As I’ve mentioned in a few recent LinkedIn posts (see here and here), last month I was working at the Hilton in Windhoek for the United Nations Development Programme providing interpreting services at a workshop related to the greenhouse gas inventories that must be submitted by the countries that are signatories to the Paris Agreement.
Interpreting in the booth for the workshop
It was fascinating to learn about how the calculations and estimates are done in various sectors and to learn the difference between tier-1, tier-2 and tier-3 data used for calculations.
A highly technical meeting
The full name of the workshop gave me an indication of how complex it was going to be. It was officially a “Workshop on the Building of Sustainable National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Management Systems and the Use of the IPCC Inventory Software to Support the Implementation of the Enhanced Transparency Framework under the Paris Agreement for the African Region”. If I was going to deliver a professional service that would allow the meeting to run smoothly, I would have to do my homework. Thankfully, my client was very cooperative and provided plenty of material for me to study in advance, which allowed me to understand what was being discussed in the meeting and to find the appropriate terms in French.
Opening speech of the Workshop on the Building of Sustainable National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Management Systems and the Use of the IPCC Inventory Software to Support the Implementation of the Enhanced Transparency Framework under the Paris Agreement for the African Region
Take “Sustainable National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Management Systems”. In French, the noun “Systèmes” comes before all the other words in the phrase. This means that, to translate this phrase correctly, in theory you have to hear the whole phrase and then remember all the terms before you can say “Systèmes durables de gestion des inventaires nationaux des gaz à effet de serre”. But by the time you say that, the speaker will be half way through the next sentence.
Solutions
The speakers often resorted to shorter forms such as “national inventories”. I found it very useful to use these short forms even when speakers used a long form. For example, if I said “national inventories”, delegates would know I was referring to national greenhourse gas inventories.
Acronyms were another big challenge.
Agenda for Session 4 on compiling GHG inventories using IPCC software and UNFCCC ETF reporting tool
I could see that acronyms were going to be used in abundance. So much so that I printed off a list in advance and stuck them to the inside walls of the interpreting booths. During the first few hours, I was looking at the wall frequently, but by the first afternoon, I was already familiar with most of the acronyms.
Using the software, and giving instructions for a tool only available in English
My advanced Excel skills came in handy, because they helped me to understand the IPCC Inventory Software, which in many ways resembled Excel. I installed the IPCC Inventory Software on my own computer before the session so that I could carry out the exercise as the delegates were doing it. Since the software was available only in English, when explaining which options to click on, I would say the option in English, pronouncing it in as clear a way as possible so that people who didn’t speak English could tell what I was saying, then I would explain what the option meant. For example, if the speaker said “Click on ‘New year'”, I would say “Cliquez sur ‘New Year’, qui signifie ‘Nouvelle année'”.
By carrying out the exercise at the same time as the delegates, I was able to understand what was going on, which made the interpreting task so much simpler. For example, the final session was all about how to move data from the IPPC Inventory Software to the reporting tool of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Sometimes the speakers would refer to both systems in the same sentence. Given the lengthy names, a useful interpreting strategy was to use phrases such as “les deux outils” (the two tools), “d’un outil à l’autre” (from one tool to the other), “entre les deux outils” (between the two tools), “aucun des deux outils” (neither tool) and “de l’outil du GIEC à celui de l’ONU” (from the IPPC tool to the UN tool) instead of more literal translations that mentioned the full names. The fact that the participants themselves often used these shorter phrases meant that I felt justified in using them when participants used the longer names. I was only able to do this because I prepared thoroughly and understood what was going on.
The key to success
Glossaries are vital for interpreting assignments. In the image is one of the glossaries I prepared in Google Sheets for the workshop
It’s hard to emphasize enough just how important preparation was for this assignment. The meeting could have been a disaster, but it was thanks to my meticulous preparation that, as I had a final hot drink in the coffee area after the final session, a group of half a dozen French-speaking delegates from across Africa told me what a wonderful job I’d done.
The Moroccan delegate told me that as she listened to me she could tell I loved what I was doing. She wasn’t wrong.
If you have a highly technical meeting for which you need an interpreter who will prepare properly and won’t let you down, get in contact and let’s talk about your project. More information at www.anglopremier.com/interpreting.