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Category: Stories

Professional Language Services Story

Unchartered Territory (Shirley)
Shirley’s first ever interpretation assignment was 14 years ago working in a booth in Bali together with an experienced interpreter whom she had known from a few years earlier during her time in an English debating club.
Thankfully, it was an experience which encouraged Shirley to continue as a part-time interpreter whilst working in a humanitarian-focused law firm, and she had just left a top ranked boutique commercial law firm the month before. Her interpreting work has presented her with many interesting experiences.
A few examples include her trip to Baghdad working with a Parliamentary Organization in an Islamic Conference, meeting the Jogjakarta Sultan in his residence, meeting with the US Ambassador in his office and completing a two week assignment on a remote island in the Eastern part of Indonesia where electricity was only available for 6 hours a day and there was no clean running water.
Traveling to new places and meeting people from all over the world are just some of the reasons why Shirley loves the profession. She’s also a practicing infrastructure lawyer, a government relations consultant and a part-time university lecturer. The types of challenges and opportunities presented to her as an interpreter are unlikely to be experienced in her other professions.
Her communication skills and legal knowledge are sometimes very useful in bridging the communication gap between people and providing her clients with a different perspective in some of their projects.
Overseas assignments have taken her to many places for many reasons. Most memorable, in addition to the Baghdad trip, was Shirley’s first foreign assignment to Seoul, South Korea, with the Parliamentary Speaker and members on a G-20 conference.
She had first-hand experience with a much better SIS system than what she was used to working with in Indonesia and worked consecutively in high-level bilateral meeting.
During that assignment she also met the South Korean President and attended a dinner function at the Blue House, an unforgettable experience for Shirley only made possible by her skills as a professional interpreter.
July 3, 2021
Multi-country and multi-continents experience (Reza Purba)
Multi-country and Multi-continents Experience (Reza Purba)
Reza has travelled to many countries on Interpretation assignments and his work has challenged him as an interpreter to perform professionally in different time zones and business cultures whilst at the same time managing his commitments to his other work in Bahasa Global.
Not long ago, he spent two weeks in the Falkland Islands working for a private company delivering a training programme. He is lucky enough to have been able to visit such a remote beautiful island and see first-hand such a very beautiful place with many cruise lines visiting the islands. He was working on a consecutive interpretation project and was part of the success in delivering the training there.
He has visited Africa twice on working with interpretation assignments and experienced a cultural exchange with the people he was working. The assignment entailed working in relay mode, listening to the local interpreters interpreting the local language to English before he could interpret to Indonesian. Reza has very much appreciated the opportunity of working in Africa and with the local people.
His first-time visiting Europe and Latin America was also on Interpreting assignments. Long-hours travelling and working in very different time zones was a challenge to his stamina and interpretation skills. Aside from bringing back photos and souvenirs, it was also valuable experience, especially seeing first-hand how simultaneous interpretation works in developed countries and also the different methods of interpretation used. In many of his assignments he learned tips and tricks from the vendor who were managing the simultaneous interpretation system (SIS) in the event. All of these experiences have sharpened his skills and knowledge to enable him to deliver world class interpretation services working with Bahasa Global especially with adapting our SIS system to meet global needs.
July 3, 2021