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Even if you don’t know a single word of German, you can probably read and understand the following German text. Did you know that English and German descended from the same language? (Proto-Germanic) Many words in both languages are the same or similar.

A link to this story’s translation will be provided at the end of this article.

* GERMAN STORY *

Guten Tag! Mein Name ist Monika. Ich bin Autorin. Ich habe einen Bruder namens Bob. Bob ist auch Autor. Ich bin Bobs Literaturagentin. Er schreibt interessante Artikel und B

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Interpreters are in great demand in the current global climate. With people from all over the world participating in business meetings, conferences and events, overcoming the language barrier naturally becomes the key to ensuring all attendees contribute and benefit from such occasions. The interpreter is an integral cog in the wheel of cross cultural communication. Knowing how to hire and work with an interpreter is a must for international business personnel.

Hiring an interpreter is the easy part. Most agencies that provide interpreters will only work with qualified and experienced interpreters. In addition, they will ensure an interpreter is familiar with the subject matter, i.e. an interpreter specialising in medicine will not be used in an agricultural conference.

Working with an interpreter offers challenges. Interpreters on the whole have a stressful job. Unlike translators they do not have the luxury of breaks and time to think. Interpreters have to perform ‘live’ and in front of an audience. In order to ensure you get the best out of an interpreter, good communication is necessary.

By way of offering some tips on working with interpreters the following guidelines may be of some use:

1 - Establish and agree ground rules with an interpreter. For example, try and communicate how you want a meeting run, the number of sentences to be translated at a time, the confirmation of jargon or idioms before they are translated, when breaks will be taken and seemingly trivial matters like seating arrangements.

2 - Try and brief an interpreter prior to any face to face meetings. Familiarise them with the whos, whats and whys. If there is any specific terminology to be used ask them if they understand it. If you foresee any tricky issues or tense topics, prepare them for it.

3 - If you plan to give a speech or read from a script, give the interpreter a copy. The more familiar they are with the subject matter, the better a job they will do.

4 - While speaking through an interpreter always engage with your counterpart directly. Even though you cannot understand what is being said, show interest, keep eye contact and remain focused. If you start to converse through an interpreter you lose any chance of building trust, rapport or confidence.

5 - Try and avoid humour. Most interpreters will agree that jokes do not translate well. If you are giving a speech and plan to start it off with a joke, it is advisable to consult the interpreter first to see if they think it will work.

6 - Plan your time carefully. Conversing through an interpreter makes conversations twice as long. For example, if you are making a presentation remember that anything you say will first be translated, so the likelihood is that a one hour presentation will take two. Compensate for this by either cutting down your presentation or speaking in shorter, sharper sentences.

7 - Do not rush. Interpreting is a taxing job and is mentally exhausting. To alleviate the pressure as much as possible, speak slowly and clearly. If you rush the interpreter is more likely to become stressed and the quality of the translation may drop.

8 - Interpersonal communication, by its nature, involves emotion. An interpreter should never translate emotions. If the speaker is annoyed this will be obvious in their body language and tone. Never involve the interpreter at a personal level in any discussions and if you see an interpreter translating your emotions, ask them to stop. The interpreter is there to purely translate what is being said.

9 - Make sure the interpreter is clear that they are never to answer questions on your behalf. Even if the answer is simple, the interpreter should still convey this to you. If an interpreter starts to speak on your behalf, this can have numerous negative consequences such as undermining your position or even losing face.

10 - Ask interpreters not to change or alter what you say even if they think it may cause offense. If you plan to talk about a controversial issue let the interpreter know. Before discussing it with an audience announce that what will be said is not the opinion of the interpreter but your own. This then frees the interpreter of feeling uncomfortable and nervous.

These guidelines should enable you to get the best out of your interpreter and consequently your business meeting, presentation, conference or event.

Neil Payne is Managing Director of Kwintessential Ltd, a Uk based agency providing cross cultural training, translation and interpreting services.
Visit their interpreting service at:
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/translation/interpretation.html

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Star Trek has a wonderful device called the universal translator. It translates spoken and written alien languages into English, and would probably translate different human languages, if there were more than one in that specifically created future. Though it doesn’t know how to translate isolated foreign words like Russian or French, it is a truly marvelous technology. Almost never fails. Never loses power, even when the rest of the ship does, same as the artificial gravity. No moving parts, in fact, no parts at all. It is just ‘around’, always there, always doing its job without anyone having to think about it. A little like the Internet is becoming now, just a banal fact of life.

Sadly, it is based on the false premise that words in other languages have a one for one relationship with words in English. That Turkish doesn’t have two words for ‘know’, and Russian doesn’t have two words for ‘Blue’. It dictates that languages don’t have both an inclusive and an exclusive ‘we’. (We (inclus) = ‘Me, you, and maybe other people’. we (exclus) = ‘Me, and other person or people excluding you’.) There is a false belief that all languages have only singular and plural constructs, and not up to five categories. Some languages have dual as well as singular and plural, and different categories so ‘every computer’ clearly means either ‘every computer in sight’ or it means ‘every computer that exists, has existed, and ever will exist’, but the two forms of ‘every computer’ can’t be confused with each other.

We’ve started building our own ‘universal translators’ which naturally are on the Internet. I can have paragraphs translated into French or German, or from French to German. Or, I can get whole websites in other languages translated for me. I’ve never had a website translated, but I sometimes get phrases translated when I want a fictional character to say something in another language. I sometimes, just for fun, translate something through two other languages and then back into English to see how good online translations are getting. It is also to reassure myself that computers won’t completely replace humans in the next week or two.

This is my standard signature block after a computer has translated it into French (using http://translation2.paralink.com/):

Original English version: Allan T. Price is a creative writer working at M6.Net: ‘The web-hosting company for humans.’ M6.Net is working hard to help humanity experience the power and freedom to develop their own part of the Internet, to share their information and connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Allan T. Le prix est un auteur cr

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