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ranslated more quickly (and more accurately)" (de Groot 1997). Except for the time factor, retrieval of elegant Korean equivalents from long-term memory consumes some part of the cognitive capacity of the interpreter. Another difficulty arises from syntactic difference, as is the case with English into Japanese SI (Gile 1991). What Gile asserted can be applied to English into Korean SI since Korean interpreters have to hold the English verb for some time so as to put it into the Korean syntax, spending a considerable amount of memory capacity. This study examines the following questions: Will the quality of the concurrent listening and speaking portion by the interpreter in SI be poorer than that of the listening only portion? Does the proportion of concurrent listening and speaking by the interpreter affect the total quality of the interpretation in any way? Do the features of SL affect the duration of concurrent listening and speaking by the interpreter? Do interpreters utilize the pause in SL left by the speaker for their SI in order to decrease the proportion of concurrent listening and speaking? Concerning concurrent listening and speaking time, Chernov (1979) reports an average of 70.5% of total speaking time in the SL for the English-Russian combination, with a maximum of 89%. Gerver (1974b) found that some interpreters could listen and speak simultaneously for over 75% of the total input-output time, and were still able to interpret correctly over 85% of the input texts. Gerver (1975) obtained results of 65% of the total time for interpreters working from French to English. None of these studies, however, compare the accuracy of concurrent listening and speaking portions with listening only portions. 2. MATERIALS AND PROCEDURES Thirty actual English into Korean SI audio tapes were chosen to obtain statistically meaningful results. As Gile (1994) pointed out, generalizations will be premature if the study is limited to very small samples of subjects. Among the 30 samples, 18 were paired SI, that is, nine SL were each interpreted by two different interpreters. Those were intentionally included to observe the performance of interpreters under the same SL conditions. The material included a US presidential debate, US President Clinton's inauguration ceremony, live coverage of the Gulf War and speeches from international conferences.[ 1 ]1 The use of "real-life" materials is also important in view of the assertion by Gile's (1994) emphasis on "using experimental materials and conditions as close as possible to field conditions." Eleven professional conference interpreters were involved in the study. Their mother tongue was Korean and English was their strongest passive language. All of them had at least three years of experience. This eliminated the danger of using student interpreters, as Gile (1995) warned "there may be very significant differences in the way professionals, on the one hand, and students or amateur translators/interpreters, on the other, perform I/T tasks." The original English and Korean interpretations were transcribed, and the audio signals were saved for analysis by a personal computer which could measure as small a time segment as 1 millisecond. Two simultaneity ratios were set up: 1) a syllable simultaneity ratio (SSR) and, 2) a time simultaneity ratio (TSR). The SSR, the portion of syllables interpreters both listened and spoke concurrently, was measured by counting the number of syllables in th