Welcome to my last post about languages in the EU! This time I will talk about interpreting. Of course, if you know any interesting facts about this topic, you are more than welcome to leave a comment!

DG Interpretation is responsible for providing interpreters and allocating meeting rooms for the European Commission. I had never really thought about this before, but you it’s important to know how many languages are involved to set the right number of booths and decide on the right venue. Also, another interesting piece of trivia is that DG Interpretation only provides interpreters for the EU Commision and other bodies, but not for the European Parliament and the Court of Justice, although all these services collaborate closely to ensure that multilingualism is respected.

And now, a couple of figures, just to give you an idea of how big this interpreting system is: 500 staff interpreters, 2,700 accredited freelance interpreters and 50-60 meetings a day. That’s quite challenging to me! Of course interpreters use the same ‘relay’ system employed by translators. This means that languages such as Finnish are only translated into some more common languages and then interpreters choose from those to deliver the message into their mother tongue. So, a Slovak interpreter can decide on German and then interpret into Slovak. These sorts of linguistic shortcuts ensure practicality and cut down costs, although a strict quality control maintains high standards.

Finally, since the European Union has the largest interpreting service in the world, it is the ideal environment to test new technologies, such as remote interpreting. And, if you have ever thought of trying to become an interpreter for the European Union, here is a nice forum ( http://www.eutraining.eu/ ) where participants share their experiences about the application and testing procedure, which has some interesting tips for any job you might apply for.

So, good luck… and happy interpreting!