercises for conference interpreters

Published: Nov 15, 2016

“At advanced levels, where grammar has been more or less mastered, the main difference between foreign students and native speakers is that the latter have been exposed to their language for many years, over thousands and thousands of hours". (From Conference Interpreting – a Student’s Practice book, Andrew Gillies) This film aims to help bridge that gap.

AIIC Conversations: Training and Professional Development

Published: Oct 04, 2016

Professional development is fundamental for all interpreters – and in some countries even required! Get yourself some further training!

Intonation in simultaneous interpreting

Published: May 18, 2016

Intonation is not a luxury. It’s a crucial part of communicating well. Getting it wrong in languages with little or no verb conjugation or noun declension (like English) can lead to being understood less well.

How to use mobile phones and Skype in interpreter training

Published: Apr 12, 2012

A few ideas of how to use available technology to improve your conference interpreting practice.

Analysis exercises for consecutive interpreting

Published: Oct 31, 2015

‘Analysis’ is often cited as one of the most important skills in consecutive interpreting but it’s one that is less often practised in isolation. In this film Andrew Gillies suggests 3 exercises aimed at practising your analysis skills.