In October 2022, the translators and interpreters’ coach Simone van de Wijdeven published an article on peer coaching (Intervisie: verrijkend, humoristisch, verbindend) on the website of the Dutch Association of Interpreters and Translators (NGTV). Simone is a sworn French interpreter and translator who, after a 30-year-long career, realized that there was no Dutch platform where interpreters and translators could go to freely discuss the professional and personal circumstances of their work. This is why she created the platform Itsyou, where she offers training, individual coaching and peer coaching. In the following interview she focuses on those concepts and on what the Harvard Business Review calls ‘The Surprising Power of Peer Coaching’.

In Dutch, the term for peer coaching is intervisie, which is not a literal translation. Is there a difference between the two terms in your view? What is peer coaching?

Certainly. I think that the word ‘coaching’ is inappropriate where it concerns intervisie (intervision). Intervision is a way of sharing dilemmas you encounter in your work with colleagues. You support and advise each other to create insight into a particular problem and to find a solution together. Imagine that you are struggling with translating a word because the meanings in the source and target languages are not exact equivalents. This happens quite often in legal terminology. Assistant district attorneys have different responsibilities in the Netherlands than they have in France. How would you deal with this? Intervision is an excellent way of dealing with such an issue together with others. Intervision participants have something in common and try to find a solution together.

A coach focuses on helping the coachee, the person who has a request, with gaining insight into certain issues. Let’s say that you’re a translator, and you’re very much a perfectionist. That perfectionism has come from somewhere. Together with a coach, you explore the origins of this perfectionism and how you can deal with this. Like in the article ‘The surprising power of peer coaching’, the coach helps an individual. The coach always sees the coachee on a one-to-one basis and never as part of a group. In contrast, intervision takes place in groups.

When and why did you start offering peer coaching services?

I founded Itsyou Coaching two years ago. This stemmed from an intense desire to provide interpreters and translators with a platform where they can go to with questions about their work. What issues am I running into? What caused them? And especially: how can I deal with them? In our jobs, we’re continuously having to be self-reliant. Interpreters in particular must respond ad hoc when they are interpreting and find solutions for dilemmas they encounter. I believe collaboration means power. Why should all of us continue to struggle with questions on our own if there is an opportunity to learn from each other? My starting point is everyone’s inner resilience and drive to do the right thing. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable, being open-minded, listening to what others can teach you and, at the same time, being mindful of your own limits make you a stronger person. And someone who is strong is also able to cope better with challenges at work and in their private life. By organizing intervision sessions, I try to reach this goal.

Why is it important for translators and interpreters?

I think that it’s especially important for interpreters and translators because we work on our own. We have no immediate colleagues who we can turn to with questions that are bothering us. The strength of intervision is getting to know each other and hearing from each other how to also deal with issues that are not related to translation. Following a demanding interpreting session at a psychologist’s or at a police interview that really got to me, I took the emotions home with me. I had nobody to share those with. You are bound by your duty of confidentiality. And it is difficult for those at home to understand how those interpreting sessions affect you. In that case, it can be very helpful if you can let off steam to others in the same position. You feel that others hear what you are saying. And that alone reduces your stress.

I imagine that sessions might be different for translators than for interpreters. What can each expect?

Intervision of translators often focuses on language-specific issues. Intervision can be organized for language-specific groups or it can focus on cross-language issues. However, you notice that those translating into the same language are drawn to each other. There already is a certain relationship of trust. That is undoubtedly the case for certain languages, but then again not for all. The language-specific element is less important to interpreters. The issues here are more about dealing with a certain situation. Many situations give rise to stress. Sharing this in a group where members understand what you mean reduces stress.

What is your role as a coach and a trainer? Is there a difference between the two?

As a coach, I work with one coachee, a person with a coaching request. The request varies. One person may want to find out how they can deal with perfectionism or fear of failure, while someone else may want to prepare for an exam and learn interpreting skills. There are also many requests related to stress. Thus, I work just with the coachee. I support the coachee with gaining an understanding of where the issues stem from and, subsequently, provide tools to deal with them.

As a trainer, I don’t concentrate on the individual aspect, but stand in front of a group of 10 to 12 participants. And I have even had a group of 35 colleagues. I organize a workshop about a topic like stress, for example. During this workshop, I talk about what stress is, where it stems from and what the consequences are for the mind and body and about some of the possible solutions. After each bit of theory, I get the participants to complete a task that relates to themselves. The participants will then discuss the tasks in pairs. Where stress is concerned, these are often sensitive topics. People must allow themselves to be vulnerable. That is difficult in a large group; however, it is a safe environment when working in pairs. Afterwards, there is always the opportunity to reflect as a group.

Has your coaching experience been rewarding?

Yes, because each coaching programme or training course provides insights and offers the coachee or the training participant opportunities. In any case, you become aware of the things you do, often on autopilot. The training or coaching programme forces you to take a moment, to reflect. That allows you to do something with it. I had a coachee who wanted to change jobs. But he wasn’t sure what job he did want. Over the course of the coaching programme, he found out what he wanted to do. In the end, he managed to land his dream job.

Are you still working as a translator and interpreter? If so, what is your view on the current use of artificial intelligence in the world of translations?

I still work as an interpreter, but no longer as a translator. I want to stay in touch with interpreting to keep up with developments in the field. One of those developments is AI. I recently interviewed Marina Snoek. She is a Russian and Ukrainian interpreter. And she is a literary translator. In the podcast (see my Itsyou podcast De Tolk) she talks about how she uses AI for her translations. When she can’t find the right word, she uses AI to find synonyms. Each word has a subtle difference in meaning. She turned a threat, as many translators consider AI, into an opportunity. That is very clever. And I think that is how you should use AI.

I often hear translators say that they have less work. Translators now often receive texts that have already been translated and the client is asking them to post-edit these texts. That is not much fun, I am told, because it is no longer your translation. You are expected to improve a computer-generated translation. These translations are often of very poor quality and require many corrections. Whereas translators charge per word for their translations, they charge per hour for post-editing. These rates are much higher than the word rate, for example €90 per hour. If you work on a text that requires a lot of editing, you will soon have earned €2000. That is a positive side of it. I understand that it is difficult for translators to embrace AI, but when you are an entrepreneur, you must always try to convert threats into opportunities. Ask yourself the following questions: What else could you do using AI? How can you use it to your advantage? Perhaps you could even work within the AI sector to take care of the translations.

As far as interpreters are concerned, I think that AI may also play a role in the longer term. Using AI, the speaker can hear the translation of a question from the audience through an earpiece, for example, and vice versa. But I don’t think that it will have a negative effect in the very near future. Interpreting truly is a job best done by people. There are many more aspects to it than just translating. How do you deal with your emotions and with those of your clients? AI won’t be able to solve that for you. Interpreting involves feelings and understanding of the emotions. And we have not yet reached the stage where a robot can do all those things. People will continue to attract people. A robot will never be able to offer the literal and figurative warmth that a person has to offer.

I always like to know what people are reading. Have you read something interesting recently?

I love historical novels. I recently read ‘Grand Hotel Europa’ by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer. It is a wonderful book about the European identity. ‘Het achtste leven: (voor Brilka)’ by Nino Haratischwili is another fantastic book. It tells the story of a Georgian family over the years. I really enjoyed this book. However, you must exercise some patience when reading it because the book has close to a thousand pages!

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Acknowledgement

With thanks to editor and translator Monique Oude Luttikhuis (website: www.tuitionandtranslationservicesspalding.com; LinkedIn: monique-oude-luttikhuis), who translated the original text in Dutch into English.