Translation in action
I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I had worked with translators for the presentations I gave in the Ukraine. I didn’t take any photos at those events myself, but last week I received a few photos from a co-worker who was there, and thought I’d share them to show the details of what I was talking about.
Here’s a photo with all the pieces labeled. The translator sits in the back of the room in a small booth, and he listens to what I’m saying through the PA system, then translates it into a microphone, where the translated version is broadcast to everyone’s earpieces.
Here’s another photo of the same event. I learned after a couple days of this routine to slow way down, and to occasionally pause until the translator had clearly caught up. When you’re chattering away and then you stop and the translator continues talking for a full minute, that’s a clear sign you’ve been going too fast!
My next trip includes a bunch of Spanish-speaking countries, but I’m bringing my own translator/bodyguard with me this time. He happens to be my manager, too.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 at 1:48 pm. You can subscribe to comments on this post through its RSS feed.
on April 24, 2007 at 2:25 pm Tom wrote:
We have been going to various kindergarten orientation things lately, and there’s a large Spanish-speaking population in Evanston now. So they have a guy who doesn’t sit in a booth, he sits out in the open but with a thing he speaks into. It looks almost like a cross between an oxygen mask and a powder horn, and he sits right there and speaks softly into the thing while people in the audience with receivers listen over headphones. I thought it was fascinating (distracting, in fact, as I kept trying to figure out how he could do it so well without being at all audible). But the Spanish-speakers in the room all nodded at the same time as the rest of us (plus five seconds or so), so I assume he was actually talking into the thing.
I wonder how much of the irritation you reported from your translators was in part due to having to sit in a little box for eight hours.
My own experience with being translated comes down to about five minutes in an airport (I was being translated into Mandarin by a very kind traveler at O’Hare who was helping me get an older Chinese couple to their gate), and that was terribly distracting. I can’t imagine eight hours of that — you must spend a lot of energy trying to keep yourself from learning Chinese from translations of yourself. I know I was totally engrossed in what she was saying to them.
on April 25, 2007 at 7:58 am Doug wrote:
Hmm, a cross between an oxygen mask and a powder horn. Sounds fun.