This is LangFM, the podcast about language and what people do with it. My guest on this episode: fellow Alexander and former fellow conference interpreter at the European Commission: Alexander Smith. (You'll even hear him sing, by the way!) In 2017, Alex hung up his interpreting headphones for good. I jumped at the chance to sit down with him for a chat about his life in interpreting and in music.
You will notice that I really enjoyed talking to Alex. I don’t usually include my side of the interview in my episodes anymore. In this case, however, it seemed like a good fit. (Also, I set up my audio recorder incorrectly.) Pour la petite histoire, as Alex would say, he was there when I went on my very first interpreting trip abroad - what we in SCIC call a „mission“. The trip was to Reggio Emilia and I remember thinking, wow, what interesting characters they have in this interpreting service.
By the way, the music extracts throughout this episode are from two bands that Alexander’s been involved in: „About Time“ and their album „Songs from underground“, and folk band Bothan. Their album is called „Binnorie“, and the other band members (and fellow SCIC interpreters) are Elise Docherty, Jane McBride and Andy Upton.
Check out Alexander's YouTube video "English as she is spoke"
Bothan's band website