IW 154: InterpreTip-Comedy: Im-Pasta Syndrome - A Saucy Solution

Imposter Syndrome? I don't think I have the skills to do that.

This comedic episode reveals a tip for improving our confidence and throwing the imposter syndrome to the back burner or even the trash can.

We all feel a bit nervous or unsure of our skills to handle a new situation, but this tip can help improve one aspect of those feelings and help boost our certainty in our abilities.

The Interpreter's Workshop with Tim Curry is three years old in June of 2025!

In the summer 2025, July and August, the Interpreter's Workshop with Tim Curry will take a break.

The episodes will resume in September.

Catch up on the episodes you've not listened to yet!

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Transcript

IW 154: InterpreTip-Comedy: Im-Pasta Syndrome - A Saucy Solution

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[ROCK INTRO MUSIC STARTS]

00:00:02 Tim [ONLY TIM SPEAKS IN THIS EPISODE]

Good morning, good evening, good afternoon. Wherever you are, this is the Interpreter's Workshop podcast. I'm Tim Curry, your host. Here we talk everything sign language interpreting the ins, the outs, the ups, the downs, the sideways of interpreting. If you're a student, a new interpreter, experienced interpreter, this is the place for you. If you want to know more, go to interpretersworkshop.com.

00:00:28

Let's start talking... interpreting.

[ROCK INTRO MUSIC ENDS]

00:00:35

And now the quotes of the day, the first by Agnes Varda, Belgian born French film director and writer.

00:00:45

“You can buy a good pasta, but when you cook it yourself, it has another feeling.”

00:00:52

And the second quote by Gordon Ramsay, British celebrity chef.

00:00:58

“In order to create a little bit of confidence, start cooking with pasta. Pasta is phenomenal. Once you've cooked pasta properly for the first time, it becomes second nature.”

00:01:14

These two quotes are the beginning of an analogy I would like to share.

00:01:19

Over the last few years, we've had a plethora of discussions about imposter syndrome and how it applies to the interpreting profession. How we don't always have the confidence to feel like we can do a job or that we have the right skills, or that I'm just faking it.

00:01:40

I'm putting on the interpreter mask saying, “Yes, I am skilled and I'm certified or I have the experience to do this.” When inside, we don't really feel it.

00:01:53

So today I would like to talk about the Im-pasta syndrome. Yes, you heard that right. The im-pasta syndrome.

00:02:02

And we'll get to the analogy in a moment. But I don't just want to talk about the Im-pasta Syndrome analogy, but also talk about one or two things that we can do to boost our confidence to make the pasta magical. Let's get started.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:02:26

Pasta is many peoples’ comfort food. It has that beautiful foundation for a dish. It helps bring the ingredients together to form a basis of foundation of flavors, a vehicle to bring the flavors together and unite them so they make more sense. So, they have that texture, that velvety smooth comfort that we all love to have.

00:03:00

I have eaten many sauces before, tomato sauces, creamy sauces, oily sauces, herby sauces, pesto sauces, you name it. But as a cook, I know that sometimes we need something to bring those flavors together.

00:03:21

Something to carry those flavors that are so wonderful, apart and separate from each other, but when they come together on the surface of the pasta that we have, it adds that extra connection that brings those flavors together, a unifying mixture of creamy al dente perfection.

00:03:43

As a cook sometimes I put two different contrasting bursts of flavor together, and they don't quite work. If I add a little seasoning to it, it helps. But when I add it to the pasta and that starch from the pasta absorbs into the ingredients that makes this wonderful blending of flavors that really make it understood to my palette.

00:04:13

And if you haven't guessed already, the ingredients are the people in the conversations of the situations that we are in.

00:04:20

The pasta... well, that's us… bringing those two participants or multiple participants together. Each person has their own culture, their own backgrounds, education perspectives and world views. Those ingredients each have their own spices their own herbs, little touch of seasoning, maybe a little bit more heat to caramelize and bring out the sweetness that they have…

00:04:50

…bringing about the sauce, the situation where the flavors have this dynamic mixing that only our palette can comprehend even better, when we add the pasta. As an interpreter, we need to understand the ingredients.

00:05:09

We need to connect with them, mix with them, mingle with them and understand how they work together, how the flavors work together. Which pasta is best with which sauce? So many different types of pasta, which one is best for this situation?

00:05:27

Knowing how to transform yourself to meet, to connect, to match that situation, that person, those languages, the spices and worldviews that they're coming together with, we transform ourselves into the perfect pasta. Not the im-pasta, but the pasta, the vehicle to take the flavors from one world view to the other world view, blending it together. Have I taken the analogy far enough? Do you get it yet? I think you do.

00:06:04

Now, how do we handle that? How do we get to the point where we are confident that we can change and adapt to the sauciness of the different situations?

00:06:15

Are we seasoned enough to handle it? I think so. Well, we have to work on it. We have to cook our experience to that, at least al dente to where the shape of our experience can handle the situation correctly, but how do we do that? There are several ways to boost our confidence.

00:06:40

One, it takes experience, but not always. Knowing different schemata, different situations, even different languages helps boost our performance and our confidence in that performance. But how can we increase our confidence in some simple ways?

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:07:04

One way we talk about boosting confidence is being able to see our strengths and our weaknesses and analyzing ourselves, analyzing not only who we are, what we can bring to the situation, but also be able to analyze the interpretations that we create and seeing the patterns of errors or miscues and how to rectify those.

00:07:35

One simple way to increase our confidence is to increase our fluency in the languages that we're using.

00:07:44

And while you can take courses or workshops or individual private lessons, those will help, but there's another method you can use and that is simply watching videos, watching live signing of native users, and to listen to native speakers of the languages that you use. Listen to those and copy them.

00:08:10

There's the key. Copy.

00:08:12

Copy a video. That's the easiest way to do it. For example, if you are a Belgian sign language interpreter, watch videos of a Belgian deaf native user as they're signing. Copy their signing, don't interpret what they're signing. Don't paraphrase what they're signing.

00:08:33

Copy it. Copy it, copy it, copy it. The more you can copy, the better you can copy and just simply copy, the more you will start to feel the flavor, you will start to notice the patterns in the language. That is where you're getting the internal back channeling effect, meaning you feel whether or not the language is correct.

00:09:02

The use of the language that you are putting out, is it correct? You will know that feeling, just like in your own native language. Sometimes we can just, we just know this is wrong.

00:09:16

What I'm saying is incorrect. I need to say it. How do I say it? I say it like this.

00:09:19

This is the correct way. Or when someone else says it, they switch words in the grammar and you know it's wrong, but you understand it. Of course you understand them, but you just feel that it's wrong. That inherent feeling is how we can analyze and describe our own native language.

00:09:42

We need to increase that skill in the other languages that we use. We need to increase it to the point where we can feel when it's right, feel when it's wrong, don't necessarily think about the grammar, the linguistics of it. Just copy. Copy them. Feel that native cadence, that rhythm that they have. Copy multiple signers see the accents, or feel the accents, feel the differences.

00:10:15

This will help improve your native “feel”, the fluency “feel”, which will help you when you look at your interpretation that's been recorded and you can see where these feelings are, where the mistakes are, where the grammar was twisted or changed.

00:10:36

That's a simple technique to do. Copy, copy, copy, feel that, feel the native fluency.

00:10:44

Get to that al dente, where you know the pasta is going to be good.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC STARTS]

What do you have after a comforting meal? A coffee, sometimes an Americano, sometimes a little espresso. But how do I do that? Well, go to the show notes, click on the link and Buy Me A Coffee. Thank you. I appreciate the support.

00:11:04

Now let's go back.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC ENDS]

00:11:06

Not only is the copying method going to help you with your feeling of fluency, that confidence in the language, but it's also a very good tool to have as an interpreter, because many times when you are in the front of an audience or classroom or group of people, and there are multiple questions in the audience and there might be a signer who's signing far in the back of the audience, and it's not practical for them to come all the way to the front of the group so everyone can see what their question is.

00:11:43

As an interpreter, I can just “copy sign” what they are signing so that the group can see and have the same focus at the front.

00:11:54

They see the question directly copied, exactly copied, from the person with the question. That is a skill that will help in your interpreting.

00:12:06

It allows for less of those awkward situations where as an interpreter you say, “Can you come to the front” and everybody else in the group is saying, “Can you come to the front” and then you have to wait for a minute for them to get through and get by and they get up there and they sign for maybe 10 or 12 seconds. And you're like, “Oh, I could have just copied that.”

00:12:27

Those awkward moments we like to avoid, just copy it. Copy signing will help, not only with your confidence and your language fluency, but also your reception and for those awkward moments.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

[ROCK EXIT MUSIC STARTS]

00:12:46

I hope this episode got your mouth watering for improving your pasta making. We all come across many different sauces and we have to create the pasta that connects those ingredients together. Copy, copy, copy, including copy signing.

00:13:06

Try to do it also with copy speaking.

00:13:09

If you are a hearing interpreter copy speak, use it for all of the languages. Copy it. Are you saying it correctly? Record yourself copying. Listen to it, compare it to the original. Compare your video to the original video. Are the signs truly copied? Analyze that which will also help you analyze your interpretations even more.

00:13:38

Well, I'm cutting this episode short. I'm already hungry and I need some comfort. So, until next time, keep calm. Keep your interpreting on the boil. I'll see you next week. Take care now.

[ROCK EXIT MUSIC ENDS AT 00:14:27]