Are you planning a conference and require interpreting services? Here are some tips for planning an effective conference and making your multilingual meeting a success.

Naturally, the success of a conference or other multilingual meeting which involves language interpretation does depend on the professionalism and the quality of the conference interpreting service, but there are also others factors that influence the work of interpreters and ensure good communication between participants.

Technical considerations, like acoustic conditions, are an essential point to bear in mind when organizing a conference interpreting. Conference interpreting will also require you to hire technical equipment as well as staff trained to use it. They will plan the distribution of the interpreters’ booths and set up the sound system in the room where the conference is to be held, ensuring ideal sound conditions in both the room and the interpreters’ booths.

Now let’s focus on the conference interpreter. The interpreter’s work starts much earlier than the start of the conference, and does not finish when the conference interpretation is over. Good preparation is essential, and that’s why it’s advisable to provide background documentation about the topics to be discussed at the meeting, such as reports, terms specific to the company, proper names of products, abbreviations, acronyms, etc.  This way, the interpreter can prepare his/her work and get to grips with the specific vocabulary involved, because unfamiliar terms can be used at a meeting, even in the interpreter’s mother tongue.

Like any other worker, the language interpreter needs a comfortable working environment and proper technical team to do their job properly. The conference interpreters’ working environment is booths. Interpreting booths need to offer direct and complete visibility of the whole room, delegates and public, as well as a correct viewing angle for the projection screens so they can clearly read the slides. They need to be comfortable, sound-proofed, air-conditioned and have good lighting. Equally important is a comfortable chair and desk with enough space for the console, documents and reference materials they need to use.

As you can see, there are plenty of important factors to be taken into account when organizing a multilingual event involving conference interpreting, which sometimes are not taken into account leading to a number of problems. I´m sure all of us have heard about cases of misunderstandings caused by interpreting errors. Do you know any of them? Or do you have any experience with conference interpreting that you would like to share with us?

At Veritas we can advise you, and arrange for all your technical and interpreting needs, in order to ensure that your event is a success. For more information please visit our conference interpreting page.