Today the need to satisfy clients and the clients’ growing needs for in the world market has influenced agencies that are looking to stay at the top and grow to become increasingly specialized.

These agencies now work with an endless number of language pairs, their staffs are not just local, but exist in several countries to provide the easiest and most efficient service to guarantee utmost accuracy in translations.

The agencies also have several translation programs and tools, specialized systemsand software, and offer services that go beyond mere translation to include graphic design, localization, and the translation of text, audio, and websites. The employees themselves are now translators specialized in different fields, graphic designers,web designers, and marketing and sales employees.

The ultimate purpose is to try to cover and supply all of the client’s needs, as much as possible, so that they match up well with the internationally competitive market.

To find out how Bilingual Resources Group can support your interpretation, translation and bilingual staffing needs, please call 504-253-0364 or visit www.bilingualcare.com.

Some people believe that as long as they know a foreign language, they could be a translator. This is not the case. This is probably the most common translation misconception and the most damaging one. Being able to speak, read and write in a foreign language does not give anyone a certification to perform good translation work. A translator needs to have an in-depth understanding and knowledge of at least two languages: a foreign language and a mother tongue, but translation is not just know-how, it is a honed skill. You must be able to write well and have an excellent command of the distinction in language use. Language is influenced largely by cultural differences. If the culture behind the language which is being translated is not known and appreciated, an accurate translation is extremely difficult and ideas can be misconstrued very easily.

People also view translation as an easy task. It’s far from easy. It is very complex and involved and takes very hard work to get the job done in a professional manner. Having to simultaneously concentrate on two different languages, whether written or verbalized, is mentally taxing. This is because a translator is continuously moving between the two. A translator must first read and understand source information, then manage to interpret it and present it accurately in the target language to the target audience. This means having an excellent vocabulary and appreciating the language, phrases, metaphors, tone and intention. You could only expect a translator from a reputable business translation service to be knowledgeable in all of these areas.

One can think that we now have the means to utilize computers to do our translating, so why is there a need to pay for professional business translation services? Wow. This would be a terrible mistake and could possibly cost you a client or an important relationship. No translation program will ever be able to take the place of a human translator, especially a qualified one from a good business translation service agency. This is because computers do not understand the inner workings of language and the ever-changing uses. Computers may be able to translate simple sentences but they will never be able to cover the complexities within literature, technical or even medical texts.

Some people and organizations also believe that it is not critical to have a professional translator from a reputable business translation service agency do the job. This is also a misconception and could be very costly. Professional translators may not always be necessary, but if your translation is complex and needs to be prepared and presented perfectly to impress a client, then such an experienced translator is crucial. Bad translations lead to many problems, including people misunderstanding texts which ultimately reflect poorly on a company or organization.

So, think twice before you decide to utilize the computer to translate for you, or an employee who knows another language. Those are important choices in which business relationships rely upon. You want to make a good first impression, especially if it’s a new client and more often than not using a competent business translation service agency will pay off by preventing costly misunderstandings or losses and forwarding an excellent image of your company.

To find out how Bilingual Resources Group can support your interpretation, translation and bilingual staffing needs, please call 504-253-0364 or visit www.bilingualcare.com.

The interpreters are your allies in conveying your message to the audience.
You can help them by following these simple guidelines.

•  If you have a written text or notes for your speech , whether or not you intend following them closely, please make a copy and give it to the conference secretariat for distribution to the interpreters. Interpreters do not simply rely on words, they interpret the meaning and should therefore familiarize themselves with your subject and terminology. You are free to depart from your text or add to it as you go along. Interpreters are bound by professional code of ethics that includes confidentiality, and the content of your document will remain confidential at all times and will be returned to you on request.

•  If you wish to show a film, transparencies or a power point presentation , please make sure that the interpreters receive the script, a copy of the transparencies or of the power point slides. The booths are often situated far away from the screen and it would be helpful if the interpreters had copies of the projected text in front of them.

•  When reading from a script one tends to speed up which means that the audience will find it difficult to follow and, as a result, parts of your message will be lost. If you have not spoken at meetings with interpretation before, it may be advisable to pace your delivery beforehand. Ideally you should allow 3 minutes per page of 40 lines.

•  Before you speak, please make sure your microphone is switched on. Knocking the microphone or blowing into it as a test will merely be amplified in the interpreters’ headphones and cause an unpleasant noise. To test the microphone just say a few words like “Good morning” or “I want to make sure the interpreters can hear me”.

•  Please do not speak too close to the microphone as this creates interference and avoid leaving your receiver set close to the microphone when you speak to prevent feed-back whistling. The technician will be able to advise you on this.

* If you need to move away from your seat , i.e. to point at a slide or transparency projection, please use a neck or lapel microphone . Without a microphone the interpreters cannot hear you, however loud you speak.

* If you are speaking from the rostrum or a lectern and want to reply to questions from the floor, please make sure you have a receiver set with you to follow the questions as they are interpreted. Keep in mind that if the questions are in English, the audience will still need a microphone in order for the interpreters to hear the question and interpret it to the non-English speakers.

To find out how Bilingual Resources Group can support your interpretation, translation and bilingual staffing needs, please call 504-253-0364 or visit www.bilingualcare.com.

To find out how Bilingual Resources Group can support your interpretation, translation and bilingual staffing needs, please call 504-253-0364 or visit www.bilingualcare.com.

Our interpreters are experienced and highly-qualified professionals, but in order to facilitate their stressful job, and thus contribute to the success of your conference, we offer the following suggestions. Experience tells us that following these tips could be the difference between an average to good service and an elegant, extraordinary, standing ovation interpretation that represents you as an experienced and successful organizer:

• Contract a reliable technical equipment company with solid experience in simultaneous interpretation, which is much more demanding in terms of sound quality and fine-tuning than your everyday supplier of audiovisual support. Having specialized to work with interpreters, they will understand details considered unimportant by the average technician, such as positioning the booths to allow interpreters direct eye contact with the speakers, and other details, such as full view of any screens used for projections, and the possibility for interpreters to leave and return to their booths discreetly. Our AV technicians work exclusively with interpreters in multilingual conferences.
• Professional interpreters are completely transparent and, from the audience perspective, their delivery should be as if the speakers were making the presentation in the language of the listeners. When asked by speakers about our work and what to do, we simply tell them to forget about us and proceed as if we did not exist. However, we prefer a very fast speaker and not a slow reader, since reading eliminates inflection, body language and mental process. To achieve transparency, impress upon your speakers the need to speak at reasonable speed, and as far as possible, to avoid reading their entire presentations instead of ad-libbing, because however skilled the interpreters are, some meaning may, literally, be “lost in translation” if they have to rush through a speech being read at unreasonable speed. If the speaker is going to be reading, the interpreters should also have a copy of the material to be read, so that they too may read and provide an accurate onsite interpretation of the written material.

• Although our interpreters are knowledgeable in many fields and have long years of experience, they can never stop reading, researching, studying and learning. Consequently, it is essential for them to receive as much documentation as possible, and this should be early enough before the conference starts. A minimum requirement would be a detailed agenda. Also, any relevant documents being circulated during the conference should be made available immediately to the interpreters. You should designate someone in your organization responsible to provide the chief interpreter with at least one copy per booth of all documents that are to be discussed in the conference.

• Simultaneous interpreters should not work alone for more than 90 minutes, as an absolute maximum. Beyond this lapse of time, concentration, performance, accuracy and overall quality of work decline drastically. Standard practice of the profession is to work in teams of 2 (or even 3) interpreters taking turns every 30 minutes. When an interpreter works for an extended period of time without breaks every 30 minutes, not only quality suffers, but he/she will be exhausted and you are not going to be able to use that interpreter again for the remainder of the day.

• Another standard of the profession is to allow interpreters one full hour for lunch break. While participants may come back to the conference room at whatever time they want and meetings will not always reconvene according to schedule, interpreters must necessarily be in there booths at the time scheduled, so having them stand in long lines for lunch buffets is not the appropriate thing to do.

• 70% of body water is lost through breathing and talking. Interpreters talk all the time throughout the conference and therefore need a permanent supply of drinking water.

To find out how Bilingual Resources Group can support your interpretation, translation and bilingual staffing needs, please call 504-253-0364 or visit www.bilingualcare.com.

If you are a potential customer requiring language services, do you need a translator or an interpreter? Based on your assignment, do you need a consecutive or a simultaneous interpreter? Hopefully, this article will help you answer those questions.

Definitions

Interpretation – Interpretation, or interpreting, is an activity that consists of establishing, either simultaneously or consecutively, oral communications between two or more speakers who are not speaking the same language.

Translation – Translation is an activity comprising the interpretation of the meaning of a text in one language and the production of a new, equivalent text in another language. The final product is called a translation.

Source language (SL) – The SL is the original language of a text or utterance before it is translated or interpreted.

Target language (TL) – The language into which a text is rendered. The language one translates or interprets into is the TL.

Simultaneous interpreting

·First used at the end of World War II during the Nuremberg trials.
·Usually accomplished in pairs with each interpreter taking turns at the microphone every 30 minutes.
·Most international organizations have their interpreters work only into the interpreters’ native tongue.
·Interpreters normally work in soundproof booths, attentively listening to the speaker’s remarks via headphones and following slightly behind in the target language. Decisiveness is paramount. There is no time to weigh the merits of various renditions.
·While some information may be written down (dates, names, important facts), simultaneous interpreters do not take notes as consecutive interpreters do.
·May also be done with the interpreter/audience using portable equipment (microphone and headphones).
·Most suitable for lectures, seminars and conferences and during events at which information generally flows in one direction.

Consecutive interpreting

·The interpreter normally stands alongside the speaker, listening and taking notes as the speech progresses. When the speaker has finished, or comes to a pause (every 1-5 minutes, at the end of every paragraph, end of a complete thought or concept), the interpreter reproduces the message in the target language, in its entirety and as though she were making the original speech.
·Key skills and tools are note taking, aggressive listening and a superior memory.
·Used primarily during meetings, negotiations, dinners, toasts, and during excursions and tours.
·The type of memory used most actively in consecutive interpreting (short-term) differs from that of simultaneous interpreting (long-term), and different note-taking skills are required.

Interpretation and Translation

It is easy to assume that interpretation and translation differ only in the medium: oral or written. However, there can be great differences in training (type, not necessarily the amount), skills and even some personality attributes.

·A translator must write well and express herself superbly in the target language. Ideally, the translator is a native speaker of the target language.
·It is imperative that the translator understands the source language and the culture of its speakers. She does not have to be as verbally fluent in the source language as the interpreter, but she should have a native or near-native comprehension of the meaning and nuance of the source text.
·A translator should have a comprehensive set of dictionaries and reference materials available (as well as have a high level of expertise in using on-line resources). A professional interpreter will also have these resources, but they are more for study and preparation and not for use while actually engaged in interpreting.
·While a translator may specialize in a narrowly focused subject or two, most conference interpreters normally prepare for a wide variety of topics.
·A translator’s work is more methodical and exact.
·All interpreters, but especially consecutive interpreters, should have superior short-term memory.
·An interpreter must have a good voice, excellent public speaking skills and panache. She should feel comfortable in the spotlight. While a simultaneous interpreter’s work is mostly anonymous, when an interpreter makes a major meaning error “in the booth,” an amazing number of people are eager to let her know about it. Consecutive interpreters tend to be more visible, as they usually are standing or sitting beside their principal.
·Professional interpreters and translators comprehensively read and study in the fields they work most often (in the target and source languages).

While translators and interpreters do share a love of languages and certain skill sets, the terms are not synonymous and the activities involved are indeed different.

To find out how Bilingual Resources Group can support your interpretation, translation and bilingual staffing needs, please call 504-253-0364 or visit www.bilingualcare.com.

Misinterpreting Indonesian in the Courtroom

An alleged mistake by an interpreter in an Australian courtroom late last year caused the court to throw out a case at the expense of thousands of dollars to Australian taxpayers. According to The Age, the dispute involved the mistranslation of several Indonesian words as a suspected Indonesian smuggler was testifying in court. The words “did you stop anyone moving” were allegedly translated as “did you push anyone.”

A juror who spoke Indonesian brought the mistranslation to the attention of the judge. After a lengthy debate, the judge declared a mistrial over concerns that the trial and the jury had been tainted by the misunderstanding.

The Importance of Using Professional Interpreters and Translators

The Australian court example illustrates the importance of using professional interpreters and translators in the courtroom. A minor discrepancy in interpretation or translation can lead to serious errors in trials. When the stakes are high, such as in a criminal trial, interpreting errors are even more egregious. An inaccurate interpretation of one word may subject someone to lifelong incarceration or even the death penalty.

If you are in need of legal or court interpreting services, you must make sure you hire a qualified interpreter who can interpret skillfully and accurately.

Qualifications of Linguists in Legal Settings

Although legal interpreting guidelines vary from state to state, many professional and certified linguists have met certain minimum qualifications. Some jurisdictions even have an official code of conduct that court interpreters must follow. These codes reflect not only the skills that interpreters must have, but also how they are expected to act, dress and communicate in court.

Of course, among the most important requirements of an interpreter is the ability toaccurately interpret. Specifically, court interpreters must give the most accurate interpretation of any word despite usage of slang and colloquial language. Interpreters must also be careful to maintain the same tone, inflections and emotions of each speaker to ensure the message is understood correctly. A good interpreter is always aware of cultural expressions and actions of the speakers.

Interpreters must also remain impartial at all times. This means interpreters should avoid unnecessary conversations with other participants in the courtroom.

Specifically in the courtroom, interpreters are expected to maintain the demeanor and professionalism of the setting. They must arrive on time, dress in proper attire and maintain a low profile.

Interpreters may be asked to prepare for cases by reviewing materials such as police reports, indictments and interview transcripts.

Because the job of the interpreter is so crucial to the adjudication of the case, interpreters must inform the court if they are tired or are concerned that their interpretation may decline. Any errors should be collected at once and recorded on the court transcript. If an interpreter is unable to understand the speakers or lacks the vocabulary to accurately interpret the conceptual or technical terms, he or she must withdraw from the case.

By using a professional interpreting agency, however, you can increase your chances of working with an interpreter who has experience working in court and other legal settings.

To find out how Bilingual Resources Group can support your interpretation, translation and bilingual staffing needs, please call 504-253-0364 or visit www.bilingualcare.com.

This is a claim that should be tested, quite frankly, tested with whatever type of translation service company you choose. These recruitment agencies are not focused on the actual language industry but instead are focused on filling a personnel need. This may work for some quick needs even like Google translate works for a quick language translation. However, if accuracy is important for your interpreting service need, then contact an actual language services company, like Bilingual Resources Group, Inc. Bilingual Resources Group, Inc. provides translation services and in-person/phone interpreting services including American Sign Language. Bilingual Resources Group, Inc. understands the nuances of this industry including matching dialect and cultural competency. Contact Bilingual Resources Group, Inc. today and learn more about the quality of our language interpreter services and how they will meet your timeframe, budget, and expectations.

Bilingual Resources Group, Inc.
Tel: (504) 253-0364
Toll Free: (877) 608-4594
Fax: (504) 910-8499
www.bilingualcare.com
www.linkedin.com/in/interpretersneworleans

Our top priority is providing you excellent service.  Feedback regarding our service is always appreciated.