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What is said, and what is not said...
Mar. 17th, 2009 03:32 pmLJ friend ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tamaraland sounds off on some pet peeves, which reminded me of an assignment not long ago...
It was an assignment where I had been hired as an "extra" interpreter, where it turned out the two gentlemen who were the "real" interpreters were... well... I had to interpret for one of them at the very start of the assignment, okay? That should have been my first hint.
In any event, there we are, in the middle of a meeting, and I'm interpreting a presentation. All of a sudden, a densely worded PowerPoint <spit> slide comes on the screen and the presenter tells the assembled Russian delegation that rather than "waste time" reading the slide sentence-by-sentence and have me interpret what he said, he'd just ask me to translate the slide directly.
I did a fast estimate, concluded there were something between 350 and 400 words on the screen, and then apologized to the presenter, explaining that attempting a "sight interpretation" of the slide would be time-consuming and would leave many of the technical nuances on the screen. I then offered to call the office and have his slide translated into Russian, adding that said translation shouldn't take more than an hour or so.
The speaker panicked visibly, saying that the next 8 slides in his presentation were as dense, textwise, as the one on the screen, and that if we had to pause for the office to translate everything, it would mean delaying the meeting by a full day.
The unspoken alternative he was proposing was to have me sight interpret nearly a full day's work for most translators in... golly, the 23 minutes remaining for the presenter to finish his presentation and field questions!
In the end, I interpreted the gist of the slides for the delegation, and - mirabile dictu - the world did not come to an end.
There are days when I am glad I am not interpreting. Today is one of them.
Cheers...
tamaraland sounds off on some pet peeves, which reminded me of an assignment not long ago...It was an assignment where I had been hired as an "extra" interpreter, where it turned out the two gentlemen who were the "real" interpreters were... well... I had to interpret for one of them at the very start of the assignment, okay? That should have been my first hint.
In any event, there we are, in the middle of a meeting, and I'm interpreting a presentation. All of a sudden, a densely worded PowerPoint <spit> slide comes on the screen and the presenter tells the assembled Russian delegation that rather than "waste time" reading the slide sentence-by-sentence and have me interpret what he said, he'd just ask me to translate the slide directly.
I did a fast estimate, concluded there were something between 350 and 400 words on the screen, and then apologized to the presenter, explaining that attempting a "sight interpretation" of the slide would be time-consuming and would leave many of the technical nuances on the screen. I then offered to call the office and have his slide translated into Russian, adding that said translation shouldn't take more than an hour or so.
The speaker panicked visibly, saying that the next 8 slides in his presentation were as dense, textwise, as the one on the screen, and that if we had to pause for the office to translate everything, it would mean delaying the meeting by a full day.
The unspoken alternative he was proposing was to have me sight interpret nearly a full day's work for most translators in... golly, the 23 minutes remaining for the presenter to finish his presentation and field questions!
In the end, I interpreted the gist of the slides for the delegation, and - mirabile dictu - the world did not come to an end.
There are days when I am glad I am not interpreting. Today is one of them.
Cheers...
