During and immediately after COVID lockdown in Melbourne, many company and bodycorp Annual General Meetings were conducted remotely.
Consecutive Interpreting for Presenters
When we are interpreting for a Chinese speaking presenter, the interpreter can take notes while the presenter is speaking, ususally 5-10 sentences each time, and then interpret it back into English for the attendees to understand. So both the interpreter and the speaker will have the microphone on when they are speaking. Consecutive mode is chosen over the simultaneous mode, when the content is highly technical, therefore the interpreter needs time to focus on listening and understanding the information before he or she can interpret. The consecutive mode will also make recording possible. [More about Consecutive Interpreting vs Simultaneous Interpreting]
Simultaneous Interpreting for Chinese Audience
Simultaneous Interpreting is also called Concurrent Interpreting. When a presenter in a general meeting is presenting in English, such as a manager of a bodycorp, or a company CEO, the attendees can choose the language they want to listen in from a drop down menue, by clicking on the Language button. In this way, an English speaking attendee will choose the speaker’s audio stream as the source, and a Chinese attendee will choose the interpreter’s audio as the source. Everyone will be able to get the messages concurrently without the need for the presenter to stop for the interpretation. More often than not, the meeting goes so smoothly that people may not even realise there is interpreting going on in the background, until the Q&A session, where a Chinese attendee raises hand to ask a question.
If one of the attendee is a Chinese mum busy cooking for the family or exercising in the gym, and have not time to sit in front of a computer, the interpreter can also set up a phone call with the phone speaker on, to enable her participation, while still interpeting for the rest of the Chinese attendees via the platform.
Some Mandarin or Cantonese attendees may have good understanding of general English and only needs assistance from the interpreter from time to time, when jargons are used. Therefore Chinese shareholder can switch between the English and Mandarin or Cantonese streams at any time, or even have two accounts set up to listen to both streams at the same time.
