News

SCIT’s 10th Anniversary

SCIT’s birthday this year is a special event: we celebrate our tenth anniversary! It is a unique occasion when everyone wishing happy birthday hears the same words in response! The celebration brought together in the Conference hall those who built the School from its inception: trainers and administration. The official part did not take long, but the party could last and last… Counselor Nikolay Lukichev brought congratulations from the MFA of Russia and personally from Vladimir Zapevalov, Russian MFA Representative in St. Petersburg. Andrey Maksimov, Chairman of St. Petersburg Committee for Science and Higher Education, Government of St. Petersburg, also sent his greetings in the letter which was read out to the audience. Yulia Komarova, Vice-Rector for International Cooperation came to congratulate SCIT on behalf of the Herzen University Rectorate.

Vladimir Zapevalov, Representative of Russian MFA in St. Petersburg, sends his greetings to Herzen University on the occasion of the 10th SCIT anniversary

25 January 2018: SCIT hosts Yuri Lebedev, translator and member of St. Petersburg Branch of Union of Writers

On 25 January SCIT hosted Yuri Lebedev, translator and a member of the St. Petersburg Branch of Union of Writers. The meeting was dedicated to the 75^th anniversary of the Breach of the Leningrad Siege. At the meeting Yury Lebedev told the students about the German memoir literature and about the Leningrad Siege, dwelled on the Defense of Leningrad. The guest actively engaged the students in conversation and asked their opinion about many issues related to the war.

The participants discussed the tricks of the work of military interpreters and translators. Mr. Lebedev spoke about the difficulties of simultaneous interpreters’ work and recounted some events from his own experience. Talking about the subtleties of literary translation he said: “Nobody will ever become a good translator without the perfect knowledge of the mother tongue”.

Irina Alexeeva asked the guest to tell about his engagement in the work of the International Centre “Reconciliation” where he is a chair. The Centre established good connections between Russia and Germany which helped to open a military cemetery of German soldiers in Sologubovka, in the vicinity of St. Petersburg.

The writer also shared his impressions about working on the books Into Eternity and Jokes of Military Interpreter. An important milestone in his career became the translation of Arno Surminski’s novel Vaterland ohne Väter (Fatherland without Fathers).

After the talk the students asked many questions about the fates of military translators and discussed the dilemma of heroism and self-sacrifice of Leningrad citizens.

“There was heroism, but tragedy was also there”, – concluded Mr. Lebedev

http://mr7.ru/articles/175760/

11 January 2018: Master-classes of Andrey Falaleyev

The beginning of the semester is rich with events: on 11 of January SCIT hosted two master-classes of Andrey Falaleyev, a renowned simultaneous interpreter and an author of a series of training manuals for interpreters. The students were eager to hear the stories from the professional life of the experienced interpreter, and our guest generously shared the tricks of the profession with them. Andrey noted the high level of the students’ motivation and the good progress they made during the year.

Interpreter/Translator Professional Standard takes shape

On 24-26 November public hearings concerning the development of the Interpreter/Translator professional standard took place under the auspices of UTR in Higher School of Economics, Moscow. A Ministry of Labour representative L. Khlusneva spoke about the Ministry’s requirements to this document. 32 experts took part in the discussions, among whom were representatives of translation companies, academia and freelance translators and interpreters. SCIT was represented by director Irina Alexeeva. Heated discussions brought about the general understanding of the standard’s ideology and wording.