What You Should Pay Attention to in the Case of Relay

Austria, March 2015, interactive training with 6 active languages: It was once again useful to experience that in the case of a relay – i.e. using a third, intermediate language during interpretation – it’s always worth calling the attention of speakers/trainers to have a little break after they have heard an interpreted contribution  prior to  starting with their own remarks. Otherwise the interpreters working from the intermediate language will still be engaged with interpreting, while the trainer has already started with their contribution. And this inevitably leads to interpreters not hearing the first few seconds of the trainer’s remarks. I don’t think I have to go into details what dangers that bears.

 

When are Fully Automated Interpreting Applications About to Come?

According to a recent article in the New York Times Google is soon going to update its Google Translate app for Android devices, which will be able to recognise speech and language in the case of the most popular languages offering a written translation for them. It’s obvious that it won’t take too long until the application will automatically “read” the translation. Skype has already accomplished that step in December 2014: In the case of Spanish and English it’s offering an interpretation service in real-time. Although the conversation is still limping along from time to time and grammatical aspects play just a secondary role – as can be seen in the video within the article – communication is moving on. As an interpreter, however, the real question is, when these applications are about to deliver an acceptable quality during negotiations or on conferences. The Interpreter’s Blog will keep an eye on this issue and is also going to get the opinion of experts and colleagues.

Proford Carnival

Friday, 20/02/15: Upcoming event for language service experts with an excellent opportunity for networking: Proford Carnival.

Interpreter’s Blog: What Makes the Difference?

Let’s start with an example: Interesting and/or entertaining content is vital to all kinds of blogs, otherwise nobody wouldread them. The Interpreter’s Blog, however, would like to convey useful information as well: concrete and palpable information to all the players of the language service providing industry, like what you need to do for conference interpreting to be really smooth and professional. At the end of this article you’ll find a checklist for organisers to help your work.

The Interpreter's Blog Starts

After spending quite some time with preparations, it’s time for me to start the Interpreter’s Blog which will be the first professional blog to highlight useful, interesting and entertaining information in connection with interpreting. However, this leads to the first question: Will the Interpreter's Blog really be the blog the industry has been waiting for? There are already a bunch of blogs dealing with that topic… This is true, of course, but whenever I come across a site dealing with interpreting, I almost always have the feeling that there is something missing. These sites are full of reports and accounts in first person singular and barely contain anyuseful content. the Interpreter’s Blog wants to be different in this regard. How this is going to work out, I will highlight that in the next post.