Re: Vote : Do we need simultaneous interpretation

[Pockey Lam <pockey beijinglug org>]

Hi all,  

Knowing that the budget is rather tight and the audiences are mainly
Chinese, besides, we will have a few rooms giving talks / BOF at the
same time. How about we schedule talks with at least 1 x Chinese and 1 x
English at the same time? So that all foreigners who don't understand
Chinese can go to those rooms with English speakers and visi versa. (the
fact that it's not easy to have professional Gnome-based
interpreters...)

Then, we can arrange volunteers who understand Gnome and speak both
language to standby at the venue, we can have their help anytime when
necessary.  

Like this, we can save the money for interpretations and spend the money
on other more important things? :)

What do you think?

Cheers,
Pockey


On Tue, 2008-09-23 at 12:01 +0800, Pockey Lam wrote:
> Dear Brian, Emily, 
> 
> Interpretation is a real job :) Not everybody who can speak both
> languages or have Gnome background can do the job... as interpreters are
> trained to listen and speak at the same time, that's why they usually
> have very short memory, even if they missed one sentence, it shouldn't
> affect the next sentence and so on. For non-professionals, it's very
> very tough to do this. 
> 
> Actually, BLUG co-organized Linux Developer Symposium in Feb and mainly
> provides support for interpretation and translations.  It was really a
> very technical conference, mainly talked about Linux kernel...
> 
> For interpretation, we found them by interviewing some interpreters who
> already had jobs related to technology conferences, then we provided
> training to interpreters before the event, e.g. sending them
> vocabularies with Chinese / English related to the event, sending them
> all the slides earlier if possible, asking them to come 1 or 2 days in
> advance to talk to all the speakers and go through all the slides once
> with the speaker explaining them what they are going to present. 
> 
> For translation, we have mainly 3 members doing the job e.g. for small
> rooms workshop, press interviews with speakers, press conference, etc. I
> found out it's quite tough for our members (who speak both languages
> fluently and have technical background) to do even translations, i.e.
> (translate after the speakers finish his sentences). Even-though some do
> a good job, some audiences and speakers were bored as it takes time to
> translate after each sentences. Besides, one of our members forgot what
> the speakers said a few times during the speech, it was rather
> embarrassing... 
> 
> Hence, if our main audiences are Chinese and budget is tight, maybe we
> should give up the idea of interpretation? 
> 
> If we do have needs and budget allows, :) maybe we should go for
> interpreters. I can help to arrange the interviews for Emily and other
> GNOME experts, then you can pick the ones and give them training in
> advance. 
> 
> Cheers,
> Pockey
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, 2008-09-22 at 14:08 -0500, Brian Cameron wrote:
> > Emily:
> > 
> > > I would like to get feedback from every committee member about "*simultaneous 
> > > interpretation*". From your opinion, do you think simultaneous interpretation is 
> > > necessary?
> > > Currently, the venue in BUAA support simultaneous interpretation which means 
> > > they can provide the devices for simultaneous interpretation.
> > > 
> > > The cost for simultaneous interpretation is
> > > Devices: 6000 * 2 days = 12000RMB
> > > Fee for interpretors : One person one day :  10000RMB
> > 
> > I wouldn't think that interpretors provided by a service would be able
> > to easily translate technical terminology.  It wouldn't work so well if
> > the translators don't already have an understanding of GNOME and the
> > GNOME community since these will be the topics.
> > 
> > Couldn't people from the GNOME community who already work at Sun
> > volunteer to do translation?  This would avoid having to pay fees, and
> > the people would likely be better able to translate what people are
> > saying.
> > 
> > Brian
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