How to Be Indispensable

A blonde, 25-year-old woman walked nervously into a large classroom in Geneva one day last week for one of the most exhausting ordeals of her life. Before her sat six facultymen, including experts in English, French and Italian. Behind, a crowd of students waited eagerly to see her perform. They had good reason for wanting to do so: of 750 students at the Interpreters' School, Giovanna Cuirlo of Genoa was the only one found qualified this term to try for the school's highest prize--the conference (or parliamentary) interpreter's certificate.

As Giovanna took her seat and opened her pad, the school's Dean Sven Stelling-Michaud launched into a twelve-minute speech in fast-paced French ("The new member-state of Viet Nam is particularly happy to be able to participate in the work of the World Health Organization . . ."). With scarcely a second's delay, Giovanna read back the speech in Italian. After that a professor delivered another speech in

English which Giovanna read back in Italian. Then two other professors read Italian treatises on the Common Market. These Giovanna translated into English and French.

Only a Handful. Having passed the first hurdles, Giovanna was ordered into a U.N.-type interpreter's booth for a more difficult test: the simultaneous rendering into Italian of a speech in French, a second in English. Finally she took her place behind a "delegate's desk" and was ordered to do the same thing all over again, this time translating the text on sight. The ordeal over, the professors made their decision: Giovanna had passed.

In its 16 years the Interpreters' School has turned out only a handful of Giovannas. Since 1951 only 35 have made the grade. But the school's standards are so high that even students with the less difficult translator-interpreter's certificate or the simple "language certificate" find jobs without trouble. As a matter of fact, to have completed the school's courses at all is proof enough that a man or woman is much more than an ordinary linguist. Today's interpreters must not only have the concentration and quickness to translate words and sentences instantly; they must also have background enough to be able to render shades of meaning and to place emphasis where the speakers want it. "We know our requirements are difficult," says Dean Stelling-Michaud, "but they have to be." A translator who is merely a babbling robot can endanger a whole international conference.

So Many Conferences. Founded by a Belgian-born League of Nations interpreter named Antoine Velleman, the school began with only 20 students in one of the buildings of the University of Geneva. By 1951, when Dean Stelling-Michaud took over, Geneva canton authorities were so impressed by it that they agreed to help finance it. Stelling-Michaud added modern equipment for simultaneous translation, built up one of the largest dictionary libraries in the world. By 1955 the school had become an autonomous part of the University of Geneva.

Today no alumni are in greater demand than Geneva's. "There are such a multitude of conferences," says Dean Stelling-Michaud, "that every day we witness a new international organization of some kind." When UNESCO decided to set up its Russian-language section, it asked the school to do the job. When Aramco and Saudi Arabian officials got bogged down in a Geneva conference last year, they called on the school for English-Arabic translators to help the negotiators out. In a sense, says Stelling-Michaud, the Geneva alumnus is rapidly becoming the indispensable international man. "In European organizations like the Coal and Steel Community," says he, "the majority of interpreters come from our school. Of some 200 top-class interpreters at work in the world today, at least 20% are Geneva-trained. Sometimes we even get requests to send students who have not even passed their tests to help out at some international meeting or other."

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