…à l’attention des étudiants en M2 (aux écoles belges)

So if you think about it, you have to do one of two things: you either have to be so good that even if you lose 30 percent say of your ability under stress you're still good enough, or you have to fight the stress, which means that you can perform closer to your best ability all the time. And something I always try and train my students to do, who are young interpreters doing their master's degrees, is not necessarily to get better on their best day, but to find a way to be consistently closer to their best so their performance is not going up and down, up and down, but it's remaining more or less constant, as of course has to happen with professionals, because failing, drying up in the booth, or running out of the booth screaming is not an option when you're a professional interpreter.

The technique and practice of shadowing is an indispensable tool for both the budding and the experienced simultaneous interpreter, but it is a controversial technique and is often misunderstood or discounted. In my opinion, however, all interpreting professionals would gain greatly from spending time both considering and practising the art of shadowing.