Hemispheres Magazine, January 1996

Executive Secrets: Breaking the Language Barrier

The business world is multilingual and multicultural. As more executives get into the global economic act, they invariably need an interpreter. Here is what you need to know for problem-free, interpreter-assisted communication.

The planet is your conference room. You've spent so much time in the air that you're considering starting up a sideline selling stock in your frequent flier memberships. You've got it all: laptop, fax, email, cellular phone. In short, you're in the 98th percentile when it comes to international communications know-how. But there's another communications aid you need to know about: the foreign language interpreter.

Why do you need interpreters? Because it takes three to four years of serious cramming to become fluent in a major Western European language. Add another two or three years for Russian. Make that 10 for Japanese. And with everyone getting into the act in the global economy these days, chances are good that you are going to have to do some talking—some serious talking, involving words of three syllables and more, complex sentences, and some pretty large numbers as well, with people whose English is just not up to the task.

Without knowledge of how to locate, hire, and work with qualified interpreters, you will find yourself stymied as you try to make yourself understood. That is a best-case scenario. In the worst of cases, your business opportunities will be significantly limited.

"I am excited about the future of interpreting because it's bringing us all closer together," says Bill Martin, executive director of Phoenix Language Services in Philadelphia. "The interpreter's role is growing every day because the world economy is multilingual and multicultural. It's time for all of us, no matter what country we are from, to get off our ethnocentric duffs! Using language services is one important way to do that."

Even if you are as monolingual as they come, you can do a great deal to vault over language barriers as you move your business along the international track. Interpreter savvy is a vital communications tool that will prove more useful than the knowledge of any single foreign language. Access to knowledge counts more than knowledge itself, as librarians and Internet surfers love to remind us, and knowing how to find, hire, and work with interpreters is access to international knowledge, big-time.

Interpretation is as old as the Tower of Babel. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that the King of Athens used 120 interpreters when establishing diplomatic relations with multi-ethnic neighbors to the east, in the Caucasus. Interpreters are specialists who transfer spoken words/sentences/thoughts from one language into another. They come in three varieties—simultaneous, consecutive, and escort—and are sometimes confused with their professional cousins, translators, who work with written documents.

Although an ancient profession, interpretation has only recently started to be taken seriously in the United States, and it is in fact still widely misunderstood. Many people think that anyone who is fluent in two languages is an interpreter or potential interpreter. This woeful misconception has been responsible for any number of international incidents and has unfairly tainted the reputation of the entire profession. Superb knowledge of two or more languages is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being an interpreter. There is no lack of people who speak more than one language well, even very well, but are incapable of expressing in one language what they can comprehend in another. Or they lack other prerequisites for interpretation, such as listening and memory skills or the ability to convey information transparently: without changing, distorting, coloring, adding to, or diminishing the original message.

''An interpreter must also be a good public speaker," adds Erika Nobel, president of ASET International Services Corporation, a translation and interpretation company in Arlington, Virginia that provides services in over 100 languages. These skills spell the difference between the professional interpreter and the wannabe. And when you're sitting across the table from your associate or client, hammering out the details of an agreement, you need a professional interpreter who distinguishes between selling and marketing, advertising and promotion, currency and cash, and who knows the correct names of all those little widgets that are such a large part of what you do. So if you are tempted to cut corners by using an undergraduate language major or someone's friend who spent a semester in Europe—and, surprising as it is, some fairly astute businesspeople surrender to this temptation—stop that thought! (If it occurs to you a second time, perhaps the costs of doing business internationally are more than you're able to take on at the moment.) With major contracts and important business relationships riding in large part on the ability of an interpreter to convey both parties' words fully and accurately, leaving out no nuance, it is becoming more and more apparent that an interpreter is a professional no less skilled in his or her chosen field than an accountant or a lawyer.

Where are the professional interpreters? The most common place to find them is through language service companies. "Businesses should do research on translation and interpretation companies, screen and evaluate them, and establish a relationship with a professional company they can depend on to fulfill their needs," says Nobel. "If they choose the route of hiring and arranging their own interpreters, they need to be familiar with standards of pay and qualifications."

Another reliable source is professional organizations, such as the American Translators Association, which includes interpreters among its members and publishes a professional services directory, and the Translators and Interpreters Guild, which can provide interpreter referrals. Membership in one of these organizations indicates that an interpreter is aware of and committed to professional standards, ethics, and continuing education.

When screening interpreters, ask what subject matters and terminologies they are competent to interpret and what types of clients they have. What dictionaries and reference materials do they use regularly? What exposure have they had to the foreign language? How much time have they spent in the country or countries where it is spoken? How do they see the role of interpreter? Do not assume that a native speaker of another language necessarily makes a better interpreter than a native speaker of English. This is a common bias worldwide. Remember that every interpreting situation involves two languages and that all interpreters, except those rare ones who are completely bilingual, know one language better than the other. What sort of education or training should an interpreter have? There are a few universities in the United States that give degrees in interpretation, the most prestigious being the Monterey Institute of International Studies. In Europe, there are many more. But some of the best interpreters gain their expertise through experience on the job and have little or no formal training. A college degree and experience are musts, as is a strong background in political science, international relations, and the humanities.

In finding interpreting services for your business, determine whether you require simultaneous or consecutive interpretation for your meetings and whether you will require escort interpretation services as well. Consecutive interpretation is used in small to middle-sized bilateral meetings where there is a lot of give-and-take across the language barrier. The speakers pause after a few sentences so that the interpreter can render their words in the other language. Simultaneous interpretation is used for conferences and meetings involving large numbers of people and is a must if more than two languages will be spoken in the meeting. Simultaneous requires equipment that allows the speaker to continue without pause, while the interpreter listens through headphones and interprets continuously, sotto voce, into a microphone hooked up to earphones worn by the listeners. Simultaneous interpretation is more expensive than consecutive and is considered more difficult. Because simultaneous interpretation is extremely taxing mentally, it is performed by teams of two or more interpreters who relieve each other at regular intervals, approximately every half hour.

Escort interpreters aid foreign visitors in handling matters complicated by the language barrier, such as shopping, sightseeing, ordering meals, and taking public transportation. While escort work requires less polished language skills, it is a job demanding much tact, diplomacy, and patience. Escort duties are sometimes handled by the same interpreters who interpret at meetings and presentations, but often, escort interpreters are hired separately, at a lower rate.

Once you have found the interpreting services you need, learn how to work with interpreters effectively.

The most important step you can take to make sure your interpreted meetings go smoothly is to provide the interpreter with information in advance: an agenda, brochures about your company and your industry, and a glossary of terms likely to arise during the discussions. Brief the interpreter in person. If there are formal presentations, the interpreter must receive the speaker's notes or speech beforehand. If the material requires more than an hour or two of skimming, expect to compensate the interpreter for preparation time.

During interpreted meetings, speak audibly and clearly and do not rush. Express your thoughts concisely, avoid long sentences, and do not interrupt the interpreter or other speakers. If you are using consecutive interpretation, pause frequently to let the interpreter speak. Explain important concepts a few different ways. Address yourself directly to your counterpart, not to the interpreter. The interpreter is an intermediary, not a participant in the discussions.

After you have sat in on a few interpreted meetings, your confidence will grow as you realize that you can, to some extent, judge the quality of an interpreter's work even if you know only one the languages being used. Good interpreters speak English well, whether or not it is their native language. Their speech is grammatically correct and literate. They handle terminology and idioms with confidence, and if they need to clarify a word or expression, they then grasp the meaning quickly. From the interpreter's voice and body language, you will be able to determine his or her level of comprehension and fluency in the other language. From the relevance and coherence of the interpreter's translations from the other language into English, you will also be able to tell in most cases whether your remarks were accurately rendered.

With a new, heightened awareness of interpreters and how to work with them, you'll extend your linguistic and cultural range, just as a microscope extends the eye's ability to see.

Laura Wolfson is a simultaneous interpreter of Russian and English.