Latest / Found in Interpretation Podcast / Ep. 34 - Interpreting vs AI: Jonathan Downie on Ethics, Emotion & the Future of Our Profession

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Ep. 34 - Interpreting vs AI: Jonathan Downie on Ethics, Emotion & the Future of Our Profession · Found in Interpretation Podcast

0:01
Hello, hello and welcome to another episode of found in
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Interpretation podcast once again on one of your Co hosts
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unable at all and I'm here with Brian.
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Brian, how you doing? I'm doing great this morning.
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Thanks for asking. It's been an interesting one.
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I won't, I'll spare you the details.
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Well, we got about an hour here, so and we're also here with
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Doctor Jonathan Downey. How you doing?
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I'm doing great. It's a nice afternoon.
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I had my nice 5K run this morning.
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I'm in good form. All right then, let's kick it.
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Alright, so now we'll start with Doctor Jonathan Downey's bio.
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He's a consultant, conference and church interpreter, French
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and English. He's also a researcher at
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podcaster and an author. And he runs not one but two
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YouTube channels Inside Interpreting and Multilingual
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Church. And he's the Co host of the
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Church Interpreting Podcast. And he has written UH-2 books,
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three, No, no, sorry, 3 traditionally published books.
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So I'm I guess these are physical books and 1 e-book and
1:16
there's maybe a second one coming.
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There as a secondary but coming it's called the doctor Danny and
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Mr. Sticks guide to the future of interpreting should be a very
1:26
soon. I just have some technical stuff
1:28
to do. The initial feedback from the
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beta readers was good so I'm going to be be launching it soon
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and that's basically me. My second book was called
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Interpreters versus Machines. Can interpreters survive in an
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AI dominated world? And so Doctor Daniel, Mr. Stick
1:43
is just me taking that book, doing a whole new update, taking
1:47
it from a fresh perspective and sizing down the debate into
1:51
something a lot smaller and a lot more manageable that you can
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read on a flight to an assignment and hopefully laugh
1:57
and giggle and get you thinking. So what?
2:01
Sorry. Yeah, So what?
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How long ago was the AI 1? Cause like it seems like a
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pretty hot topic now. So there was the Was it written
2:09
along time ago or? It came out in 2019.
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So I wrote it in 2018. It came out in 2019.
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The the lag between writing a book and it coming out is
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something that I wasn't prepared for.
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OK. It kind of feels like it came
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out about four or five years too early.
2:23
Yeah, that that came out in 2019.
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And I was in a conference in Slovakia a few about two years
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ago, and one of the hosts of the conference came up to me and
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said, so how does it feel to be a prophet?
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And it's like, what do you mean? He said.
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Because everything you said would happen in the book has
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happened. And I was like, yes, including
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the stuff I was hoping wouldn't happen.
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Yeah, man. So I actually gave 4 possible
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futures in that book. Whereas in Doctor Daniel missed
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a stick. I can have I I change tackle it
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with because with interpreters versus machines, I had to go
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into the deep things of how does interpreting work?
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How does machine interpreting work?
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In all this would Doctor Daniel missed a stick?
3:02
I can assume that everyone knows here's after they exists, right?
3:05
What we're going to do about it. So do you have a chapter that's
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called told you so? Well, the the the kind of funny
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thing is, is that I do have a chapter in Doctor Danny, Mr.
3:16
Stick, would I quote one of the world's experts on automated
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speech translation, which is the proper name, who says something
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which I am like, yeah, of course.
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Because he's like, you know, none of the system.
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He says none of the systems are currently as good as you, as
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good as humans, and they're foreseeable for the foreseeable
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future. That will stay the same and I'm
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like yes, because the problem. Is the client notice what will
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the client? Notice some have noticed.
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So there have been at least three cases that I've seen where
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clients have gone. We need to go back to humans.
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In fact, there was one of my colleagues recently put on
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LinkedIn that she got an emergency call from a client.
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Oh, sorry, he got an emergency call from a client.
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We've tried using these machines, the meetings going to
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pop. Can you come and rescue the
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second date? Oh my God.
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Wow. And then she told.
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Trouble. Yeah, well, I don't know if it
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charged name your. Price.
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You know, on the mark of the, he said, I mean, yeah, I, I got a
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shortcut to the disparity in different markets, but never
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mind. But the, the problem is, is that
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for information heavy meetings. So where it's just like we're
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briefing you on the latest such and such automated speech
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translation can kind of do OK if you've built the system to work
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properly for that meeting. Anything where you need
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emotions, where you need to check comprehension, where you
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need to be in key with the actual situation, it's gonna
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fall apart. And it's gonna fall apart for
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the reasons I wrote in 2019, for the reasons that people wrote in
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2018, and for the same reasons that people are talking about
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today. The systems aren't built for
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that, and they're built for you hear something, you transcribe
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it, you machine translate that, you send it to speech synthesis.
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It's called the cascade model. In interpreting research, we
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call it the conduit model. I had the video out three weeks
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ago that showed that we've known since the 90s that that cannot
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work and it does not work, and we've known that since 1989.
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Have you seen last week Google released a bunch of products
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regarding AI and Gemini and inside Google Meet, they are
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supposed to do, they call it live translation, but it's
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basically interpretation. I know it's a demo.
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I know it's more like a way to, you know, create some hype
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around their product. And I'm not sure if it really
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works in real life. And sometimes it just crashes
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and burns but. It's.
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From what I've seen, it was quite impressive.
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This time aren't you the bit concerned?
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Or maybe they're using a different path that you did not
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expect before. If they're using the path that
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they were because they've been working on a technology called
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Translator Tron for for as long, which came out as I was writing
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that book, they've been working on that for a while.
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I'm Slater Tron. So translator Tron is what you
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call an end to end model where rather.
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Than going 80s with, you know, Transformers.
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You know, like so translator. Translator drawn well and
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assemble. The the weird thing is, have you
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ever like so take to explain why I'm worried?
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I'm not worried is a good way of putting it.
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Asked all the major eye models some questions to do with stuff
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that I happen to be a specialist at and ask them some specialized
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interpreting questions. If you ask it, you know how many
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interpreters should you have for such and such an event gives you
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a reasonable answer. When I ask you questions about
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my specialism about stuff that I'm top ten in the world at, I
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start to see flaws and really nasty flaws.
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In fact, this year alone I have reviewed 4 academic papers and
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rejected three of them because I could spot AI in them.
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OK. So people are using their stuff
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and the problem is, is that when you don't know what to expect or
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when you have little experience, it looks super convincing.
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So if I ask about engineering or chemistry stuff, I don't know,
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I'll look at the answer and go, that's great.
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But when something happens where you need an expert to be there,
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For example, I tested Microsoft's version, Microsoft
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Translator at a Christian event. But even a half ago and this guy
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was talking about, it was it was an event on multiethnic church.
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And the preacher was talking about this restaurant in his
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town that serves food from like 6 different countries.
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So he said in English, I don't know what on earth they sold
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there. The French said I don't know
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what devil they sold there, which is not what you want to
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say in a church. Yeah, I mentioned the devil in
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churches. So you you have so there are
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systems that will give you there for anything that is good
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enough. So there are some clients who
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just do a thing because they have to.
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Those clients are going to use machines.
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So the ones who are in my PhD, I pointed out that there's three
8:15
different approaches that clients have to interpreting
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incidental interrupting witches. We need this, but we don't value
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it. Those clients are the ones who
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are heading for machines because they just need the thing there.
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Then you have clients who don't really need it physically, but
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they value it may be for political reasons or for
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symbolic reasons. So I did the job at the Scottish
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Parliament where we had 16 interpreters there and no one
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picked up a headset the entire 3 days.
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But having it there was important because it's the
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international somewhat on bloody blah.
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And if you're international, you gotta have interpreters.
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Yeah, and if there aren't any, then you're gonna hear about it.
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Exactly. And so for those clients having
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us, there is a. Like a piece of mind,
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tokenistic, tokenistic piece of. Mind, it's like, you know, and
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you know, it's, it's the tokenism guess you know, people,
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even people who are racist know there's certain stuff that they
9:12
have to do to get stuff through. And so even clients who don't
9:14
care about languages sometimes know we it's politically right
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to have an interpreter here. This escalated quickly.
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Yeah, but they but then you but then you have in these clients
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are when you find them, you know the final clients are the
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integral interpreting clients where the clients come up to the
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end and go we couldn't have done it without you.
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Those clients tend not to want to move to machines because
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they've experienced something and interpreting that they
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realize goes beyond. I got the information the other
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speaker was saying. Which is.
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Which is so, for example, in church, it could be that they've
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noticed that they inherited partnered with them and were
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able to get over something of the message that wasn't just in
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the words. So you know, the emotion, the,
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the connection to it. Or it could be I had one kind.
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Of spirit that is not in the machine.
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Exactly. Or the classic one I was
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interpreting and I have to be careful because this client got
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on TV because the contract I interpreted, I was interpreting
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for a client in the UK and it was kind of 2D sales
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qualification meeting where the buyers coming into their company
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to check they're doing everything as they should.
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Do you know, are there any slaves here?
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Are all the machines up to spec? Are your people happy and stuff?
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You know, are you keeping all the laws?
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And about 3/4 of the way through what was a fairly friendly,
10:40
chatty meeting, because everyone really expected they would get
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signed off, 3/4 of the way through the meeting, they start
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arguing with each other. The French guy is arguing with
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these British people because they seem to be evasive and
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they're not answering his questions and he's getting
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really annoyed. The British company are getting
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really annoyed because the French guy keeps asking the same
11:02
question again and are giving him the same answer.
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What? What will it take to please this
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dude? So eventually they get out of
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the negotiating room. They walked down the hall where
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they're poking at charts on the walls.
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You know, we got to the poking at things with your finger
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partly meeting. And I suddenly have this
11:19
realization that the French guy is saying quality and using it
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to mean the percentage of pieces that come out the factory and
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never need returned. I see.
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The British company is using quality to mean the percentage
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of pieces that have to be returned because they've got a
11:36
flaw in them. So when the British company say
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your are quality is really high, it's 3%.
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The French guys like. And so I go, right, right.
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Hold on, what's going on here? Right.
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So I can't remember what exactly said, but I paused the meeting
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and said in both French and English.
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I believe there's been a misunderstanding explained to
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the two sides. Suddenly, everyone nods.
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They go back to the negotiating room, pull up some Excel sheet
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and within an hour of the contract was signed to to make
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it even. But the British CEO came up to
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me at the end, said we couldn't have done it without you.
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I'm like, I'm glad I was here. Then dropped a bomb on me by
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saying you don't realise this, but I'm a French speaker, he
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said. I understood everything the
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French guy was saying, I just didn't know what it meant, he
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said. You're interpreting helped me
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see what it meant. So he couldn't spot it despite
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the fact he's a bilingual because he's not trained.
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I mean, if you're not an interpreter, you're not trained
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to deeply analyse text. Those clients who go this is
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this is different. They stay and it's the we're so
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trained as interpreters into this invisible thing.
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That's how sit back thing. I'm not going to make a scene
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thing that we are, without meaning to, doing ourselves out
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of a job because we if we want to be invisible, if we want to
13:06
be impartial, if we want to not make a difference, that's what
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Google does. That's what machine translation
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does. A machine interpreting does.
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So we have a choice. Which clients are we going to
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chase? I know some colleagues who love
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the symbolic clients because whether someone listens or not
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is immaterial to them. And it works good for an
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interpreter to say, you know, I've got this somewhat on my CV.
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I know other colleagues who would much rather be there with
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the clients at the factory, in the hospital, in the the lawyers
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meeting off so obviously involved in the event that no
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ones gonna question was there an interpreter there?
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Yeah, but we've got to choose. Yeah, I know.
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Like even like my, my mom shows a medical interpreter for years.
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And yeah, when she retired, I think it was last year, maybe a
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year and a half ago and all the doctors like, Oh no, I can't
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believe we're losing you. Like we like she had that
14:03
relationship with the doctor and with the patient and like, like
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you could tell there was a like an interpreter there, like a
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machine wouldn't have been able to, to, to convey the message.
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Like, you know, like you've got six months to live or you're
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gonna have a boy or a girl. Like, you know, she was there
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for for those moments. And yeah, you can, you can feel
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that attachment. And yeah, I think she was, she
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was going to be missed in that, in that community because of
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that. Now, how do you go from like AI
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and all this stuff to church interpreting?
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That's what I don't wanna. Know the the churches that
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exploding that at the moment I had to write my book
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multilingual church to help them explore it wisely.
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But my first interpreting experience was in charge.
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OK, I was about fifth. Well, my first experience I had
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never seen an interpreter. My my father spoke German,
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French, English and was fluent in Hebrew and Greek from the
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Bible. My mum learned a language
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because she worked in a children's home from us, so she
15:01
learned another language. I grew up with an open house, so
15:04
we would have people from all around the world and all sorts
15:06
of states in our house growing up.
15:08
But then at the age of 15, I go to this Christian youth
15:12
conference in Germany and I'm enjoying being away from home
15:16
and stuff. And I look up and on the stage
15:18
there's a guy standing in the middle and two women standing,
15:21
standing either side. Because, you know, we're three
15:22
guys, but we know 70% of interpreters are female.
15:26
So this guy's preaching with two women either side.
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And I realized that very quickly.
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He was preaching in German. I could, I had enough French
15:34
from school to recognize one of these women was seeing speaking
15:37
French and the other one was speaking English.
15:38
And he would say a sentence and the two interpreters would at
15:42
the same time give their version because they were in speakers at
15:45
different sides of the stage. And I looked at what amazed me
15:49
wasn't just the language skills, but it was the fact that what
15:52
these interpreters were saying was having an emotional effect
15:55
on the people listening. He would tell a story and these
15:58
interpreters would retell and I would go, what's happening is
16:02
that the same emotional forces going to everyone at the same
16:05
time because these people are doing that job.
16:07
And I decided then that's why I want to do roll forward.
16:12
A couple of years later, I interpreted someone story on the
16:15
streets of Brighton in the South of England during another youth
16:17
conference. Then I do my year abroad as part
16:20
of my undergraduate degree in the far north of France and
16:23
Dunkirk and someone taps me on the shoulder three days before
16:28
the European Youth Conference and says, do you want to
16:30
interpret at the youth conference as like, sure, oh, we
16:34
better give you a trial first. The night before the youth
16:38
conference due to start, I get a trial at the church youth group.
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Yeah, you're good enough, you've got the gift.
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And that was that. I did all the French to English.
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I still have the picture over there.
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I did all the French to English on my own on stage for this
16:50
European Youth Conference and that was it.
16:53
I was hooked. And then I did my masters at
16:56
Heriot Watt in Edinburgh. And the weird thing was going
17:00
from church interpreting, which is quite the expect you to be
17:04
physically involved in a lot of churches, that youth conference
17:07
the first time interrupted the they were giving it a prize.
17:10
The first person on stage, I was between the person and the the
17:13
speaker. So I go flying backwards while
17:16
still holding the mic. Of course, I'm a professional,
17:21
but I go from that to, right, let's train you so that you can
17:25
do the EU exam. And I was like, nothing in my
17:28
interpreting practice prepared me for a policy development in
17:33
the European Union. And I'm like, this is not the
17:35
world that I trained in to, to go from, you know, people
17:39
laughing and crying and shouting.
17:42
And then it's like the 15th of July 1977, we concluded the
17:47
conveyor and it's like, what the earth?
17:52
So, so I, I kind of feel like I'm too interruption in one
17:56
person. So like, you know, last week,
17:58
was it last week? Yeah, Last week I was doing
18:02
assignments on um a prize given for a company who makes some
18:07
personal products and international mining
18:09
regulations. And then on Sunday and then on
18:13
the that was two weeks ago, I was like some personal product
18:17
international mining regulations in on Sunday I was doing a
18:19
church service on finances and like my interpreting assignment
18:23
could not get more different right now.
18:26
Yeah, no kidding. Say OK and and I tell people the
18:32
church interesting teaches you flexibility because I have had
18:35
weeks where one week we're doing a sermon based on a film The
18:41
Great Showman. I found one to do with the
18:45
circus and the next week we're doing a segment on getting
18:48
another pornography that you learn to be flexible.
18:52
Yeah, I bet. Have you interpreted for the
18:56
Pope yet? No, see, I'm in the Protestant
19:00
charismatic. Tradition.
19:02
The Protestant. But it would be interesting to
19:04
interpret for the Pope, I must admit.
19:09
I must admit, I tell people that my job is keeping English
19:12
speakers out of trouble. Uh huh.
19:14
Because anyone who's interpreted for See, Canadian people tend
19:18
not to get into trouble that much.
19:21
But Brits, Americans and South Africans, British, American and
19:26
South African preachers are known for saying stuff.
19:29
I mean a lot of them are fine but you get the odd one and you
19:31
go OK that works great in your culture.
19:37
An example like Scott, British speakers are known for doing
19:42
like hyper localised illustrations in their talks.
19:45
And I'm like, I'm going to have to explain what the Old Firm are
19:48
now. Every conference in Edinburgh
19:53
ends with a clean and I'm like, I'm gonna have to say what the
19:56
chili is in French for the 90th time.
19:58
No problem. Wow.
20:03
So I've done, I've done church services before and I found like
20:06
the most useful thing is to get the the Bible readings ahead of
20:10
time because there are nothing alike.
20:12
And the 2 languages like if you try translating it like no,
20:16
forget about it. You don't have to go.
20:18
Hard. Well, you also have to know the
20:20
equivalent translation. So there are really only two
20:22
translations that I see a lot in French churches are.
20:26
Yet one of my favorite English Bible translations is called The
20:29
Message where the guy I wrote to him, I wrote to the translator
20:32
not long before he died and I said it's the first Bible
20:35
translation that I've seen up till that point.
20:38
That was his whole approach was so much like the way I was
20:41
taught to translate at university and I'm like, this is
20:46
so it's called the message. And what he did was, if you've
20:49
done any translation theory, the guy looked at his church and
20:52
went, I'm going to write a translation brief first before I
20:55
start translating the Bible. And I'm translating it for these
20:58
people in this church who have this issue.
21:01
And I'm like, that sounds like I was a I did translation for four
21:05
years before I realised that I talk too much and.
21:08
It wasn't translating the whole Bible, he was translating
21:10
segments that were supposed to. Make the whole thing though.
21:14
He did the New Testament first, then he did the Old Testament.
21:18
The OG of localization right there.
21:22
His his name is name was Eugene Peterson.
21:24
He was a theologian, a pastor and a Bible translator.
21:27
Did the whole thing and I was amazed because when you read his
21:31
preface, I've gone into reading Bible translation prefaces
21:34
because I've got a video coming out and Bible translation soon.
21:37
And when you read test preface, it reads like the I really,
21:41
really good translation brief like we would get from a like we
21:43
would get like I used to get from good clients rather than
21:46
just can you translate this by tomorrow when you got a really
21:49
good clients who said, you know, this is going on such and such a
21:51
magazine which is aimed at such and such a market.
21:54
We need to follow such and such a high style.
21:56
And I'm like, that makes the job easier.
21:59
And you're reducing Peterson's met the preface to the message,
22:02
and you go, you know what a translation brief is, You know
22:07
what attuning stuff to an audience is.
22:10
And that's what you've done. And I'm like, Are you sure you
22:14
didn't do a masters in translation before you did this?
22:16
Because it like literally any of my profs could have written that
22:21
preface and I'm like, whoa, that's good.
22:23
And I it's just a really lovely to read translation.
22:26
But can you, can you give me a concrete example?
22:29
Because now I've read the Bible both have both in French, both
22:32
and in English. And I also read sometimes some
22:35
simplified version. I read the King James Version
22:38
and I went through several of these versions.
22:40
But when you're talking about, you seem to be talking more
22:43
about a localized version of. The can you give me one?
22:48
More concrete example. There we go, there we go.
22:53
It's getting real, right? Now always have a big share of
22:55
next year this so the the the theologians call it a paraphrase
22:59
and then I look at them like this because all translation is
23:03
paraphrased. But if I grab like the most well
23:06
known passage like John 316 can't believe I'm reading the
23:08
Bible in a podcast and it's not even mine.
23:12
John 316, um, you know, the usual John 316 for God so love
23:15
the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever
23:17
believes in him would never perish but have eternal life.
23:20
It doesn't. Even just came into my head.
23:23
There's no verse numbers in this so I'm gonna find let's see if I
23:26
can find it. So he did.
23:29
This is how much God loved the world.
23:30
He gave his son his one and only son and This is why, so that no
23:34
one needs to be destroyed by believing in him.
23:37
Anyone can have a whole and lasting life.
23:41
So he's taking. So my dad died when I was 17,
23:45
and then they said New Testament came out not long before my dad
23:48
died. And my dad said he's taking
23:51
what's there in the Greek and what's implied in the Greek and
23:55
going, well, how would English naturally imply that?
24:00
Most Bible translations now in English, certainly there's been
24:03
a few new ones that have changed things a bit.
24:06
But most people translations in English either say, how can we
24:09
get as close to the original Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic
24:12
word thing as we can? Or they go down a slightly
24:16
different route and go and they try to do something like the
24:19
message, but they don't go as far as that.
24:22
And so I've been, I've got my Bible translation video, which
24:25
I'm recording this week, is explaining how theologians talk
24:28
about different types of equivalents when actually we
24:31
should be talking about audiences.
24:33
And Eugene Peter Wilson was the first one to go.
24:36
I've got an audience in mind and I'm going to write in their
24:39
language. Most Bible translations will say
24:42
this is for general use or this is for study.
24:44
And so they're trying to meet a really wide audience.
24:47
That's the difference between if you do remote interpreting and
24:51
you don't know who's going to be there.
24:52
So like often I'll interpret in church, I don't know who's
24:54
listening, and the people listening probably aren't even
24:56
in the same place as the church. So I can't then customize my
25:01
interpreting to those people with as if I'm in person.
25:06
If it's like my own church or if it's a church, I know my
25:09
interrupting is going to sound in French like they're, they're
25:12
used to French preacher sounding because I know how those guys
25:15
sound and I'm going to make my interpreting sound like that
25:18
because that's what I'm there to do.
25:20
This shouldn't. The only time that I agree with
25:23
the invisibility thing is they should see no difference between
25:27
what they hear when I interpret and what they hear next Sunday
25:30
when someone reaches in French. Yeah, I feel like I have that
25:34
advantage in in a sense for Spanish because I grew up in
25:38
South America for about 12 years.
25:39
Yeah, in Venezuela, Chile, Peru, and my moms originally from
25:43
Mexico. So like there's all these
25:45
different dialects and stuff and like, you know, like you don't
25:48
this this country doesn't use this word, but this country
25:50
does. So you gotta see who your client
25:52
tell is that's listening to you to make sure you're using the
25:54
right word. But even with like French from
25:57
Quebec and French from France, like there's some words that
25:59
don't exist in either one or like, you know, they don't use
26:03
them like even just like something simple like a
26:05
watermelon like you say and blah.
26:09
Which is in antiqua. For watermelon.
26:12
Aminado. Yeah, Milando, whereas in France
26:16
it's past that, right? Yeah, sorry, no, but yeah, I was
26:19
thinking not watermelon yet. I was thinking pomegranate cuz
26:23
I. Pomegranate, yeah.
26:25
Cuz I got I was I was trying to show people why automatic speech
26:31
translation doesn't work. And so the reason why I have
26:33
grenade in my head is I I went to Google Translate and said
26:37
it's only grandad thinking, you know, imagine you're taking the
26:40
centre supermarket and Google Translate if you see so many,
26:43
Clannad says. We have the grenades.
26:47
Unless. You, I thought it was gonna say,
26:49
I thought you were going to say that.
26:51
Suddenly Google Translate put a warning and said this goes too
26:53
violent, but I'm not gonna do it.
26:55
Yeah, well, the the funniest one is if you see if you see soda on
26:59
Monji de Kanad, it says the soldiers ate the grenades.
27:03
Oh my goodness. And it's why I say to people,
27:07
detect it. This taste is explosive.
27:11
But how many, how many little things that come up in a dialect
27:17
or in I've not even tested it in the Scots where the Scottish
27:21
dialect where I grew up, because I know what would happen.
27:23
Well, it recognise it. Just joking.
27:26
I mean, I mean I my wife is English and whenever I.
27:29
Wanted the same thing about like Quebecois.
27:31
Yeah, or strong accents in general, like yeah, how does
27:33
they I deal with that like. It's only just now.
27:36
So, you know, you get those phone lines where you have to
27:38
see something down the phone. Yeah, I used to pass them to my
27:41
wife because she's English and get her to say the thing.
27:44
And then I could take the. But, you know, there's a joke in
27:48
my e-book which just came out, which is called interpreting
27:51
wit. And it's just, it's like an
27:53
interpreter joke book. And I said, you know, you know,
27:55
you're a Scottish interpreter where every time you said
27:58
something in class when you were training, everyone thought it
28:01
was difficult. Accent date.
28:05
But it's like, it's like, Jonathan, you can't do a speech
28:08
until you can't do a speech in class until January, because in
28:10
January we work on accents. And then it comes in handy
28:16
because you interpret for fishermen who are from the north
28:18
of Scotland. And it's yeah, fine.
28:20
Yeah, alright. But yeah, it's.
28:23
But do you have, since you deal with an international audience,
28:26
If I, I made, I guess a little bit here, but when it comes to
28:30
the accent, in my case, if I had to use my regular strong
28:36
Quebecois accent, when I do my interpretation, I it depends on
28:41
who the target audience is, but some clients might actually
28:44
either complain or not understand what I'm saying.
28:46
So I have to level my French up to a certain standard without,
28:53
you know, trying to mimic the the French from France.
28:55
Quite obviously it would just sound ridiculous.
28:58
But do you have to do the same thing to pull up?
29:02
Get away a bit from your natural Scottish accent?
29:06
People, I'm a Team Scott because my mum's English and my raves
29:10
English. But I do have, I have learned.
29:13
So the last client to complain was Canadian Canadians
29:17
complaining about anything. That's really weird.
29:19
That they apologize after. They actually did.
29:23
They did. For the entire meeting, no one
29:27
said A and I'm like from you guys.
29:29
So I, I have, I can, I can smooth it out if I need to.
29:34
But what I found is that with some speakers they are so quick
29:39
that being from the West of Scotland helps because my run
29:43
the only Quebec where people have managed to outpace me.
29:46
I used to say to people I'm from the West of Scotland, there is
29:48
not a speaker alive who can outpace me.
29:51
Then I entered for engineers from Quebec.
29:54
I saw. All right, you went but but it
30:00
it's a it's a we have debates in Europe about should interrupt
30:04
us. Get rid of their accent.
30:05
Well, one linguistic you linguistically you can do
30:08
nothing. You always have an accent, even
30:11
if it's supposedly the general one.
30:13
Yeah, nobody has No. One, no one has no accent.
30:16
And the other thing is, is that we have to be careful because
30:20
increasingly in meetings I've noticed that you're getting
30:23
people from different backgrounds who are speaking in
30:25
meetings. It would sound very strange if
30:28
someone who's very clearly saved from Yorkshire in the UK speaks
30:33
and the interpreter interprets them into a French that makes
30:36
them sound as if they went to the Sorbonne.
30:38
It there would be an obvious mismatch there.
30:41
Hmm. And I think especially when
30:44
we're talking about, you know, equality, especially we're
30:47
talking about hearing new voices, I think maybe an
30:50
interpreting, we need to understand it.
30:52
Depending on the assignment, having an interpreter whose
30:55
sounds a little bit different can be an advantage.
31:00
Certainly when I've done their fisheries policy, when the
31:03
fishermen are from the North East of Scotland and you have a
31:06
Scottish interpreter, it just sounds right.
31:10
And that the the French fishermen were from the north of
31:13
France. So I had to be careful that my
31:15
French accent didn't become too strong because I could have
31:18
quite easily mimicked them. Yeah, but it's, you know, you
31:22
probably wouldn't invite me to, to, you know, the, the British
31:26
Prime Minister at the, at the UK Parliament.
31:29
But I've worked in the Scottish Parliament several times.
31:32
It depends. It's OK to say it depends on
31:35
what the client is looking for. You know?
31:37
I shouldn't be interpreting rap. Just not a good idea and you
31:44
also don't want me doing anything medical because I think
31:46
that this at the sight of blood. So there there are certain
31:48
things I can go, no? Just back in fashion rap at all.
31:52
So like, forget about interpreting rap.
31:55
I did do it interrupting rap once which is still on YouTube.
31:58
Sweet. Link in the description below.
32:02
Yes, it's so at the end, says one of the shorts on the Inside
32:05
and Everything Channel. Because interpreters know that
32:09
our job is not just passing on information.
32:13
And yet, when we. Talk to clients knows as well.
32:16
It's our job to help them know. A good point.
32:21
You had I I saw your latest episode was one of my research.
32:24
He heroes every director and every April's book like she's
32:30
only written one book and it was an absolute 22.
32:33
It's difficult to explain how big a deal this was in research
32:37
and how. Big is the average, the average
32:39
tower, not like. Difficult to explain how much of
32:44
A how controversial it was when it came out.
32:47
Why like a literary mic drop which is like 1 and done?
32:52
Here we go. And what was that?
32:55
It was 2004. It came out changed my I, I find
32:59
that the library changed my PhD. It's not the most readable book
33:03
for interpreters, but for researchers, you, you read it
33:06
and your eyebrow, just crawl for them further up your forehead.
33:09
And one of the points she makes is that interpreters in public
33:13
talk about accuracy, impartiality, professionalism.
33:18
You get them chatting and they will talk about that time when
33:21
we didn't say something because we knew people already knew it
33:24
and we needed to save the space to do something else.
33:27
That time we put an explanation in.
33:28
That time we got a client out of trouble.
33:30
That time that we strategically reordered stuff so that people
33:34
would be able to understand it. And she said, you know, why in
33:39
public are we basically robots? And yet every interpreter has
33:44
that story, has at least one story of yeah, I was
33:48
interpreting and I needed to do this because yeah, I was
33:50
interpreting. And I made a difference doing
33:52
this because. The constant choices we have to
33:55
make. All those we never thought so.
33:57
Inside Interpreting is my main YouTube channel.
34:00
I do a lot of humor in the shorts, but also I'm trying to
34:04
do more stuff there to explain interpreting is not about
34:08
passing on information. My most recent video was with
34:11
Cynthia Roy and Graham Turner, both of whom are amazing people
34:14
to interview. And in 1989, Cynthia Roy is
34:18
doing her PhD. Everyone in researchers talking
34:21
about, you know, analyzing interpreter errors and mistakes
34:25
and how does the interpreters brain work and how does
34:27
information go from here to here?
34:29
And she records a meeting between a deaf student, a
34:36
heating professor and the sign language interpreter who was
34:39
there in the in the meeting. And it's an interpretive
34:42
meeting. And at one point the sign
34:43
language interpreter signals to the the definition to stop,
34:48
interprets what the professor saying, and then comes back and
34:51
she's like, that's she'd seen stuff in her own practice about
34:55
like that was like, what's going on interviews the student and
34:59
the professor afterwards. And the student said, I'm so
35:01
glad the interpreter did that because I needed to hear what
35:05
the professor was saying and I wasn't going to be able to focus
35:07
if I was still signing the interface to use their judgment
35:11
to make sure that I was getting what I needed to out of this
35:14
meeting. And she analysed that and, and
35:17
wrote her PhD and wrote her first book out of it.
35:21
And from 1989 on, researchers then knew interpreting is not
35:25
about passing on information. And I can like, I can literally
35:27
name you book after book, article after article that said
35:31
that. And then my first book, which is
35:33
not on the screen right now, pointed out we've not been
35:37
listening. And so I wrote, being a
35:39
successful interpreter in the 1st chapter is basically going
35:43
over a bunch of that research. But are you telling me that?
35:46
Before that we basically, sorry to interrupt, but there are you
35:51
saying that before her book people didn't realize that we're
35:59
always basically prioritizing information and making some
36:03
choices? That seems pretty obvious to me.
36:06
So in research until 1989, any change in the information
36:12
content of what was said was read as an error.
36:16
And interpreter training until the early 2000s was based on
36:21
accuracy, impartiality and not adding or emitting.
36:27
In the early 2000s when the especially from conference
36:30
interpreting, when conference interpreting starts realising
36:33
that stuff applies to us too. Now in any good interpreter
36:37
training university, they will at least at some point talk
36:42
about decision making. At some point they'll talk about
36:44
prioritizing information. At some point they'll talk about
36:47
managing your cognitive load. The cognitive load stuff was is
36:51
a lot older, but and it's only like Daniels, you started talked
36:56
about balancing your cognitive load and even he's talking about
36:58
information. It's when the guys from
37:01
community and the researchers from community interpreting and
37:04
public service interpreting, legal interpreting showed what
37:07
this looked like and then every delicate in shade less than
37:10
showed what it looked like in conference interpreting words
37:13
and beaten talked about interpreters adjusting their
37:16
output to more suit their context.
37:20
Suddenly people go hold on a minute and and this this is like
37:27
the my middle book, Interpreters versus Machines.
37:31
I argued that until we are prepared to talk that way to
37:34
clients, clients can't tell the difference between us and
37:38
machines without us saying to them this is what we're doing on
37:42
an average assignment, you know, a standard assignment.
37:45
We're going. We're doing all of our
37:48
interpreting stuff. We're watching for signs of
37:50
comprehension or lack of comprehension.
37:53
We're balancing the information would we're deciding what
37:56
information to prioritise, we're working out what intonation does
38:00
that have to go in? OK, they've used that term on
38:03
the stage. I'm going to use that term next
38:04
time that comes up. We're doing all of that.
38:07
Hebrew was talking about that because she was talking about
38:09
making the invisible interpreter visible with all of the things
38:15
that you just explained that. There that I could.
38:19
But in your book, do you make a comparison on the result?
38:22
Because, you know, we can talk among ourselves and say, you
38:24
know what? This is what happens with our
38:26
process. But ultimately for the client,
38:28
what matters is the result. So it was is are there any
38:33
comparisons out there where you're saying, you know what,
38:35
the humans made that choice. It was right for this reason and
38:39
and in the same situation with the same speech, the machine did
38:42
that. And that's what that that's why
38:44
there was an error. There's a the SO you've hit on a
38:51
very painful subject more I am not aware of any machine
38:57
interpreting supplier who's ever been happy for a live unedited
39:03
human machine comparison. I've offered it for about four
39:05
years. No one's taken me up.
39:09
I do know that there was a video from Wired with Barry Olson and
39:12
that other interpreter who tested the Kudo system.
39:17
Videos are edited. I was impressed by some of what
39:21
the Kudos system did, and I could have predicted what Barry
39:24
and the other interpreter were going to say in their analysis.
39:26
Because once you know how the magic trick is done, you know
39:30
the limits of the trick. What I find is really effective
39:34
is actually storytelling. So most of the stuff in my
39:38
second book, I'm telling stories.
39:39
I tell that story about, you know, the the company where
39:42
quality was was they they didn't they were talking about the same
39:46
words from different perspectives and some other
39:47
stories in there in multilingual church.
39:50
I've got some stories, and if we tell stories about choice and
39:53
about where the strict way that we would normally say this is
39:59
this. But in this case, we knew the
40:03
right thing to do was this. And we can even, I mean, we can,
40:09
we're free to test it, grab Google Translate or something
40:12
and just say the sentence and see what it comes up with and
40:14
go, yeah. But when I did it, I said this
40:16
because the problem is, is that the way that machine
40:21
interpreting systems are evaluated at the moment have to
40:24
be careful because I got an article out on this article
40:27
coming out on this. The way that they're being
40:29
evaluated at the moment is using tests that are known to be
40:33
flawed. Huh.
40:36
We we've known the flood for a while now.
40:39
That's almost like manipulating statistics, basically.
40:43
It's noise, it's not there to be fair then not manipulating the
40:47
statistics, but it would be like I'm trying to think of an
40:51
example. It's a widely used test called
40:54
the blue test called blue. Blue is used.
40:57
Machine translation is used in evaluation across the board, but
41:01
it's not very good. But that's what people used to
41:03
using, so they use it. Flu test.
41:06
Blue Bleu and to explain how blue works are really simple.
41:11
You get a translation that you know is good and you get your
41:17
machine translation version because by the way, to test most
41:20
machine, most but not all machine interpreting tests are
41:23
done assuming it was a translation.
41:25
The the intonation stuff, the test for that exist.
41:28
Again, can't give too much detail.
41:30
I've got an academic article that is coming out soon, but
41:33
Blue takes a translation that you know is right versus the
41:37
translation that you've got from the machine and compares it one
41:42
word at a time, 2 words at a time, 3 words at a time, and
41:45
just asks how mathematically similar are they?
41:48
Huh. No, he isn't.
41:51
Mathematically. Mathematically, yeah.
41:53
So it will give you a score that's measuring how similar is
41:56
the wording of this translation to this one, and gives you a
41:59
number of points based on how similar the word things are.
42:01
OK. Sounds like it works until you
42:03
ask the question. Well, what if the new
42:05
translation is aimed at a different audience than the
42:08
previous one? Because of the localization
42:10
aspect. This so you do that with an
42:13
interpreting system and you even if you were to compare it to
42:16
known good interpreting, so you get, you know, some speech from
42:19
the UN and you you hold it back when you're training the system.
42:22
Then you test it and you say how similar are these two speeches?
42:26
OK, one the same speeches really given twice, and we as
42:33
interpreters know it's never given to the same audience
42:35
twice. Yeah.
42:37
So legitimately speaking and are you an interpreter could take a
42:41
speech that's given to plenary session and interpret it
42:44
completely differently when it's being given to to another kind
42:47
of conference because the audience is different.
42:49
So of course you're going to different.
42:51
Yeah. But if you're testing using
42:54
blue, you've just, you've got a lower score the second time,
43:01
huh? So that it knows it's a whole
43:04
lot more which will come out in the article.
43:06
And and that much I can say cause that issue is known that
43:10
that that's a known issue. So there, when is the rabbit
43:13
coming out of the hat? Right now we can only see the
43:15
ears coming out of the hands. When is the rest of it coming
43:17
up? I am waiting.
43:19
OK. I am waiting for two things for
43:24
the first liability case to hit the corpse.
43:29
OK, because people are talking about using machine interpreting
43:33
and legal interpreting in a medical interpreting.
43:36
At some point someone's going to get sued, and then they're gonna
43:41
read the terms and conditions and find out that most machine
43:43
interpreting terms and conditions disclaim any
43:45
liability. Not maybe not all, but I'm all
43:50
the ones I've checked. And the second thing I'm waiting
43:54
for is for a company to lose money.
43:58
But on the other hand, I have to say something that it's I cannot
44:04
honestly, intellectually say machine interpreting as useless.
44:09
Yeah, no. Because because there are
44:11
situations where it's the right thing to do.
44:12
So I, I say in multilingual church, if your church has, has
44:16
like no cash and you need interpreting and you don't know
44:20
where to find them, it's there. If I came across someone was
44:26
talking to me about a church where they're next to an asylum
44:28
centre, where the language profile of people in their
44:32
church changes every Sunday, then OK, go for machines.
44:37
Yeah, although like the machine, isn't that less expensive than
44:42
interpreters? Like if you think about all the
44:44
stuff that you have to do in order to just provide it.
44:47
No, yeah. And so like there, there's so
44:53
much with machine interpreting, there's so much going on.
44:55
There's the the systems are getting better depending on how
44:59
you measure better. That's a whole conversation, you
45:02
and tariffs and quality is a whole thing.
45:04
When I was doing my PhD, my senior supervisor said don't
45:06
touch interaction quality. Then you have are we ready for
45:12
some of our clients to take them and for us to be able to say in
45:16
certain cases, OK, on you go. And the third thing is, well,
45:23
how do we justify to anyone that they should still use us even
45:26
now? How do we justify that?
45:29
And the only justification that I've seen that ever works is we
45:33
are better than the machines at a specific number of things that
45:37
matter to you in this meeting. But we're not good at marking
45:41
ourselves as well as the machines are.
45:45
Chapter 4 and verse machines is called How we messed up her own
45:50
PR. Yeah, you can add me as a
45:52
coauthor. I mean, it's, it's, it's
45:57
literally annoying. Here we go.
46:00
We're gonna pencil it in. Pencil my name in in chapter 4.
46:05
You, you, you can still buy. It's gonna be backwards on the
46:07
screen now. You can still buy this chapter,
46:10
chapter 3, Chapter 4 and the the publisher of me the correct
46:13
answer. But chapter 3, Chapter 4 is how
46:15
we direct our own PR and This is why.
46:20
So a few months ago I launched a challenge and I said to
46:24
interpreters, look, I know you have a video camera because you
46:27
have a smartphone. I know you have a sense of
46:30
humour because no one lasts very long as an interpreter without a
46:33
sense of humor. True.
46:35
So grab a smartphone, think of something funny to do with
46:39
interpreting. It could be like, you know, I
46:42
did a skit where it was a client saying, you know, how come you
46:45
need documents before you interpret?
46:47
Don't you already know all the words?
46:50
And I just did it a kind of comedy skit based on that.
46:52
And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
46:54
We, we we know. We know lots of words.
46:55
We know all the best words. But imagine that you had to do a
46:59
speech on nuclear power and then three years later, you had to do
47:02
a speech on manufacturing. And then tours after that, you
47:05
had to go go and do a speech on healthcare.
47:08
Would you have to prepare for that?
47:09
Yeah, that's what we do for a living.
47:12
OHS. So scripting stuff like that,
47:15
which is gentle humour, Yeah. And I said to interpreters, you
47:19
can do this as short as a maximum of 60 seconds.
47:22
You have a camera, you, you have creativity, you have a sense of
47:27
humour. Find something that's funny.
47:30
So I, you know, I'm, I did the whole thing of the, the, the
47:34
real drawback of remote interpreting is whenever I used
47:37
to interpret in person, it would be in these conference venues
47:40
and hotels. And just before tea time, they
47:45
would have to, to wheel away the breakfast cart with all the
47:48
pastry on it. And I became quite good at just
47:50
opening the booth door and going like when you do remote work, no
47:56
one ever gives you a free pastry.
47:58
So that the whole like remote and everything set up and had an
48:00
empty plate and it's like no pastry on that plate.
48:03
No. What happened?
48:04
But we have all these stuff that that we can, that we can Joker.
48:09
You don't have to. I mean, you shouldn't say
48:13
anything about specific clients. You know, no one needs to know
48:16
Bob's own. So went to the hospital for
48:18
such. You don't need to do that.
48:19
But there are general interpreting things that we can
48:22
find funny and the clients find funny.
48:25
And I got an e-mail few months ago, I had done a that that one
48:31
on preparation about, you know why interpreters need prep.
48:34
Got an e-mail from someone seeing him, you know you did
48:38
that that silly shirt, that funny short on why do we need
48:41
preparations? Yes, but what you don't know is
48:44
I interpret in the church in the past are always used to say, you
48:46
know, if you're good enough, you could do it without notice.
48:49
And I sent the pastor your video and the next week I got all the
48:53
notes and it's like our client education was in PR have been so
49:00
awful that doing something funny about, you know, why don't
49:04
terrorists tell people? The one I want to do is why do
49:06
we tell people never to tap the microphone?
49:09
Oh my God, yeah. And it's like because there was
49:13
once an assignment where the speaker went to tap them out,
49:17
test the microphone, whispered into the microphone, thought it
49:21
was off. In the meantime, in the like
49:24
second between them whispering, we all turn their volumes up
49:27
because we think they might slow.
49:31
Right now yours is this thing on.
49:37
So you know that you, you know that works.
49:41
Yeah. And everyone's had.
49:43
And it doesn't matter if like some of us do the same skit or
49:46
someone do skill and similar things.
49:48
We can fix our PR with a smartphone and a bit of
49:52
imagination. And I got the idea from a guy
49:55
called Doctor Gluck Inflect and Will Flannery.
49:57
He's an ophthalmologist in the UX and has now got like 10
50:01
million TikTok followers and so many YouTube followers because
50:04
he does comedy on what it's like to be a doctor in the US.
50:09
And suddenly people are going, I didn't realize this was.
50:11
And there he's doing that and raising awareness and changing
50:14
how people see stuff. And I'm like, well, we're good
50:18
at language and we're kind of funny.
50:21
Every interrupt that I know is really funny in every way
50:25
possible. Why can't we and I keep seeing
50:29
the interpreters just do the thing, Grab your camera.
50:34
And so if you're listening to this podcast, grab your camera
50:37
and think, what's the daftest thing that happened to me as an
50:39
interpreter? And if you want to do a skit,
50:42
you just record one side of the conversation, then the other
50:45
Intercut on any video software you like.
50:48
There's a thing called YouTube Create.
50:49
You can download YouTube's own video editing software that goes
50:52
on your phone, blah, blah, blah. And it's about half an hour all
50:56
in. Find half an hour come up with a
50:59
daft idea and throw it on his YouTube shop and you'd be amazed
51:04
one how many people watch these things to the comments that you
51:07
get and you never know one day you might get a client phone up
51:11
and said I saw your short on why I shouldn't tap the mic.
51:14
I've stopped tapping the make now, kind of.
51:18
The other, the other way people. The other way people could do it
51:21
is just tuning in and found an interpretation.
51:26
But yeah, shameless plug right there.
51:29
But you guys are taking up so when troublesome terps came out,
51:33
I don't wanna look when trouble sometimes came here make me feel
51:35
very old when troubles in terms of started a while back, um, we
51:40
fulfilling the gap and that we were primarily primarily the
51:43
podcast for interpreters and occasionally it would filter
51:47
out. Well, now you guys are on
51:49
YouTube, you can be the podcast for anyone around interrupting
51:53
because we're good at talking to ourselves.
51:56
Like I can talk to any interpreter in the world about,
51:58
you know, what's your favorite console make?
52:00
What headset are you wearing? I'm still care but you start
52:05
talking to people when a podcast about the daftest thing that
52:09
happened to you while interpreting the clients goal.
52:12
I thought you just turned the box all day.
52:15
What's what's this I hear about? It's like, you know, that the
52:18
job in a nuclear power plant once now I was really difficult
52:21
because they said don't touch anything and there was a button
52:23
that was flashing and, and I'm I, I'm a 41 year old male.
52:27
I am like hardwired that if a button is flashing I have to
52:31
poke. It Yeah, actually it says press
52:34
this button. In the control room, what if
52:39
alive live nuclear reactors, it's hard to see all these
52:43
buttons flashing and I'm like bitches.
52:46
Wasn't that the beginning of the series?
52:48
Chernobyl. Some guy breathing.
52:52
Yeah, every Simpsons episode. Have either of you ever
52:57
interrupted on a factory tour? Yeah.
53:01
Is it just me like you get these factory people and some of these
53:04
factories people work in the factory are quite.
53:07
Big dudes. Fitter than I am big guys and
53:12
they are, but they're one tour 1 bit of the factory.
53:15
All of the workers were in full on head, the total hazmat suits
53:19
and had a mask on gloves and tape around the suits.
53:23
And we walk in there, bump cap, slightly, slightly badly fitting
53:28
steel toe cap shoes, bright yellow jackets and like, are we
53:32
under breast? And I always feel like in a
53:37
factory tour you like, and then there's always that bit in the
53:42
factory tour where someone that you're interpreting for turned
53:44
around and goes, oh, you know a lot about this stuff.
53:48
How long have you been in this sector for?
53:52
Yeah, I I got asked in the nuclear power plant how long you
53:54
been working in nuclear energy for us?
53:56
I pulled out my wrist, which didn't even have a watch, and
53:58
went about two hours. Yeah, I had that at a steel
54:03
plant too. And like, it's hard to breathe.
54:05
And the steel plant. Oh my God.
54:07
Steel plants are great. I I steel plants are great,
54:11
especially when they're. Did you watch them pour the hot
54:13
steel? Yeah, I'm like, OK, I'm not
54:18
getting the other. Yeah, I know.
54:20
Oh my God. It is like you see the world as
54:23
an interpreter, and I sometimes think we could just do a whole
54:26
thing of interpreter crazy stories alike.
54:29
Absolutely. You stand at some assignments
54:31
and you're like, how did they get here?
54:35
And that there was one assignment I was in the middle
54:37
of II wrote and LinkedIn recently that you know, you're
54:40
an interpreter where you you get out a brief and you go, I've
54:44
never worked in this area before.
54:45
I'll need to look it up. I hope it's interesting.
54:47
And within about a day of researching it, you suddenly
54:50
have strong opinions as to what people in that industry should
54:53
be doing. And by the time you come to
54:55
interpret it, you're like, I didn't realize that the
54:58
economics of wood was so interesting.
55:02
And then, then then the next assignment comes in and you're
55:05
like, ah, hope it's not boring. I'm going to open up my own you
55:10
know, sawmill in British Columbia.
55:14
Yeah, just like hey, and if you haven't had an assignment where
55:17
you stood somewhere and gone, how did I get here?
55:21
You have an interpreted for fairly long.
55:24
That's true enough. Like standing like did the Wood
55:27
Economic Summit with lumberjacks and their managers and it was
55:30
really obvious who was who. And I'm sitting like surrounded
55:35
by lumberjack, French speaking lumberjacks doing whispered
55:39
interpreting, going. There's really not like I was
55:43
trading for, but we need to let clients know that this is the
55:51
humanity of interpreting And like we get to the point where
55:55
you know you you do a job, you actually get to the point of
55:58
caring about what was it the use of machine learning to help to
56:02
help deprived areas in the world like no AI and in developing
56:06
countries for improving farm yields.
56:09
Didn't know that was a thing. Interpreted on and they're like
56:13
they need to do more machine learning.
56:16
Well, here's where I think like, this is like a good sign as to
56:19
when to retire. It's like when you stop caring
56:21
because like, I care about every assignment and like I, you know,
56:25
like I, I, I like you and like I research it.
56:28
I, I wanna be known as much as possible about it.
56:31
And then I kind of like pumped at the end of it because I'm
56:33
like, oh man, I did a good job because like I used these terms
56:36
and all this. It's, I think it's when you're
56:38
just like, you could tell like during the delivery, but also
56:41
like you're like, OK, well, on to the next assignment.
56:43
Like, then maybe it's time to, you know, move on to other
56:47
things. I like there's a line in, in
56:51
interpreters versus machines when I say the biggest
56:53
difference between humans and machines is that humans can cry
56:56
and there are times where human emotions are an asset.
57:00
Yep. And the one of the most.
57:03
So twice I've had vicarious trauma, but once I was surprised
57:07
that it was, I was interpreting at the Scottish Parliament and
57:10
this time there were actually people listening and it was for
57:14
the, it was a cultural thing. Artsy speakers are great because
57:18
you know you're going to have fun.
57:20
But this guy stood up. He was a film director,
57:22
Palestinian theatre and film director.
57:26
And he said as is that is, you know, thank you for inviting me
57:29
stuff. I'd like to entitle my speech.
57:31
How I learned to love is really soldiers and already I'm in the
57:36
booth going. I don't know where this is
57:39
going. And he just tells this story of,
57:44
um, he was, he was going to work one day in the theatre and there
57:48
was this big sound of a blast and an Israeli soldier was
57:51
nearby and pinned him to the ground and it was pouring with
57:54
rain. And the guy looks up and sees
57:57
that the soldiers boots have obviously got some kind of
57:59
problem with him where he's like, I could tell his feet were
58:01
getting wet, he said. Somebody realized he's a person
58:06
too, and he started talking about how he wanted and he, he
58:10
then tried to use theatre. He's like, he said, I'm not a
58:13
negotiator. I'm not this, I'm not that.
58:14
But I want to use theatre to try and bring people together, he
58:17
said. Because, and this was before the
58:18
way before the latest conflict, I want to bring peace and I'm
58:23
interrupting this guy sharing his experiences.
58:26
The guy had no notes, no slides, nothing.
58:29
And I'm interpreting this guy's talk and I'm almost in tears
58:34
doing it because I can feel how much it means for him to want to
58:38
have the freedom to say this and to be able to share his story
58:41
with an audience who doesn't know that this is the world that
58:44
people live in. Uh huh.
58:46
And I thought you couldn't have interpreted that without the
58:49
emotion. You couldn't have interpreted
58:50
that without the feeling. And he got, he got like a great
58:54
reception. That was like, it was a
58:56
privilege for me to be part of that because, you know, I, I
58:59
didn't write the speech, but I had the honour of, of bringing
59:03
that to an audience who wouldn't have otherwise understood it,
59:06
knowing that there were people listening.
59:08
Like I was hanging on his every word.
59:10
And I was like, I'm going to use all of my public speaking skills
59:12
because I want them to do that too.
59:15
And moments like that make me not just be glad that I'm an
59:19
interpreter, but also make me think.
59:21
You can't. You can't change, you can't
59:24
replace an engaged human being with something on a smartphone.
59:28
The smartphone doesn't care. The smartphone doesn't
59:31
understand that for a Palestinian film, theatre and
59:35
film director to even say those words is is extraordinary.
59:41
Yeah. Right.
59:43
So who's gonna carry the weight of saying those words for
59:46
another audience? I know who I'd want and I I tell
59:51
people, you know, like my I've been speaking French since I was
59:53
7-8 years old. But if I had to go to a doctor
59:57
in front, I'd want to have an interpreter there because I want
1:00:00
someone to carry the weight with me.
1:00:02
And maybe we should call ourselves weight carrier fallen
1:00:05
interrupters because? Sometimes we gotta carry a bit
1:00:08
weak and that that's why we're here.
1:00:12
Absolutely. And on that note, I feel like
1:00:16
we're gonna get kicked out of YouTube because the description
1:00:18
at the end of this is gonna be like all of these references to
1:00:21
all these literary works and videos and podcasts and
1:00:25
everything, and it's gonna be the longest description ever on
1:00:28
YouTube. So it's either gonna be a record
1:00:30
or we'll get kicked out. But.
1:00:32
But did you have a maximum character limit?
1:00:34
I should know because I've been there.
1:00:36
OK, good to know. It will chop you off after
1:00:39
awhile. I got shortened no problem.
1:00:43
But not if we create many of the same.
1:00:46
Just keep it going. But I was gonna say, you know,
1:00:50
as podcast hosts didn't talk about the charge entering
1:00:54
podcast. It was great.
1:00:55
But I'd point as podcast was, we have a responsibility in that we
1:00:59
create a space that didn't exist and in a sense, allowing helping
1:01:07
people tell the stories that you wouldn't otherwise here.
1:01:09
And then asking the question when the questions I asked
1:01:11
myself moment is, I've got all these resources.
1:01:14
How do I get something of that into people's hands that they
1:01:17
couldn't get access to And like, you know, clip something for a
1:01:21
real clip, something for a short.
1:01:23
But also, you know, if I went away with what did I take from
1:01:28
this, that is going to change. So, so for me, even during this
1:01:30
broadcast, I'm like, I need reminded sometimes that I'm
1:01:33
supposed to carry some of this weight.
1:01:36
We love impartiality so much. But no, no, no, we're, we're
1:01:39
weight carriers. So often we're carrying weight.
1:01:43
How do you carry that way? But you know, knowing that I'm
1:01:45
awake carrier. So that means I have to keep
1:01:47
myself fit to carry the weight. That means I have to know when
1:01:49
to put the weight down. There's a whole I'm preaching in
1:01:54
a few weeks time. There's all Servants series on
1:01:56
that, but there's a whole series of questions that I think
1:01:59
interpreters need to ask themselves as to how do we
1:02:02
explain the clients the way we carry?
1:02:03
How do we explain the way that we shouldn't be carrying?
1:02:06
And then how do we go to clients?
1:02:08
This is what we're actually doing.
1:02:10
It's not what you think we're doing.
1:02:12
Yeah, they help them realize, like behind the door that's
1:02:15
right behind you, there's a whole family waiting for you.
1:02:18
And, and if we can do that in a funny or poignant way, yeah, I,
1:02:26
I've shared my trauma stories before and I think sometimes if
1:02:29
I one of them in multilingual church, but sometimes client
1:02:32
needs, sometimes clients need to know that if it's traumatic for
1:02:35
them, it's traumatic for us. We need to know how to deal with
1:02:41
that. But in a sense, that's probably
1:02:45
it's, it's good that there's a human being in the loop and
1:02:47
those traumatic moments because there's gonna be a forced thing
1:02:51
of we're going to have to take a breath.
1:02:55
Yeah, because the interpreter has to take a breath.
1:02:57
I I stopped to check after 10 minutes once because it was so
1:03:00
traumatic and handed over to our colleague.
1:03:03
Because that's one of the problems with remote
1:03:05
interpretation, though. Sometimes we become anonymous.
1:03:09
We're just the voice behind a microphone and then we are
1:03:14
witness to to no fault of our own.
1:03:17
We're witnessing something that we did not expect or was not
1:03:21
told beforehand for an assignment.
1:03:24
And then we just have to do it. And yeah, I think it's, that's
1:03:31
one of the problems with remote interpretation actually.
1:03:34
Sometimes we are put in a situation where we did not
1:03:37
expect and not ask and then suddenly we're we're we're like,
1:03:40
well, I can't take a break because we're remote and we
1:03:44
just. So it's that's one of the issues
1:03:47
actually. Make communication is so
1:03:49
important. So I know when I have a remote
1:03:53
booth me, I'll make sure we have an open WhatsApp chat.
1:03:56
And there have been occasions, so like some assignments, my
1:03:58
colleagues and I have gone to 15 minute shifts because of the
1:04:02
weight of the assignment, because of what's going on.
1:04:05
Just get super technical. But also to be able to see, like
1:04:10
there have been a couple of times where I've, I've said to
1:04:12
people, do you need a break? Just because I've known.
1:04:16
Yeah, OK. You know, if there's a sermon
1:04:18
on, you know, in church could be like anyone that there's a
1:04:21
settlement on, how do you recover from a family Where,
1:04:25
where, where pornography. At this point, we're pornography
1:04:29
addiction is an issue, then it's gonna be hard to keep going.
1:04:34
Yeah. Is it a ghost?
1:04:39
No, not a dark Creek. No, it's it's a four year old.
1:04:43
OK, that was gonna be my second guess.
1:04:48
It's a four year old who when he was to kind of crawl down when I
1:04:51
was in there. Yeah, but the, but I think, you
1:04:55
know, sometimes you have to swap when having an open
1:04:58
communication channel. And also like, I don't know why
1:05:01
out of nowhere, my colleagues and I have started this thing
1:05:03
after remote interpreting, having a very quick just chat
1:05:07
after it on WhatsApp. Usually it's a nice, a nice
1:05:10
segment and you can just send the dog.
1:05:11
That's fine. But sometimes, like, because
1:05:15
I've been through vicarious trauma twice, because I've been
1:05:17
through counselling, if it's a particularly traumatic thing,
1:05:20
I'm going to check on someone that they're OK.
1:05:23
And I'm going to say, do you know where to get help if you
1:05:25
need it? I'm like, you know, it's a
1:05:26
question for interpreters. The next thing you get vicarious
1:05:30
trauma. Do you know what to do?
1:05:33
Do you know how to handle this? Because there's a good way of
1:05:36
dealing with it and there are lots of bad ways.
1:05:38
And there's a troublesome Terps episode that changed my career
1:05:41
where we interviewed a lady trained mental health nurses and
1:05:46
she's really passionate about interpreter mental health
1:05:47
because she she's seen interpreters doing mental health
1:05:50
assignments and getting no help. Justin Mason is brilliant and
1:05:55
she will just say it. And so that the Justine Mason
1:05:58
episode, she's like, you know, unless you look after yourself,
1:06:00
you're not gonna have a professional life.
1:06:03
Yeah, I was doing an interpretation for judges and
1:06:09
one time there's an an experienced judge that was
1:06:13
talking to a panel of judges and she was talking about how to
1:06:18
deal with, you know, difficult things will judge will have to
1:06:23
see. And she said right after, when
1:06:28
you go back to your office, uh, play Tetris.
1:06:34
And she said there's something about Tetris just pulling little
1:06:38
blogs on top of each other that at the focus you're just
1:06:43
focusing on something like Tetris and suddenly your mine
1:06:48
will sort of forget some of the traumatic things you you you
1:06:55
just saw so. I, I, I learned a lot about.
1:07:00
So the most recent time I got vicarious trauma, I was
1:07:05
interpreting at meeting for leaders of a certain Christian
1:07:08
denomination, and they were, it was a migration policy meeting.
1:07:12
So what are we as a group of churches going to do about
1:07:15
migration? You know, how do we get
1:07:16
resources in the right place? How do we make it?
1:07:19
A lot of it was just drafting a policy document.
1:07:22
Fine. But to draft a policy document,
1:07:25
they had to hear people's stories of how migration was
1:07:28
affecting them. And there was one really
1:07:31
difficult story of a guy who woke up.
1:07:32
He he lived on the border of two countries.
1:07:35
His church was on the border. He woke up one day looked at his
1:07:38
house window and they were 10,000 migrants waiting to come
1:07:40
in because of our war next door. But the one that caught me was
1:07:44
it was a a leader from Central Africa who just did a 10 minute
1:07:51
speech. And it was, it was on stage into
1:07:53
our things we were doing about a sentence at a time on how
1:07:56
successive epidemics, famines and wars had affected him and
1:08:00
his family. And not just him, but him as a
1:08:03
senior church leader, where everyone's expecting him to be
1:08:06
OK because they need him to comfort them.
1:08:10
And I'm interpreting this in front of a room fully senior
1:08:12
church leaders. Interesting that this guy's
1:08:15
story and he said it's done and I'm going to do another 10
1:08:18
minutes. And I said to my my colleague
1:08:20
and I knew really well still work with us sometime to see can
1:08:23
you take over? She's like, you got 10 minutes
1:08:24
to say, can you take over? She's a sure friend.
1:08:27
She looked at look at my face went fine.
1:08:30
I'm understand for the rest of the day and but I could tell
1:08:34
that I wasn't fully in the room. Then I get back to the hotel
1:08:38
room. That night I sat on the bed and
1:08:41
I just stared at the wall. And thankfully I, I was able to,
1:08:44
to chat with, with Justine Mason and my wife.
1:08:46
And I realised that there's a you have to accept sometimes,
1:08:50
like the initial numbness. And I learned through 25
1:08:53
sessions of counselling. Years later, I learned through
1:08:56
25 sessions of counselling that there's a gift of processing
1:09:00
what you've been through. You don't enjoy the processing,
1:09:04
but if you sometimes ignore it and sometimes doing something
1:09:08
else is great, but sometimes you need a space that you can go to
1:09:11
that says, I just heard this, it triggered me.
1:09:17
How do I deal with that in learning the skill of, um, how
1:09:21
do you process through? How do you process emotion?
1:09:23
How do you process trauma? I say to my kids that actually
1:09:29
you have to. Sometimes you have to go through
1:09:32
the thing that you didn't want to go through because that's
1:09:37
gonna teach you the coping skills.
1:09:39
And if if his interpreters I've, I've got some really trusted
1:09:44
colleagues whose skill is well, I just detach myself.
1:09:48
Well, one of the things we know is that you can only detach
1:09:51
yourself for so long is your people are gonna hear you're
1:09:55
detached. And there's a thing about trauma
1:09:58
that if you bury it, it's gonna come out somewhere and it's
1:10:04
gonna do things like, you know, you get weird, weird childhood
1:10:08
traumas that change how you react to people.
1:10:10
You get adulthood traumas that make mean that you over react to
1:10:14
certain things as saying that if your reaction is bigger than the
1:10:17
trigger, it's not the thing that triggered you, it's something
1:10:19
else. And so learning to go, right,
1:10:22
I've had this trauma, I'm going to sit with the initial
1:10:25
numbness. I'm going to allow myself to go
1:10:28
through the numbness. I'm going to allow myself to
1:10:31
feel and then I'm going to decide what I need to do with
1:10:34
it. And for me, it was just, you
1:10:35
know, go through the trauma chat with people say this is really
1:10:38
hard. I had, they had they stayed at
1:10:40
the wall for an hour to go to sleep.
1:10:42
The next morning, I was pretty much OK.
1:10:44
It was a light trauma, I guess they would call it, and that's
1:10:48
all right. There was another time I got
1:10:49
vicarious trauma, and the right thing for me to do was to cry
1:10:52
over dinner because I had interpreted about a group of
1:10:55
people whose only economic activity was selling their wives
1:10:59
and children into prostitution. You interpret those stories, and
1:11:03
if that hasn't affected you and the right thing for me, I would
1:11:07
just include the tears afterwards.
1:11:08
But I needed to cry, that I needed to get through that, come
1:11:11
out the other end and do it. Yeah.
1:11:13
And as men especially, I'm talking to any guys listening to
1:11:16
this. As men especially, very few of
1:11:18
us are taught to process emotions properly.
1:11:21
And the first step to processing emotions is letting yourself
1:11:23
actually feel the emotion. And then we can and it's like
1:11:29
it's as interpreters we've we are often top stand back, be
1:11:34
professional, be impartial. What if sometimes not?
1:11:38
I'm not saying always, but what if sometimes the ethical correct
1:11:42
thing to do is not to step back, but to step forwards, Not to
1:11:46
detach, but to feel and in doing so.
1:11:52
Natural when you're you're, you're feeling like, like when
1:11:54
you're interpreting in someone has a passionate speech and
1:11:58
you've you take your, your, your enter someone's skin and then
1:12:03
you become that person in a certain way in another language.
1:12:07
For me at least, that whole process, I I would be, it would
1:12:12
be actually much harder to pull back and to just sound robotic
1:12:17
and neutral, I think. And it's all about performance
1:12:21
because whoever's listening to us wants to understand the
1:12:27
feeling most of all. So at least in my case, I'm not
1:12:32
saying that I type it to 20 of their at 20, maybe I'll be at, I
1:12:37
don't know, 15, but at least conveying that feeling and not
1:12:43
being robotic is, is part of what we do.
1:12:46
No, it's actually, it's actually pretty hard for me to even
1:12:50
imagine that I would not actually try to be in the in the
1:12:55
person's shoes. And automatically you feel what
1:12:59
other people feel. Yeah, so.
1:13:03
And it's, of course, there's the process after.
1:13:06
Maybe you're a bit shocked afterwards.
1:13:08
Maybe you need to, you know, crack a bottle of wine or do
1:13:12
what I do, watch pro wrestling. But.
1:13:15
That that's just code trying to get clients to pay invoices.
1:13:21
No, but what I'm saying is that there's a there's a, there's the
1:13:24
afterwards of what what you do in order to, you know, go
1:13:27
through some of the emotions you went through.
1:13:30
But so it's it's actually that's.
1:13:39
So that this is where I noticed, um, I've been, I've been
1:13:45
interrupting professionally for over 17 years now and I can tell
1:13:50
very quickly. I mean, I, I know I look like
1:13:52
20. Don't worry.
1:13:55
I've been interacting professionally.
1:13:57
Yeah, I'm 41. I've been interesting for 17
1:13:59
years. And I can tell a lot about where
1:14:03
someone trained, how someone trained, who trained them,
1:14:06
because some of my colleagues, especially a lot have been
1:14:08
around the institutional world or who were trained, you know,
1:14:12
pre 2000s. It's common to hear things like
1:14:15
talk about professional detachment objectivity,
1:14:19
especially at But when you get 10 tariffs for more in the
1:14:22
commercial world, um, there's a brilliant Canadian interpreter
1:14:26
called Mike Lemay and he. Was amazed on our podcast.
1:14:31
Brilliant, because my kids just make and there there is
1:14:34
something about that, about that kind of interpreter where I
1:14:37
mean, Mike came in from the side as well.
1:14:39
But about that kind of interpreter who's used to the
1:14:41
commercial world, who's used to the artsy speakers or the the
1:14:45
over the top speakers who I no one has to say to them, you
1:14:48
know, it's important to feel what the speakers feeling
1:14:51
because they're like, yeah, do all the type of strain there.
1:14:55
There's an 8. But that.
1:14:56
That's the deal. That's that's his market.
1:14:58
I mean, that's, yeah, as far as I know.
1:15:00
I mean, I've worked with him only a few times, and he's
1:15:05
naturally like that. Then it would be
1:15:08
counterintuitive or outside of his nature if you had to pull
1:15:11
him away. And I don't think his
1:15:13
performance would be that good if he actually had to not be
1:15:18
himself because he has this flamboyant personality.
1:15:21
And that that's what you do. So like I have, I tell people I
1:15:24
used to build interpreting means.
1:15:26
I don't really do that anymore because I find that wasn't
1:15:28
suited to it. But if I got an assignment and
1:15:30
there was super technical, I had interpreters who I would call
1:15:33
right away. I wouldn't call them for a
1:15:37
really artsy sales meeting or a really flamboyant speaker
1:15:40
because some interpreters have known actual flamboyance.
1:15:44
But the technical stuff, did they just one of my?
1:15:48
Polite. Not because that's not who they
1:15:53
are. Like if you put them in a
1:15:54
technical meeting. I remember 2 interpreters almost
1:15:57
made me cry when they were interpreting a speech on
1:16:00
demolition and I'm like it's it's speech on table like.
1:16:05
Like what was being demolished? Yeah, I know.
1:16:11
But but they delivered it with such beauty and grace and flair
1:16:16
and it was brilliantly done. So my professional association,
1:16:20
Institute of Translation and Interpreting gives out prizes
1:16:23
every two years, at least I think every year now for best
1:16:26
performance on an interpreting assignment.
1:16:29
And I was like, I'm nominating you.
1:16:31
They got like a commendation from the, from the people.
1:16:35
I'm, I'm like, I've never heard interpreting of that quality in
1:16:39
such a technical speech. There was a bit of emotion in
1:16:41
speech, but you know, I'd never heard interpreting at that level
1:16:45
where they taken a typical speech with some emotion in it
1:16:48
and they had delivered it brilliantly.
1:16:51
And I was like, I don't know how you did that, but if I could
1:16:56
bottle what you did, I could double my fees.
1:17:01
It is is when you hear, everyone knows when you hear a colleague
1:17:04
and you take your headphones off and you go, right.
1:17:06
I quit because they're just so good.
1:17:09
Yeah. I don't know what you did.
1:17:11
I don't know how you did it, but you know, just have, have my
1:17:15
headphones just like you, but that that's just that it is this
1:17:21
thing of you have to know your market.
1:17:23
And I tell people I love the flamboyant stuff.
1:17:27
I'm I couldn't do the technical stuff.
1:17:30
I can do the European works councils.
1:17:31
It's just not my natural place. Put me in a church, give me an
1:17:35
artsy speaker, give me something public facing or kind of with
1:17:40
the bit where you have to have a bit of flair, I'm all good.
1:17:43
But there there's a, there's the, there's the, the quality of
1:17:46
the speaker. Do you understand the topic?
1:17:50
And then there's your performance.
1:17:52
So if you don't understand what is being said, you can maybe try
1:17:56
to fake it if you understand the topic.
1:17:58
But if you don't understand the topic and you understand the
1:18:01
speaker, then you're screwed. Good place here versus editing
1:18:04
this. But but, but have you ever had?
1:18:09
I had one or two speakers in my career where I wasn't convinced
1:18:15
they actually knew what they were saying.
1:18:19
It happens all the time. And like, you know, I, I say to
1:18:22
people, you know, when I was starting out, every
1:18:25
interpreter's got fierce. When I was starting at a really
1:18:28
scared of a speech with a really technical topic.
1:18:32
I was really scared of fast speakers.
1:18:34
And I was really scared of, um, whenever there was a bit on the
1:18:40
agenda that said report as a new interpreter, that always scared
1:18:43
me a bit. Whereas now what scares me?
1:18:46
A speech on the agenda that has four nouns back-to-back or 7
1:18:51
occurrences of the French word in the same sentence, and a
1:18:57
speaker who says the more towards.
1:18:59
I'd like to begin with the joke. Ohe yes.
1:19:03
What was the other one? The other one that scares me is
1:19:07
when it whenever a client says on the brief, it's OK, you don't
1:19:11
need to worry, it's going to be straightforward.
1:19:14
I knew then just to put the paracetamol on my desk.
1:19:17
How about, well, interpreters? Don't worry, I will not try to
1:19:21
speak fast. Or the other one I once did.
1:19:26
So I'm, I once did a job that was arranged by the UN and there
1:19:32
was a mix of in person and remote speakers, which was
1:19:35
totally fine. I mean most of the speakers were
1:19:38
marvellous and it was a pleasure to do it.
1:19:40
And if you're that client, by the way, I love you, please send
1:19:43
me more work. But but one of the speakers had
1:19:47
decided that the best way to deliver his plenary to this UN
1:19:53
thing, unarranged thing I should say, was to use his Apple
1:19:58
Airpods as his microphone. He he work here.
1:20:03
That is it. He.
1:20:05
Looked like like. He looked a bit like a Cyborg,
1:20:08
but he sounded like a Dalek. Like if you if you ever have you
1:20:13
ever, ever seen like Doctor Who with the dialects exterminate.
1:20:16
He sounded like that. And I'm like, no, he's like
1:20:21
talking to all these people from all around the world.
1:20:25
No, So I don't have Airpods. At one point I'm gonna make
1:20:31
myself a fake pair of Airpods and I'm gonna do that sketch
1:20:35
that we're all waiting for, which is the difference between
1:20:37
what you look like and what you sound like.
1:20:40
Because I mean, the the only thing that could have been worse
1:20:43
if is if he used the built in microphone of his laptop, which
1:20:47
every more interpreter has had. That person who who says, oh,
1:20:52
the other thing that scares me is an interpreter is when the
1:20:54
president or chair of the session says, does anyone have
1:20:58
any questions? It's not too bad until someone
1:21:01
says, well it's really more of a comment than a question and then
1:21:08
you know it's an interrupter. Then what I do is I tried to
1:21:11
cope when someone says more of a comment than a question.
1:21:14
I make sure I've got better lag. I go on what has happened.
1:21:17
I say to my booth mate, do you want to do a handover?
1:21:24
You can finish this one off. But then the art of interrupting
1:21:28
is knowing, you know, I'm I'm sure I'm not the only
1:21:31
interrupter to see like finance talks on the agenda and go.
1:21:35
I think I may be having a toilet break when that one.
1:21:40
I have a booth mate here in Edinburgh who enjoys finance
1:21:43
talks and so we just arranged the agenda so they land on her
1:21:47
shift and I said going, I'm gonna be playing on my phone for
1:21:51
the entire but you know, if you're an interpreter and you
1:21:56
love finance talks, I want to work with you.
1:21:59
I do I. Didn't mind I I can I can feed
1:22:03
you some numbers, but I'll probably be eating pastry during
1:22:06
most of the talk and staring into space.
1:22:09
I. Love finance stuff.
1:22:11
I mean it's all about the economy.
1:22:12
I learn a lot in like let's start the stocks and all of
1:22:15
that. And I get, I don't wanna send
1:22:17
getting inside information about anything, but I I know why my
1:22:22
investments are either up or down and that is super
1:22:24
important. What?
1:22:27
Hey, Cortana. Covington There's any the the
1:22:30
economy is everywhere, You know, like it.
1:22:32
It's like water. It infiltrates everything.
1:22:34
He's just volunteered through HE.
1:22:36
So if you're an economics client, you know where to go for
1:22:40
but it it's when I I got an accountant.
1:22:42
So whenever I have to do an accounting speech, the word
1:22:45
environ becomes my favorite word because I use it so often.
1:22:50
But I had this one account at once when I had to do the
1:22:53
finance speech and he's the only accountant I've ever come across
1:22:58
who quoted the figures to the nearest Eurocent who does that.
1:23:07
And I'm like, numbers are. So I, my, my thing about numbers
1:23:12
is I can do numbers but I wouldn't once doing a France
1:23:14
Scotland rugby under 21 match and it was 6913 to France with 5
1:23:23
minutes to go. And Canadians might not get this
1:23:25
job, but in terms of us from France, we'll get it.
1:23:27
I'd been allowed to stay inside because it was cold, rainy and
1:23:30
wet. And I said, you know, I need to
1:23:31
keep my voice warmed up. So I got to stay in the analysis
1:23:34
suite with all the analysts and I it's 6913 to France with 5
1:23:40
minutes to go. And I said to one of the
1:23:42
analysts, oh I really hope France don't score again.
1:23:46
And they said oh you're worried about the kind of Scottish teams
1:23:48
mindset and they'll be humiliating.
1:23:51
I said no, it's just French numbers over 16 are really hard
1:23:54
to say quickly. It was to say, Sir, this is just
1:24:03
move to Belgium, make it easier. Alright, Jonathan, uh, with
1:24:09
this, this podcast, I have to say this is where we went twice
1:24:13
as long as our. Usual editing.
1:24:16
As usually not no, no, no, it's not no, no.
1:24:18
I'm I'm gonna keep it. I'm I'm not gonna add it much of
1:24:21
it, but I. I'm gonna send some notes.
1:24:24
This is a negative thing, actually.
1:24:26
It's just that like many interpreters, I have to prepare
1:24:31
for an assignment because as you were telling you this last
1:24:34
story, I just had a pop up and it says, oh, it was some slides
1:24:39
for the presentation this afternoon.
1:24:41
So Converse and I read all of those.
1:24:45
Numbers, let's hope for our answer financial conference.
1:24:50
I just realized that one thing I would say to edit out is when I
1:24:53
said about the token black guy in the movie, that's probably
1:24:55
going to not work. So if that can just be, you
1:24:59
know, the examples are commenting here and you're like,
1:25:00
that's the wrong example. That.
1:25:06
Alright, and also have to edit this part right now.
1:25:08
So what did this part too? OK, OK, one three seconds.
1:25:14
Yeah. Great.
1:25:15
Well, Jonathan, thank you very much for coming in this episode.
1:25:19
That was twice as long as usual, but that's great.
1:25:23
Maybe I'll make a Part 1 and Part 2, I don't know, but we'll
1:25:27
see. But it was super entertaining.
1:25:29
Thank you so much everyone. Don't forget to like, share,
1:25:34
subscribe, comment, and also make some shorts and laugh and
1:25:38
make sure that you put yourself out there.
1:25:41
You're not in the back, you're at the forefront to make sure
1:25:44
that people understand the difference between the machine
1:25:48
translation and what we do. Alright, on that note, thank you
1:25:53
very much everyone and we'll see each other next time.