How to maximize engagement with Multilingual Interpretation for your virtual events

You are running a webstream for an audience with some non English speaking guests, and you have been asked to provide a translation service to allow those guests to listen in their native tongue.

What options do you have as an event organiser?

The starting point is to select your interpreter.

Interpreter at work

There are a large number of organisations and individuals that offer Live Video Call Interpretation in any language. Some are certified to ISO 17100, which is the international standard for translation services.

For simultaneous live translation, industry standards suggest a rotation of interpreters every 20 minutes, so for most live events you will need at least two interpreters for each language.

But if you are discussing complex or technical topics, you may require more frequent breaks and shorter shifts to maintain accuracy and clarity.

Before the advent of simple video conferencing for the masses, it was necessary for interpretation services to be on site wherever the presentation was being held. These days of course, almost all translations can be done via a video call, which eliminates any travel and accommodation costs. That said, the audio being fed to the interpreters video call must be flawless. If they cant hear what is being said clearly, they really wont be able to provide accurate translation, so make sure you are using quality microphones and an experienced sound engineer.

In terms of technical delivery there are several solutions available.

If you are event streaming to a platform like Facebook or YouTube then you would typically set up a separate stream for each language. The picture remains the same for all streams, but your streaming engineer takes the audio from the interpreter, and feeds their translated audio to replace the native audio that's on the main stream. Guests can log in to whichever stream they choose, and hear the audio in their preferred language.

Confidence Digital uses a professional streaming software platform called vMix, and this can support live streaming to 5 different platforms simultaneously. So that could be one stream with the live audio from the event, and up to four language streams, each with a different audio feed from up to four language translators.

Possibly the platform with the most comprehensive features for simultaneous language translation is Zoom.

A meeting or webinar host can designate up to 20 participants as language interpreters.

When the meeting or webinar starts, the host can start the interpretation feature which will allow the translators to provide their own audio channels for the language they are translating to.

Attendees simply select the audio channel to hear translated speech in their language of choice.

They also have the option to mute the original audio or have it play at a lower volume as background to their chosen language.

Of course there is another way to provide language translation, and that is using closed captions.

Major video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, all support real-time captioning, and can translate captions into a participant's preferred language.

Captions are automatically generated using AI algorithms that listen to the live program audio.

Those same AI algorithms can simultaneously translate that text into other languages.

So just how accurate is live translation?

I know from personal experience working with live interpretation services over the years, that it is a very difficult job.

Corporate presenters often speak quickly, they might talk about highly technical topics, and use many colloquial phrases or acronyms.

Even worse, for internal presentations, such as Town Hall broadcasts, speeches will often contain terminology unique to the industry sector, or even words or unique the firm they are working for, making the job of the interpreter challenging at best.

AI bots fair no better than humans, in fact usually worse, so the only solution is to try and modify speech and presentation techniques that aid translation in the first place.

Presenters should speak slowly, use pauses. Don't use language that might be difficult to translate, and work with your interpreter to go through the presentation beforehand to put context behind any difficult phrases that are unavoidable. Maybe even issuing a written copy of the speech in advance, so the interpreter has time to adjust their output to provide more accurate translation.

For more information on how we can support your next virtual, hybrid or in person event, get on touch hello@confidence-digital.com

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