Hi, Tom Norton here. Welcome again to
English Trainer for Pros, a conference
interpreter's approach to Advanced
English training. In the last video in this
series of videos on building a
professional vocabulary, I spoke with you
about the importance of turning on your
radar and focusing on what I call Orbit
Words™. These are words that float around
our day-to-day lives, English words that
you hear all the time,
you may read them all the time, but you
don't use them, probably because of one
of three reasons: 1) You don't understand
what the word means; 2) You don't know for
certain how to pronounce it, or 3) You may
not know how to use it properly in a
sentence. Those are called Orbit Words,
and what we're going to do in this video
is we're going to focus on building a
word list, a word list– not any word list,
an Orbit Word list. So you're paying
attention you're noticing these words,
and what we're going to do now is bring
them down to where they're on paper. We
interpreters make lots of lists and the
way we do that is by paying attention to
the words that are around us. The same
goes for you and building your
word list. The most valuable list you can
build is one you build yourself, for
yourself. I'll give you an example of
what I mean. These are the notebooks
filled with words – notebooks that I've
used in the last 18 months.
Interpreters always carry a notebook
This is what I carry. It's a reporter's
notebook. I like the size of it because
it fits easily in my pocket. Many of my
colleagues prefer a stenographer's pad
which is a little wider and has a line
already down the middle. It doesn't
matter what you use, but I encourage you
to find a notebook you like and begin
– when you take those 3 to 5
minutes every day –
to pay attention, to turn your radar on,
and to watch, and to listen for Orbit Words –
write them down. The advantage of
that is that you end up with a list like
this. These are 5 words that I jotted
down recently in a meeting that I was
interpreting. It was about banking and
finance. And I just want you to see the
types of words I write down: tail risk,
fat tail, deleveraging, balkanization,
regulatory certainty – or if you're
British, regulatory certainty. Either one
of those is okay: regulatory or
regulatory, okay? And these are words that
I wrote down that I will then explore so
that they can come down and become part
of my working vocabulary. Another example:
I have a client who offers me often the
wonderful opportunity to interpret
conventions about coffee. Can you imagine
a better job than that? But even in
coffee, a subject I know and love, there
are many words that are Orbit Words. And
so, again, I pull my notebook out and I'm
jotting them down. Aftertaste, mouth feel,
to brew, coffee grounds. Now, sometimes
it's an Orbit word for me not because I
don't know it in English but because I'm
not as comfortable with this word in the
non-native language – Spanish or
Portuguese in my case – so I know what
aftertaste is in English, of course, but
how about in Portuguese? What will
aftertaste be? Or in Spanish? To brew. I
know what to brew coffee means in
English, but how do Spanish-speaking
people talk about brewing coffee? So it
goes down into the notebook it becomes
an Orbit Word that I will then research.
I don't call it research. I call it
"exploring" the word for example there's a
verb there: "to cup"
Do you know what it means to cup, in
coffee? It's a very specific and very
technical procedure and the person who
does it is called a coffee cupper. Now
I'm not going to explain to you what it
means to cup, but I want to encourage you
to do some exploration. Google: what does
it mean to cup coffee? Or go to Youtube
and and just type in the search bar: "what
does it mean to cup coffee", and you'll
probably see some videos that will teach
you very quickly what this fascinating
thing is called cupping coffee. I
encourage you to do some exploration on
your own. And, once you have the words in
your notebook, I want to encourage you to
take one more step, and that is to enter
them into an Excel sheet or a Word table.
Now, what you can see here is a template
that I use. It's this is an Excel sheet
template, and in the left hand corner I
have already put in the very same
finance words that we saw earlier: tail
risk, fat tail, deleveraging, balkanization,
and regulatory certainty. That goes in
the left-hand column. In the
right-hand column will go any
information that you generate in your
exploration of the word that will help
you bring that word out of orbit and
down into your working vocabulary, okay?
I'm providing you the Excel sheet
template or this is the Word table. [It] works
just as well. There are links below this
video in the description section where
you can have access – free access – to these
templates and put them to work
immediately. That's basically it.
I want you to– what we're talking
about is this 3 to 5-minute habit,
right? I want you to get into the habit.
The habit begins by turning on your
radar and spotting those Orbit Words.
Then, you write them down.
Write them down, grab them out of the sky
and put them on paper and then take the
step of entering them into the Excel
sheet or the Word table. An important
step because down the road here in a few
videos I'm going to show you how to take
what you haven't entered into the Excel
sheet or the Word table and upload it
into some software that is going to
dramatically speed up the process of
getting you familiar with those words,
okay? So these are all important steps.
Turn on your radar, write down every
Orbit Word, and transfer your word list
into an Excel sheet or a Word table.
Alright. That's it for now. Please "like"
the video, comment – leave comments if you
have any recommendations on
things you would like to hear me
address. I'm happy to to do so. Share the
video with friends of yours who are
non-native English speakers. And please
subscribe to my channel. There are many
more great videos about Advanced English
where this one came from. I'll see you
soon!
