Brand the Interpreter

A childhood spent among Greek, Turkish, and Jewish neighbors can turn language into a way of being. That spirit runs through a candid, wide‑ranging conversation with conference interpreter, researcher, and choir singer Dr. Ozum Arzik Erzurumlu, whose path stretches from lyric notebooks and full‑immersion schooling to live broadcasts of U.S. presidents. We open the booth door on the realities of crisis coverage, the relay chains that kept news flowing during the Arab Spring, and the home‑built audio hacks that made phone interpreting viable when seconds mattered.

We dig into the engine room of performance: preparation that goes beyond collecting terms to truly owning them, learning a speaker’s discourse so style carries meaning, and the post‑assignment review that separates solid from exceptional. Dr. Arzik Erzurumlu shares evidence‑based ways to protect the person behind the mic—growth mindset, positive psychology, pre‑briefs, and rituals that help interpreters shed vicarious trauma after war speeches and emotionally charged testimonies. The message is practical and humane: accuracy and well‑being can coexist, if we plan for both.

Then we follow Alice down the rabbit hole into remote platforms and AI. Drawing on interviews with 26 freelancers, Dr. Arzik Erzurumlu maps what changed when booths became browsers: the gains in reach for those who were proactive, the loss of room intelligence and human touch, and the surprising habits interpreters wanted to keep. We tackle “tech without panic,” showing how tools like ChatGPT and Notebook LM can accelerate prep while the irreplaceably human skills—reading the room, catching irony, matching tone—remain the profession’s edge. We also challenge the myth of invisibility: stay neutral on the mic, but step forward outside it to explain your value, ethics, and craft.

If you care about where interpreting is headed—reputation over rush, visibility without bias, and smart use of technology—this conversation offers both a compass and a toolkit. Listen, share with a colleague, and leave a review so more practitioners can find it. Subscribe for more deep dives into the craft and evolution of interpreting.
Ozum Arzik-Erzurumlu, PhD, is a full-time faculty member in the Program in Translation and Interpreting Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research spans multiple dimensions of interpreting, including conference interpreting, the sociology of interpreting, interpreting technology, interpreter training, and the history of interpreting. Her work has been published in several leading journals, including Translation and Interpreting Studies and Interpreting. A professional conference interpreter, she works with Turkish (A), English (B), and Spanish (C) and has interpreted for U.S. presidents on behalf of various Turkish broadcasters since 2006. She is an active member of the Turkish Conference Interpreters’ Association, a researcher with the GenTech international research network, and a board member of Encounters in Translation. NEW BOOK: Reimagining Conference Interpreting in the Age of AI (Routledge, 2026) will be out on May 27, 2026!
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What do you do when the work that once felt like a calling starts to drain you dry? I sit down with Heidi Leal to follow a courageous pivot from school counseling into professional interpreting, a shift sparked by a year of volunteering in Guatemala that reignited her sense of service and clarified a new path forward. From triage rooms and field clinics to certification exams and first contracts, this story blends heart and hard-won tactics you can use if you’re craving more autonomy in your career.

Heidi walks us through completing a 40-hour medical interpreting program, earning CHI certification, and navigating the first agency roles that built fluency and confidence. Then we get real about the industry: restrictions on working abroad, rate disparities tied to geography, and what it takes to identify partners who actually respect interpreters. That inflection point leads to a smarter strategy, niching into mental health interpreting where her counseling background becomes a true asset, and shifting focus toward direct clients for better alignment, pay, and professional control.

Along the way, we talk about marketing yourself without feeling salesy, rewriting a LinkedIn profile to speak to buyer needs, and the difference between bragging and positioning. If you’ve ever wondered whether your past experience can power a new specialty, or how to move beyond LSP dependence without burning bridges, this conversation offers a grounded blueprint. We close with practical steps: build your network, find mentors, invest in training, and treat autonomy like a skill you practice every day.

If this journey resonates, help us grow the Brand the Interpreter community, subscribe, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and share this episode with someone who’s ready for their next chapter.
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A trilingual childhood, a summer camp “gig” for a few bucks, and then a single moment that changed everything: the mic flipped on, and Alain Breton realized interpreting had a name and a future. I sit down with Alain to unpack how a life steeped in French, Spanish, and English turned into a craft built on meaning, nerve, and an appetite for challenge.

The heart of our conversation is depth. Not age. Depth. Alain makes the case that great interpreters aren’t just fluent; they’re world-literate. Travel, odd jobs, and real-world stumbles add weight to your mental toolbox so you can keep sense intact when speakers sprint, pivot, or argue in real time. That’s why he loves parliamentary debates: no slides, no prep, just rapid exchanges where meaning is your only compass. We also get into flow state—how interest plus difficulty locks attention and lifts performance—and why following your curiosity matters as much as mastering terminology.

We don’t shy away from the hard rooms. Alain shares the emotional cost of interpreting top-secret briefings about child exploitation and how visualization, so helpful in clear storytelling, can also intensify trauma. He walks us through practical ways to reset: mental anchors in the moment, then intentional decompression afterward. Pro wrestling is his palate cleanser, a reminder that it’s okay to choose something playful and harmless to break the loop.

You’ll leave with three habits to level up: record yourself and review five minutes at a time, study seasoned interpreters to see how they keep coherence under stress, and build a richer life so your understanding runs deeper than any glossary. We also spotlight Found in Interpretation, Alain’s podcast co-hosted with Brian Bickford, which brings voices from parliaments to refugee camps and expands how we think about this profession.

If this conversation sparked ideas or confidence in your own path, tap follow, share it with a colleague, and leave a quick review. Your feedback helps more language professionals find us and grow their craft.
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Ever wonder how a childhood love of RPGs could shape a world-class interpreting mindset? We sit down with conference interpreter Vladimir Kits to unpack a journey powered by curiosity, deliberate practice, and the habit of stepping inside someone else’s perspective. From snow-locked northern towns to global booths, Vladimir shows how nontraditional paths-video games, research gigs, and contest losses-can forge sharp instincts and a calm, strategic approach under pressure.
We get practical fast. Vladimir explains why strong preparation begins with strategy, not just terminology: know who the speaker is, what they want, and where they sit in the wider landscape. He shares the system that helped him climb-weekly practice groups, feedback that’s specific and actionable, and an intentionally “unreasonable” experiment: interpreting a single TED Talk 100 times to train compression, cadence, and linguistic flexibility. We explore the martial arts metaphor for interpreting, collecting techniques to counter different “attacks”-and why the craft rewards curiosity disciplined by method.
We also take a grounded look at AI. Vladimir breaks the pipeline into three stages: speech recognition, translation, and synthesis and argues that today’s strengths and weaknesses are uneven. Synthesis shines; recognition and context-aware translation still wobble, especially in noisy, overlapping, real-time settings. The takeaway isn’t fear; it’s clarity: use technology to prep better and move faster, but don’t outsource judgment. If he were starting again, he’d choose a strong interpreting school for technique and network; lacking that, he built community by posting daily on LinkedIn for a year, learning to ship work, find patterns, and separate signal from metrics.
If evolving with the work resonates, press play. Then share your best prep habit or the most useful feedback you’ve ever received. Subscribe, leave a review, and pass this along to a colleague who could use a nudge toward deliberate practice.
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The stroke of a pen in Washington D.C. sent ripples through the language access community earlier this year. When Executive Order 13166 was rescinded after nearly a quarter century, many interpreters and language professionals feared the worst. What would happen to language access rights? Would limited English proficient communities lose vital protections? 

In this illuminating conversation, former Department of Justice Senior Trial Attorney Bruce Adelson cuts through the confusion with clarity and perspective that only someone with his background can provide. "The language access as a civil right has really not changed," he explains, drawing an important distinction between executive orders (which direct federal agencies) and the underlying legal foundations that remain firmly in place through Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and Supreme Court precedent.

While Executive Order 14224 declares English the "official language" of the United States, Adelson helps us understand why this has no legal force while acknowledging legitimate concerns about how such declarations might empower discrimination. Rather than panicking, he encourages language professionals to recognize this as "a bump in the road" and redirect advocacy efforts toward states and local communities where meaningful change remains achievable.

Perhaps most compelling is Adelson's optimism about opportunities for innovation. Just as COVID transformed remote interpreting, this moment of uncertainty could drive new approaches to language access - with interpreters perfectly positioned to lead that evolution. "Who would know the communities that we serve better than those of us that are serving the community?" host Mireya Pérez observes.

Whether you're an interpreter concerned about your profession's future, an administrator trying to understand compliance obligations, or an advocate for language access rights, this episode offers the expert insights and practical guidance needed to navigate this changing landscape with confidence.
So tune in. Only on the podcast that shares your stories about our profession: Brand the Interpreter!
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