We could all talk for hours about the challenges we’ve faced since the pandemic struck in 2020. However, new opportunities have also opened up, so why not focus on them instead? Online or remote simultaneous interpretation is one of the good things that have come into our lives.
In the old days interpretation meant that you met the interpreters in person; they were present at the event, working from a booth or sitting next to you and whispering into your ear, depending on what type of interpretation you required.
Beside the numerous benefits of such personal meetings and onsite events, simultaneous interpretation used to impose a huge financial burden on the organiser company due to the high cost of technical equipment (booths, headsets, microphones), the travel and accommodation cost of speakers and interpreters, catering, room rental, and many other fees.
Under the present circumstances we’re compelled to meet virtually.
Is it better than a face-to-face event? No.
Can you do it in a professional way? Yes.
Can you save money on your events with interpretation? Definitely.
With online interpretation you not only save on travel (both time and expense), but online platforms enabling simultaneous interpretation are also available at a significantly lower cost than technical equipment for a traditional event.
On the other hand, you’re on your own here, you have no technician to help you, and you will need someone at your organisation to learn how to host online events with simultaneous interpretation.
We’ve noticed that our clients are not comfortable in this situation. Smaller organisations have no dedicated staff to deal with the technical aspects of online meetings, so the Office Manager or someone from the Communications Department need to learn these new skills. The majority of these meetings are held on the ZOOM Meetings platform, which we’re familiar with, so we thought “This is where we can help!”, and organised a series of webinars for our partners.
Initially we planned two webinars – and in the end we held four due to high demand. During this webinar we discussed what type of licence you need to host a ZOOM event with simultaneous interpretation, what the technical requirements are, and what settings you need to pay attention to.
Through a simulated event the participants could experience what it’s like to be in the role of an interpreter, how audio channels work, and why relay interpretation is still a challenge in ZOOM Meetings.
We have compiled a guidebook and collected tips and tricks that could be useful for our partners when they organise online simultaneous interpreting in ZOOM Meetings. To those wishing to practise, we provided a licence for 24 hours so they had a chance to practise what we had covered in the webinar.
The feedback we received was amazing! New and long-term partners alike were grateful for the initiative and confirmed that the knowledge we had shared would be invaluable for their work in the future.
“Thank you so much for this very clear and useful presentation!” (Independent Retail Europe)
“Many thanks for an excellent webinar.” (Teagasc Ashtown Food Research Centre)
Special thanks to Kata Miklós (DTP and IT Manager) for introducing the webinar participants to the essentials of ZOOM interpretation, to our marketing communications manager, Csilla Dömötör, for the idea of the webinar, and to all our partners attending and contributing with great questions.
When you’re planning an online event with interpreters on Zoom, but you’ve never done it before and find it too challenging, feel free to contact our project managers.
Our interpreters have experience in remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI), so they can support all your online meetings and conferences in more than 50 languages. They are familiar with the most common online platforms that are used for online events (not only with Zoom but also with others, like MS Teams). You can find more details about our interpretation services here.
If you are a new client, we are pleased to offer a 7% discount on all interpretation and translation services until 30 April. Click and check the details of our SPRING2021 special offer here.
