4 conference interpreting collaboration ideas

I want to start this post with a Chinese proverb: good things come in pairs.

That is to say: as a conference interpreter, you represent 50% of the whole performance. Therefore, you are only as good as your booth since you represent half of the whole message and people won’t remember just your amazing rendering.

So here’s a few things I find essential when working together:

1. Building rapport

   Whether it’s a quick call, a few email exchanges or a study session together, it is always good to speak to your booth partner before the assignment. If I get to speak to them before the event and there is enough time, I always suggest a study session the day before and a common glossary.

   I think the attitude of colleagues towards discussing terminology and building something before the assignment, preparing content together and the like usually gives me a good thermometer of where they are coming from and their style.

   To me, that’s essential because I don’t want to be intrusive or rude about feedback, but also because I want to learn, share my insights and feel supported when things get difficult.

2. The common notepad

   I am a lover of A5 notepads, so a page might be small for everything going on and we tend to jot down things in a way we will easily relate to. Plus, many of us will usually add similar types of information on the same part of the notepad so we can easily look and repeat. Therefore would not dare jot down something on someone else’s notepad. I feel like jotting down anything on someone else’s notepad would disturb the memory strategies behind their note-taking, same for me.

   Therefore, I always bring a colourful A4 notepad to share. It is a place where both people are allowed to write anything and it is really helpful. I usually tell my colleague this is a shared space from the get-go and place it between us. We both add things that are either mutually beneficial or good for whoever is out there in the trenches. It may be useful to work out first what you both need and keep half the first page with that information permanently. you can then tear the page and add whatever either one wants as the event goes.

   I always bring an A4 bright colour notepad to assignments and make sure my colleague is comfortable to write on it whenever they want.

   For instance:

   I did an assignment where we had a few Brazilian ministros, none of which were ministers. The correct rendering should be Justices for some and and State Secretares for others, so we kept names being mentioned repeatedly and their roles permanently on the common pad because it was a tricky thing to go into English without making a gross mistake.

   I find the common pad thing is all about rapport and you decide what will be there together, so there may be nothing, but there may be a few interesting occurrences you both want to constantly look at during the event. You may use it for numbers, or to ask questions, or provide vocabulary.

3. Post-its

   These are great for confusing acronyms that repeatedly crop up or anything that may not be needed throughout the event. I have a love for post-it notes whenever the issue is things like acronyms. From my language pair I have a few ones I am always wary of: OECD becomes OCDE, so same letters, different order. WHO in Portuguese is OMS, so not intuitive at all.

   Sometimes, post-its can be also used as a reminder of acronyms we have already covered the meaning of so we just need to repeat the same letter combination, as the audience does not require full form.

   And I always, always, I tell my colleague they are welcome to use any of these things whenever they want in however way they find helpful as it’s all for us both as a team.

4. Bios

   If you get a list of bios, highlighting the speakers’ names alphabetically with different colours on an excel sheet is a great way to follow introductions and not get lost. You should have names, titles and their roles and qualifications; it works a treat for people doing introductions of mentioning important participants too quickly. It helps you find people’s names and titles so you can be more confident.

   Any other good ideas out there?