Program Overview

Globalisation has created new demand for Chinese interpreting services to enable knowledge exchange, trade, diplomacy, and business communication. This course is delivered in collaboration with KL Communications Ltd, a top UK interpreting company led by Dr Kevin Lin OBE. It makes you highly employable by giving you advanced skills in consecutive, simultaneous, dialogue, and distance/remote interpreting and in the use of cutting-edge AI language technologies to meet market needs.

Why choose this course

• Taught in collaboration with KL Communications Ltd, whose Managing Director, Dr Kevin Lin OBE, is the Lead Interpreter (Chinese) for the UK government’s Foreign Office, a successful business leader and experienced trainer.
• Based around a strong practical component that responds to the evolving needs of the Chinese interpreting market.
• Encompasses technological innovation reshaping the industry, especially in audio/video-mediated remote interpreting and AI-driven technologies that support interpreting and interpreter preparation (speech technologies and generative AI such as ChaGPT), with the Centre for Translation Studies (CTS) recognised as a leading centre of excellence in interpreting and technology research.
• Provides exceptional opportunities for gaining industry-relevant interpreting experience, training you to be ready for your first conference interpreter job upon graduation.
• Supports internships and career development activities, enabling you to collaborate with language service providers and build a professional engagement portfolio that you can present to future employers.

What you will study
Our course covers the main principles, techniques and professional requirements of interpreting between Chinese and English, preparing you to work as an interpreter in conference, business and political settings.

You will develop skills in all interpreting modes (consecutive, dialogue and simultaneous interpreting, and sight translation) and practice both on-site interpreting and remote/distance interpreting via audio/video link as well as note-taking and public speaking. Guided by Dr Kevin Lin and his team of professional interpreters, alongside experienced academics at Surrey’s Centre for Translation Studies (CTS), you will cover a variety of specialisms (e.g., business, legal, scientific, technical and medical domains), as you develop a solid grounding in the linguistic, cognitive, quality-related, social and ethical dimensions of interpreting.

Uniquely, our course emphasises the integration of cutting-edge technologies into the interpreting workflow, for example, to support the interpreter’s preparation and real-time performance (such as electronic glossaries, digital note-taking, automatic speech recognition, machine translation and generative AI) and the delivery of interpreting services (audio/video-mediated distance/remote interpreting). This provides you with the necessary digital skills to develop a successful interpreting career in a fast-changing world and work environment. The Centre for Translation Studies (CTS)’ leading expertise in interpreting technologies will enable you to integrate different tools effectively and responsibly in your interpreting practice.

Simultaneous interpreting practice takes place in our top-tier interpreting facilities, including two interpreting suites with ISO-standard soundproof booths—identical to those used by major international organisations and connected to videoconferencing platforms for remote interpreting. While our interpreting suites support professional-level practice, our virtual platform supports digital audio and video recording and gives you access to teaching materials and resources to practise.

The Professional Translation Practice module engages students in practical workshops for translating specialised texts, whilst our optional modules allow you to customise your learning experience according to your own strengths, personal interests and career ambitions.