Latest / Found in Interpretation Podcast / Ep. 65 – Why Interpreters Need Your Documents Before the Event

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Ep. 65 – Why Interpreters Need Your Documents Before the Event · Found in Interpretation Podcast

• 0:02
  So a conference takes a lot of planning and a lot of
• 0:05
  preparation, So you need to think a lot about a whole bunch
• 0:09
  of different things. And I don't envy the job of
• 0:12
  event planners whatsoever because they have to look at the
• 0:15
  venue, the accommodations, the audio visual, the caterer, the
• 0:19
  food, the guest speakers, the panelists, the moderators, EDI
• 0:23
  interpretation, food allergies, and a whole host of other
• 0:27
  logistical aspects. Like, it's just crazy what they
• 0:30
  have on their plate. But one of the key aspects that
• 0:34
  we wanted to focus on, um, based on our subscriber demand is the
• 0:41
  documentation. So basically all the, the
• 0:43
  agendas, the PowerPoint presentations, handouts for
• 0:46
  participants and all that stuff, the importance of sending that
• 0:51
  to the interpreters ahead of time.
• 0:52
  So what we've done here is we've put a top ten list of the
• 0:56
  importance of sharing documents with interpreters.
• 1:11
  So what's the first one on your list, Brian?
• 1:13
  So the first thing would be obviously to prepare.
• 1:17
  So interpreters, they use the documentation so they know
• 1:20
  what's next, what to expect. So they use the agenda so they
• 1:24
  know what the next topic's going to be.
• 1:26
  They use the PowerPoint presentations to prepare
• 1:28
  lexicons, familiarize themselves with specific terminology and a
• 1:34
  specific topic. Um, also, is it going to be
• 1:38
  simple language? Is it going to be complex
• 1:40
  language? Is it going to be scientific
• 1:41
  language? It can't just be language.
• 1:45
  There is specificity to every single type of language that you
• 1:48
  use. It's very different to watch
• 1:51
  for, for example, reading a cartoon article from a newspaper
• 1:56
  or reading Charles Dickens. Very different.
• 1:59
  So you have to know who the audience is going to be, and you
• 2:02
  gotta know who's going to be speaking.
• 2:04
  Absolutely. I have one.
• 2:09
  You don't know what you don't know.
• 2:12
  You gotta know what's. Next.
• 2:13
  Absolutely. So you know a conference, you
• 2:17
  know a conference can be organized by specific client by
• 2:21
  in a specific field may that be a medical union, legal,
• 2:25
  engineering, mining industry, etcetera.
• 2:29
  But the topics inside the topic, the topics can vary a lot.
• 2:34
  It can vary also in length, in structure.
• 2:38
  And it's not only about language.
• 2:40
  For example, in one event you can have a very scripted first
• 2:45
  part and then within, let's say, a keynote address where we would
• 2:50
  want the script. Because there's nothing worse
• 2:52
  for an interpreter to do your job while people are reading
• 2:57
  something at lightspeed. And then there is this three or
• 3:03
  five person paddle led by a moderator.
• 3:07
  And then you've got more speeches in between.
• 3:09
  And then you've got concurring workshops in different rooms
• 3:12
  throughout the venue, May that be online, on site, and the
• 3:16
  interpreters can't be caught off guard.
• 3:21
  We have to know, we, we need to know how our day will be
• 3:25
  organized. We can't just be surprised all
• 3:27
  the time. Yeah, I gave a like as an
• 3:30
  example, Alan I last year we did one on.
• 3:33
  It was a big marketing one in Calgary.
• 3:36
  I don't know if you remember that one and where we went.
• 3:38
  Yeah, like we, we had like all these speeches at 1st and then
• 3:41
  people went to different parts of the venue to be able to see
• 3:46
  all the different gear that they were gonna be selling, the
• 3:50
  different supplies, the different vendors.
• 3:52
  And then they come back and then they'd have a dinner and there
• 3:55
  was a presentation at dinner. Then there was awards in the
• 3:58
  evening. I mean, why wouldn't we be have
• 4:02
  the benefit of knowing ahead of time what to expect, right?
• 4:05
  And, and this actually leads to something more that's quite
• 4:08
  interesting is the, the, the whole mystery of glossaries.
• 4:12
  It seems like only the interpreters are the ones who
• 4:15
  are always pushing for glossaries and that kind of
• 4:18
  thing. But it's documents for us.
• 4:20
  They're our version of digital gold.
• 4:23
  It's our digital gold. We use it to be able to mine all
• 4:27
  the information. And so it allows us to pull
• 4:30
  keywords to add them to our own glossaries and particular
• 4:33
  subjects. And because let's let's face it,
• 4:36
  it's impossible for any human being on this planet to know
• 4:40
  every single word in the language that they speak.
• 4:43
  Even it's even less likely that a human being will know every
• 4:46
  single word in multiple languages.
• 4:49
  So you know what? Like why?
• 4:51
  Even after 20 years in the business, you don't know every
• 4:53
  English word. I do not.
• 4:55
  And there's also made upwards acronyms, proper names that are
• 5:00
  new and creative. So you know what?
• 5:03
  That's the beauty of our language is it keeps evolving,
• 5:06
  but also it makes our jobs quite interesting.
• 5:08
  And so, yeah, why keep all this away, hidden from the
• 5:12
  interpreters? That's my question.
• 5:14
  Yeah, right. And not only to do glossaries,
• 5:19
  you know, as I was saying earlier, when people have
• 5:23
  written speeches, especially in the beginning of an event,
• 5:29
  truth, I'm guilty too. I've been using AI, I've been
• 5:33
  using translation tools to translate those speeches because
• 5:38
  for us, it's very difficult when actually one of the most
• 5:42
  challenging. And I don't know if for you,
• 5:43
  Brian, same thing, but one of the most challenging things as
• 5:46
  an interpreter is to train is to interpret a written speech.
• 5:55
  Red add lightspeed. OHT.
• 5:58
  Absolutely. Yeah, because people don't speak
• 6:00
  like they read. If when people speak, they
• 6:03
  hesitate. There's some pauses when when
• 6:06
  they're reading, usually sometimes they get very nervous
• 6:09
  with their sheet. Sometimes they're even shaking.
• 6:11
  So we need to, we use a variety of translation tools or the AI
• 6:16
  tools to help us translate speeches, scripts, pull out
• 6:20
  words from a PowerPoint presentation.
• 6:23
  And this is a very, very key aspect to provide a quality.
• 6:28
  Service, absolutely. And the sooner the better was
• 6:31
  what I would say is well because like say for example, we use an
• 6:33
  AI tool or a translation tool to translate a PowerPoint
• 6:37
  presentation or a script, then we can't, we should never rely
• 6:42
  on A on a computer for the final product.
• 6:44
  You should always get a proof read by human being.
• 6:46
  And in our case, like we would compare the language A, language
• 6:51
  B and make sure that the terms are used correctly.
• 6:55
  Like we do a lot of prep work and that's basically sometimes
• 7:00
  we do more prep work than the actual interpretation
• 7:02
  assignments. So that's why it's important to
• 7:05
  be able to give us this ahead of time.
• 7:07
  And so we can use all the tools that we have at our disposal so
• 7:10
  that we're ready to go on on on game day.
• 7:14
  I have to, I have to say that even when we use translation
• 7:17
  tools and we can translate a script, even if we read the
• 7:24
  script, we don't blindly read the script.
• 7:27
  It's important for an interpreter to use his judgment
• 7:31
  to make sure that because this is not a proofread translation,
• 7:35
  this is just basically a rough draft to give us an idea of
• 7:38
  where we're going. But as we're doing the
• 7:41
  interpretation, we are not reading the script with the.
• 7:46
  We're not reading the translating translated script
• 7:49
  because it wouldn't make sometimes any sense.
• 7:51
  So this is basically just one more tool in our toolbox to make
• 7:57
  sure that we don't stumble. That's right.
• 8:01
  And this has lead to to our next point point #5 which is a
• 8:05
  meeting or a conference in one subject is always going to be a
• 8:10
  meeting in several subjects. So what what do I mean by that?
• 8:14
  So basically, let's say there's a conference, medical
• 8:17
  conference, legal or union or engineering, whatever the case
• 8:21
  may be. The topic can vary within the
• 8:26
  conference. So for example, if you're doing
• 8:28
  a union meeting, it could start with a speech and then it'll go
• 8:32
  to cover resolutions. And then after the resolutions
• 8:35
  they're going to have constitutional amendments and
• 8:37
  after that they've got labour law presentation.
• 8:40
  Then they're going to talk about grievances and their locals and
• 8:44
  human rights complaints and health and safety issues and
• 8:46
  inclusion, professional development and that a whole
• 8:49
  bunch of other fields. So yeah, we should always have
• 8:52
  the information available so that we don't get caught by
• 8:55
  surprise. Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:58
  Being caught by surprise is the worst thing for an interpreter.
• 9:00
  Although we we deal with the unexpected constantly, we want
• 9:05
  to minimize that as much as possible.
• 9:07
  Because, Brian, I have a, I have something to tell you.
• 9:11
  I mean, I don't know if many people are aware of this, but
• 9:15
  did you know that interpreters aren't parrots?
• 9:19
  That's a good segue, my friend. Yeah, that's true.
• 9:21
  We don't have feathers. We don't have a beak.
• 9:24
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't just repeat words and.
• 9:27
  I hope I sound a lot better. How we just don't repeat words
• 9:32
  into another language. In order to be a good
• 9:37
  interpreter, you need to understand the topic.
• 9:40
  If you don't, whatever the qualities of the person in front
• 9:44
  of you who you're interpreting for, If you understand your
• 9:48
  topic, you can produce a good result.
• 9:53
  But if even if you have the most eloquent speaker in front of
• 9:58
  you, if you don't understand what he's talking about, then
• 10:03
  you're doomed to fail. You need to understand that
• 10:09
  those the words deliver a message and we need to do it as
• 10:15
  faithfully, as faithfully as possible.
• 10:17
  So that's why we need the documents.
• 10:19
  Yeah, like one, one speaker that comes to mind who is extremely
• 10:24
  eloquent and a very thoughtful in every word that he uses would
• 10:28
  probably be Obama. And we're not just going to
• 10:32
  repeat their every word that they say like a parrot.
• 10:35
  We're going to try to understand the message that he's trying to
• 10:37
  deliver and then deliver them to the other languages faithfully
• 10:41
  as possible. That's what we that's what our
• 10:44
  job is. It's to interpret that, not to
• 10:46
  do speech translation and translate words.
• 10:49
  We want to really give the essence of the message that
• 10:54
  they're trying, that the speaker is trying to give to their
• 10:57
  audience now. Allah, do you remember what
• 11:04
  happens after a conference? Like when you you're done
• 11:06
  concentrating on this conference, do you remember like
• 11:08
  the, the what happens, like what happened like or do you kind of
• 11:12
  forget? I I I actually I forget
• 11:17
  everything. Yeah, it's hard to retain.
• 11:20
  Yeah, it's very, very. I think that from a conference,
• 11:24
  I don't remember anything but the impression that I had, like,
• 11:30
  I don't remember any details. I don't remember what people
• 11:33
  said. Everything is very blurry in my
• 11:36
  head. And I, it's, it's as if
• 11:40
  interpreting is so tough on the brain sometimes that your mind
• 11:46
  basically automatically deletes unwanted files.
• 11:51
  You know, when your computer, your desktop is cluttered and
• 11:54
  you've got too many files And this, you know what?
• 11:57
  I have so many screenshots on my, on my desktop and it just
• 12:00
  deletes a bunch of them and I just throw them in the bin.
• 12:03
  Well, this is exactly what my brain does.
• 12:05
  And and that leads and that leads to my point, which is that
• 12:09
  confidentiality is key for our profession.
• 12:12
  And the testing way does that remind people is that yes, we
• 12:16
  are giving a lot of information, but in terms of retention of
• 12:19
  information, not not so much. Because even yesterday I did a
• 12:24
  mining conference, I don't remember exactly what I
• 12:27
  interpreted this mining conference.
• 12:29
  I remember that the eggs are like these powdered eggs, the
• 12:32
  scrambled eggs. I remember that very well.
• 12:34
  But I don't remember the other part, which is the actual
• 12:36
  presentations. But coming back to this
• 12:39
  confidentiality thing, we do understand that some of the
• 12:42
  information does need to be protected, but it shouldn't be
• 12:45
  protected from the interpreters because the speakers, they need
• 12:49
  to understand that we're working as a team.
• 12:51
  And if an under and if an interpreter doesn't know what
• 12:55
  the speaker is going to be talking about because they
• 12:57
  refuse to share their notes, then their message is probably
• 13:00
  not going to be as accurate in the other language.
• 13:03
  So like put yourself in the in the position of a speaker, for
• 13:06
  instance, and tell them, hey, you're up on stage, you're up.
• 13:10
  But before you go up, give me all your notes.
• 13:12
  And you, you have to do this without any notes.
• 13:15
  Obviously that speaker is gonna be completely lost.
• 13:17
  So how do you think the interpreters would feel if that
• 13:19
  happened to them? So just to, to, to finish off on
• 13:24
  this whole confidentiality thing.
• 13:25
  Yeah, we don't remember everything that we listened at a
• 13:28
  conference, but also we're bound by confidentiality in our
• 13:31
  profession. AIK has a whole section about
• 13:35
  this if you're interested in looking into reading about
• 13:39
  confidentiality with interpreters.
• 13:40
  If you have trouble sleeping at night, you're more than welcome
• 13:43
  to go check that out. And but if you're still feeling
• 13:47
  apprehensive about sharing a document and you're a speaker,
• 13:49
  then also there's the possibility of just signing an
• 13:52
  NDA and then get that extra protection if you're that
• 13:55
  uncomfortable with it. Yeah, we deal with confidential
• 13:58
  information all the time. Sometimes, to be honest with
• 14:01
  you, I do. I'm in Quebec City.
• 14:04
  I deal with the Quebec government, the provincial
• 14:07
  government. And I remember, for instance, I
• 14:10
  I was in a meeting a years ago and I was like, and I said to
• 14:15
  myself after the meeting, Oh my God, someday this is going to be
• 14:18
  in the paper. And seven years later it's a big
• 14:22
  scandal in the news. And I'm like to myself, of
• 14:25
  course I knew it. So but.
• 14:30
  I, I'm bound, I'm bound by my ethics code.
• 14:32
  I'm certified interpreter here in Quebec.
• 14:34
  I'm a member of OC C and we have an ethics code.
• 14:37
  So if you're dealing, if you're dealing with anyone that claims
• 14:41
  to be an interpreter, that's one thing.
• 14:43
  But if you're dealing with a certified or a professional
• 14:45
  interpreter, we are bound by confidentiality because of our
• 14:49
  ethics code. So.
• 14:51
  And and don't forget also that we're like the flies in the
• 14:53
  wall, right? So like we're always in the
• 14:56
  room. We're going to hear the
• 14:57
  information whether you want to or not because we do have to
• 14:59
  interpret it and still our job. So why not just give us the
• 15:03
  information ahead of time so that we can prepare for it?
• 15:06
  Naps rudely. But then that leads me to my
• 15:08
  next point. We are part of the team, just
• 15:11
  like the caterers, the hotel staff that then you staff, the
• 15:14
  audio visual technicians, the event planner or the speakers or
• 15:18
  the videographer or the note takers, you name it.
• 15:22
  Interpreters are also part of the team.
• 15:24
  So we should be seeing accordingly.
• 15:27
  Yes, sometimes we come to an event and we're dressed nicely
• 15:30
  and interpreters. Sometimes they go into little
• 15:32
  booth. They're through their little
• 15:34
  thing and people think, you know what computers are sort of at
• 15:37
  this special breed that are just out there just to do their
• 15:40
  language part. But actually I think with that,
• 15:43
  we are one of the key elements to make sure that the event runs
• 15:49
  smoothly. So please do not hold
• 15:52
  information from the interpreters from us because
• 15:58
  it's we want to make sure just like everyone else at the event,
• 16:02
  we want to make sure that everything runs smoothly.
• 16:05
  You notice something doesn't go well.
• 16:08
  Well, you know, because some there was a miscommunication and
• 16:13
  miscommunications are the reason why any is the reason why
• 16:16
  anything fails in life. And by trusting the interpreter
• 16:20
  and by making sure that the interpreter is part of the team,
• 16:23
  you can make sure that your event is a success.
• 16:25
  Yeah, and we love it. I mean, I personally, personally
• 16:28
  speaking, I love going to an event, talking to the audio
• 16:31
  visual technician, seeing if everything's OK on their end and
• 16:34
  vice versa, talking to the event planner, making sure
• 16:36
  everything's OK and vice versa. Talking to the speaker is the
• 16:40
  people who are listening to us. We are all A-Team and we need to
• 16:43
  be aware of whether there's an issue or not.
• 16:45
  And, and again, vice versa, we need to work as a team all the
• 16:49
  time. And that does actually lead me
• 16:52
  to the next point. We're actually, believe it or
• 16:55
  not, out of our top ten, we're already at #9.
• 16:58
  So at this point I think I've been keeping count my friend.
• 17:03
  That's what I do. So anyways, my my point is when
• 17:08
  people ask why I'm like, well why not right?
• 17:12
  So like in over 20 years as an interpreter, I've never come up
• 17:15
  with a good reason why we should not receive the documents prior
• 17:19
  to an event. Like I can't think of 1, can
• 17:23
  you? Hello.
• 17:24
  Well, no, no, there, there's no good reason to withhold
• 17:27
  information, that's for sure. And some people will say, you
• 17:30
  know what, well, if I use an AI tool, then I won't need to feed
• 17:36
  it any documents. Actually, that's wrong.
• 17:40
  That's. Actually number.
• 17:41
  Ten, yeah, using an AI tool actually is more work than
• 17:46
  hiring an interpreter because did you know that AI speech
• 17:51
  translation software? Basically it's it's it's a
• 17:55
  translation software. We call it AI just for marketing
• 17:58
  purposes, but it requires you to upload as many documents as
• 18:05
  possible into it in order to feed it glossaries to minimize
• 18:10
  the number of errors, and these errors can be quite big.
• 18:17
  Therefore, you have to feed the translation software AKA I
• 18:23
  Proper names, acronyms, short terms, long terms, everything
• 18:29
  needs to be included to ensure consistency into the software,
• 18:34
  which is not something you need to do with an interpreter.
• 18:39
  Yeah, you're basically doing the job of the interpreter before
• 18:42
  the conference. So while we're preparing our
• 18:44
  glossaries and terminology and all this stuff, someone who will
• 18:47
  be using, I still will have to do that work.
• 18:50
  So it doesn't take less work or less effort if you're using an
• 18:54
  AI tool like a speech translation, for example.
• 18:58
  And actually, I know you showed me study that was done by
• 19:02
  American Translators Association.
• 19:05
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, like a couple of days ago.
• 19:06
  And and we're and it said like the accuracy rate for most of
• 19:09
  these speech translation tools is about 56% more or less in the
• 19:14
  language that they're listening to.
• 19:16
  So you can imagine how much it is on the end result.
• 19:21
  But that's why these AI tools require the glossaries to be
• 19:25
  able to not hallucinate as much and not to give improper
• 19:29
  information. So basically like you're what
• 19:33
  you're doing is you're feeding it so that it gets more and more
• 19:35
  accurate. But do you really want to be in
• 19:38
  the situation where you're trying it for the first time and
• 19:40
  it's only like 60% accurate? And then you're like, OK, let's
• 19:43
  take all the notes from that and then add it to the glossary for
• 19:46
  next year. And next year it's going to be
• 19:49
  65 or 70% and so on until you get to that sweet spot.
• 19:54
  How many conferences are you going to go through where
• 19:56
  everything's inaccurate until you get to the accurate AI?
• 20:00
  You know what, just a very quickly here.
• 20:03
  You know what I'm going to share here?
• 20:07
  Um, just this. I got it right here.
• 20:12
  So I, I'm preparing, here's this presentation.
• 20:14
  And you can see here that they did, they did some tests with
• 20:22
  internal AI software to do interpretation.
• 20:27
  And this is, these numbers are basically the accuracy level
• 20:33
  depending on which language combination you're dealing with.
• 20:36
  And only out of all the tests that they did, only one out of
• 20:42
  90 had a 75% accuracy. The accuracy for for the average
• 20:50
  was 46%. And if you take a look at the
• 20:57
  bottom here for let's say when you combine let's say Arabic and
• 21:00
  English, the rate, the success rate is at 44%.
• 21:04
  But let's say you go from French into English, the accuracy rate
• 21:09
  is at 62%. So and the the average for
• 21:15
  instance, when it comes to any language into French, because I
• 21:19
  deal with French all the time, because I'm a French English
• 21:21
  interpreter, it's only at 36% right here.
• 21:27
  So compared with the human come in for compared with a human
• 21:32
  interpreter, these numbers show us that AI interpretation is
• 21:37
  really not ready for prime time, that's for sure.
• 21:42
  Absolutely. No, I agree with you 100%.
• 21:45
  And yeah, so anyways, that's we hope this was helpful to you
• 21:49
  guys. We did like trying to give you
• 21:51
  like a rough 10 top 10 reasons. And obviously it's not an
• 21:56
  exhaustive list. There's a whole bunch of other
• 21:58
  reasons why it's important for interpreters to get information
• 22:01
  ahead of time, but ducha interest of time and whatnot.
• 22:06
  At least we hope that it was able to shed some light on why
• 22:09
  it's so important to share information with interpreters.
• 22:13
  All right, perfect, perfect all. Thank you very much.
• 22:16
  And don't forget everyone like share, subscribe and if someone
• 22:23
  listening, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're listening, so if.
• 22:28
  Anyone if yeah, if you guys want any other podcast topics, let us
• 22:33
  know. We'll, we'll keep on doing our
• 22:35
  what we do. Yeah, exactly.
• 22:37
  So thank you for listening everyone and see you next time.
• 22:40
  Cheers. Take care.