Have you ever seen clips of the EU on the news and seen all the politicians wearing headsets? Well, this is so they can hear their interpreter. But conference interpreting isn’t only used for EU or UN conferences, it can be done in smaller settings too. You might be from a large, multinational company and are having meetings with people who don’t speak the same language. If so, you can have a conference interpreter at any form of international meeting.
Conference interpreting is a lot of work. So take time to prepare well in advance. First of all, you’re going to need at least 2 interpreters per language, as they’ll share a booth. Conference interpreting is extremely hard work. So to ensure the highest quality of service possible, they’ll need to swap around every 15-30 minutes. You’re also going to need to hire specialist equipment. This consists of interpreting booths where the interpreters will sit, microphones that they’ll speak into which will then relay to the visitors’ headsets. If you’re having more than one language, you can also have equipment that makes it possible for attendees to choose which of the many languages they want to list to at the flick of a switch.
Rather than waiting for the speaker to finish and then relaying what the speaker says the interpreters begin translating while the speaker is actually speaking. They have to be highly-trained and very skilled professionals as they don’t have time to think about what they’re going to say, otherwise they’ll get lost. Interpreters work to strict professional ethics and have to keep all their preparation material secret. Often they’ll get access to preparation materials beforehand which are often highly sensitive.
If you’d like more info about our interpreting services, get in touch. And if you’re interested in conference interpreting. why not have a read of our previous blog post about Daniel, who’s Trumps Czech interpreter?