13/05/2026
Specialisation can mean different things, depending on who's looking at it. To me, it's not only about going deep into a subject, but about going deep and wide at the same time.
What does that mean? It means reaching certain degrees of specialisation in various fields and subject matters.
As an interpreter, you need to be prepared to tackle all sorts of references and intertextual inserts that a speaker might sprinkle their intervention with. And you have to do it on the spot, without much margin for research.
For instance, you might have a physiotherapist who makes a parallel with their favourite childhood dish just to make the image of a particular treatment more vivid to their audience.
Or a banker who brings up a book or a movie character to better illustrate a certain economic reality.
Of course, a solid interpreting technique can help you pull through. After all, no one is a walking encyclopaedia.
But the truth is you always find it easier to interpret things you've experienced yourself or you're familiar with. Your brain instantly goes into that 'I know what it's all about' mode, which allows you to focus more on other aspects than making sense of the subject matter.
If I look back at my professional journey, my specialisations are the result of life going its natural course — an intersection between specialisations choosing me and me choosing them.
And two ingredients have always played an essential role: the right people at the right moment and a certain degree of sometimes foolish courage to delve into the unfamiliar.
This was the case with medical interpreting, which has become one of my favourite working fields, probably because it's so visibly rewarding and because it entails so much mental concentration, which brings about a great release of dopamine at the end of each assignment.
It all started with hesitantly accepting an assignment in a field I was not yet specialised in. I had some basic notions from having studied life sciences in high school, but I have to admit it was hard. I had to do a lot of research and I constantly lived with impostor syndrome.
Fortunately, it turned out well and the feedback I got from specialists and beneficiaries encouraged me to continue on this path.
Meanwhile, life has put me in various situations where either myself, my kids, my parents or people around me have undergone medical treatment and interventions.
So, now, years later, I actually understand what various medical concepts mean in reality and I can more easily juggle them between medical specialties.
To conclude, specialisation can also take the form of acknowledging what life and people bring about, while adding a splash of courage and honesty, of course. And all of this comes down to flexibility, which, in today's fast changing world, is a real asset.
So, do join us on May 16th, at our online TranslateCluj event on specialisation, to train your flexibility muscle.
👇 Registration link in the comments.
