“la parole exportée”

It’s probably just a coincidence, but the blog name ‘Certain Ideas of Europe‘ (on the Economist.com website) brings to mind the ‘certain idea of France’ that has informed so much of France’s foreign policy in the past decades.

But the post I found, a fairly old one for this day and age, since it was written in January, has this heading: ‘Five months left to learn French‘. It’s interesting and funny, as I’m reading it just after France started its 6-month turn at leading the European Union. I have written somewhere that this made for a very lively Spring season in the conference interpretation community. My bet is that the Fall season is going to be busy too, and I am already predicting an incredibly crazy month of December, with -as is always the case, but probably even more so with this Presidency- the outgoing country desperately trying to finish off jobs, putting together last-minute agreements, in the hope of leaving a remarkable legacy. Hmmm.

The post concludes with a quote from the French European Affairs Minister, saying:

“Also, a European presidency in which we will be using French to communicate, a great deal.”

Ha. Indeed. As a professional translator, I can only applaud. More business. This is one of the favorite themes of this Presidency. We’ll see. However, what I found really funny, were the comments. Same old stories. Same old rivalry. Same old tally of who in Europe wants to speak English, not French. (What about German? Spanish?) Same old accounting of how much French the English language has absorbed over the centuries (and vice versa?). Same old squabbling: ‘French is a dead language.’ No, it’s not.’ ‘Yes it is.’ One could have argued: ‘What about British English?’

Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Do we care?

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Today’s edition of the New York Times has an interesting story that could become a topic for discussion among interpreters, although I have a pretty good idea of what the answer should be.

According to the article, “An Interpreter Speaking Up for Migrants,” a legal interpreter has produced an essay about the conditions prevailing when he was working for Spanish-speaking migrants who were brought to justice for staying and working illegally in the United States.

Beyond the validity of the interpreter’s feelings and arguments, it raises an ethical issue for the interpreters and translators’ community at large.

For reasons of confidentiality, we are not allowed to disclose any information pertaining to the organizations and people we work for.

From a personal point of view, I can understand the reasons why this interpreter chose to make public some of the events that he was part of. However, this is a very dangerous game that could mean for us losing a lot of, if not all, our credibility.

Matthew Bennett, a Twitter friend and fellow translator introduced me to Diigo, a bookmarking service that at first sight looked very much like del.icio.us, but on second examination seems to have a lot more potential for my documentation needs.

I am still at the discovery stage, and therefore far from mastering all the intricacies of the service, but I am very pleased with my initial attempts, and provided Diigo doesn’t fall apart in the next few months, I might be able to set up my main reference system there.

So far, I’ve been able to bookmark a handful of articles and to highlight/annotate specialized terms, phrases and explanations that I want to collect in one place, in fields that are close to my areas of specialization. Later I’ll bookmark actual websites of interest, highlighting terms that will be useful to review when preparing documents in a hurry.

When I’m a little more advanced, I’ll probably be able to sort my bookmarks into different categories. At last I’m finding a viable alternative to my rather messy system of lists kept in Excel files, or worse even, on individual sheets of paper, loose bits and backs of envelopes, to be organized ‘tomorrow’, or more likely ‘never.’

This is the story of the last couple of days. You can look at it as a long list of grievances, or as a humorous series of mishaps, some of them happen quite frequently and are part of the job. I prefer to look at it from the latter perspective. Yet…

1. Being hired for a highly technical conference 4-5 days in advance is quite common, especially if you are asked if you are comfortable with IT. Yes, you are; if you are not, then you might be living in another century
2. Getting confirmation mid-afternoon the day before the conference is already a little nerve-racking (this was through an agency, things move differently when you are working for your client, or when a fellow interpreter is in charge).
3. Finding that even at that late hour no documents have been made available by the end client to prepare the meeting is disappointing, to say the least.
4. In that context, finding out via Google that the conference was announced several weeks ago, and that the program and several links are actually to be found on the Web is annoying.
5. Searching the Web for something -ANYTHING!- related to that conference and that extremely important topic is probably a waste of time, yet provides some insight.
6. Finally getting some documents (not even half of them, not even said program, a minimum) towards the end of the day means a studious evening. That’s fine with me, I’m not an avid TV viewer and I make time to go to the movies at other times

And that was only ‘the day before.’

On the actual day of the conference:

1. Finding that the sound coming to your headsets is so weak that the Japanese speaker standing about 1 yard from the microphone cannot be heard properly, even with my volume button turned way UP. Any simultaneous interpreter will tell you that when your own voice covers the speaker’s voice in your brain, you’re in trouble.
2. Finding that another speaker, whose Powerpoint presentation took ages to prepare, hands over to a colleague who will present an entirely different story, is OK. You’ve had that before. You are feeling philosophical, it’s going to be one of those days…
3. Finding that the technician (a lot has to be said for the wonderful help we get from technicians) has provided the speaker with a hand microphone so she can move around, and she forgets its main purpose and starts waving it around and uses it as a pointer to the screen, reproducing problem #1, is hilarious (in theory, not in practice).
4. Hearing that the 1.5 hour set aside for lunch on the program is reduced to one hour, with no possibility of having a decent lunch (that includes a salad or a sandwich, we are not talking about 5-course meals here) and having to elbow your way to the buffet table to sample a couple of one-square-inch mini-sandwiches is… what’s the word for it? Begging a plate from the buffet staff to take some of those post-stamp sandwiches outside in order to get a breath of fresh air away from the general noise and receiving a huge tray, but nothing to put on it is… I give up. This blog is abusive-language-free.
5. Being told off by the agency for being difficult about the meal and the document situation is not nice.
6. Being written off as a newbie because clients *never* provide documents willingly and on time, is stupid.

Well. My clients provide documents ahead of time. Not that I have to whip them to get that. If they can’t, they tell me why and they apologize. If I’m organizing a team, I keep my colleagues informed of the real situation and we take it from there. The clients I know may not welcome the extra work, but they never consider interpreters as non-entities, they know the part we play in the success of their event, even if it’s a nominal part. Yes, it takes time to have that conversation, and yes, they have other things on their minds, but it’s the organizers’ job to keep the conversation going, not to wake up at the last minute and then lay the blame on the client.

Call it the straw that broke the camel’s back. Even after 30 years, I still consider that contributing to the success of the client’s event is the most important part of my job. I have no patience and indeed no interest for this kind of argument.