How the UN Translates Everything in Real-Time
Summary
TLDRThe video script delves into the world of UN interpreters, revealing the intricacies of real-time translation during UN sessions. It explains the UN's six official languages, the role of interpreters in booths, and the 'relay system' for less common language pairs. The script also highlights the challenges and skills required for this profession, the rarity of certain language pairs, and the rigorous selection process for interpreters. It humorously touches on the interpreters' workload and the importance of their role in global diplomacy.
Takeaways
- đ The UN uses earpieces for diplomats to receive real-time translations during meetings.
- đ The UN has six official languages: Arabic, British English, French, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Spanish.
- đïž Interpretation booths are located near the meeting rooms, each labeled with their respective language.
- đ„ Each booth must have at least two interpreters, who are native speakers of the language they interpret into.
- đ Interpreters use a 'relay system' for languages not directly covered, interpreting through a common language like English.
- đ Interpreters receive advance information about meetings, including subject matter and documents, to prepare for their tasks.
- đ Becoming a UN interpreter is highly competitive, with exams offered every three years and a rigorous selection process.
- đ° Freelance interpreters at the UN can earn $666 per day, highlighting the high demand and skill required for the role.
- đ Interpreters work in shifts, typically every 20-30 minutes, to maintain focus and accuracy during meetings.
- đ§ Interpretation is a complex cognitive task, involving not just language processing but also coordination of listening, processing, and speaking.
- đœïž The video also promotes a meal delivery service called Factor, emphasizing convenience and healthy eating.
Q & A
What is the primary function of the earpieces used by diplomats at the UN?
-The primary function of the earpieces is to provide reliable, real-time translations of every sentence spoken on the UN floor.
How many official languages does the UN have?
-The UN has six official languages: Arabic, British English, French, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Spanish.
What are the two working languages of the UNâs executive branch?
-The two working languages of the UNâs executive branch are English and French.
What does the 'Unknown' option on the earpiece possibly represent?
-The 'Unknown' option on the earpiece might represent languages like Simlish, Toddler, or Marshmallow-In-Mouth, though it's not explicitly stated in the script.
Where are the interpretation booths located in the UN meeting rooms?
-The interpretation booths are located near the seating areas in the General Assembly and Security Council, each labeled with their respective language.
What is the minimum number of interpreters required in each interpretation booth?
-Each interpretation booth must always have at least two interpreters inside.
What is the difference between 'translators' and 'interpreters' in the context of the UN?
-In the context of the UN, 'translators' handle written material, while 'interpreters' are responsible for oral translations.
What is the 'relay system' used when a language is not directly covered by a booth?
-The 'relay system' involves an interpreter translating the speech into an intermediate language that another interpreter can understand and then translate into the target language.
How many middleman languages are allowed in the UN's relay system?
-The UN allows only one middleman language in the relay system to avoid confusion and misinterpretation.
What is required if someone wants to speak a language outside of the six official UN languages?
-If someone wants to speak a language outside of the six official UN languages, they must provide an interpreter who can interpret live from their language into one of the six official languages.
What is the approximate daily rate for freelance interpreters at the UN?
-Freelance interpreters at the UN make approximately 666 dollars a day.
How often does the UN offer exams for interpreters for each language combination?
-The UN offers exams for each language combination roughly every three years.
What is the average speed at which interpreters work?
-Interpreters work at about 120 words per minute, which is as fast as an average Biden State of the Union address.
How often do staff interpreters swap out with another interpreter during a meeting?
-Staff interpreters swap out with another interpreter every 20-30 minutes during a meeting to avoid mental fatigue.
What is the significance of the first Wednesday in May for interpreters?
-The first Wednesday in May is International Interpreters' Day, a day to celebrate and acknowledge the work of interpreters.
Outlines
đ UN Interpretation: The Invisible Art of Real-Time Translation
This paragraph delves into the world of UN interpreters and the complex system that allows diplomats to receive real-time translations through earpieces during UN meetings. It explains the six official languages of the UN and the presence of interpretation booths for each language, staffed by at least two interpreters who are native speakers of the language they interpret into. The paragraph also touches on the relay system used when a language is not directly covered by a booth, involving a chain of interpretations through a common language. Additionally, it highlights the rarity of certain language combinations and the challenges interpreters face, including the need for quick and accurate translations without the possibility of asking for clarification.
đŁïž The Craft of Interpretation: Skills, Preparation, and the Human Brain at Work
This paragraph focuses on the demanding process of live interpretation at the UN, emphasizing the combination of preparation, skill, and instinct required by interpreters. Interpreters receive advance information about the meetings they cover, including subject matter and potential jargon, and are trained to understand various regional accents. They must maintain an optimal delay between hearing the speaker and starting their interpretation to capture the full idea before repeating it. The paragraph also discusses the physical and mental demands of the job, with interpreters working in shifts to avoid fatigue and the importance of accuracy in their translations, given the high stakes of UN discussions. Finally, it touches on the neurological aspects of interpretation, which engage not only language processing areas of the brain but also other regions involved in movement and coordination.
Mindmap
Keywords
đĄUN Interpretation
đĄIlluminati
đĄOfficial Languages
đĄInterpretation Booths
đĄInterpreters
đĄRelay System
đĄFreelance Interpreters
đĄAccreditation and Testing
đĄInterpretation Delay
đĄNeurological Aspects
đĄFactor (Sponsor)
Highlights
UN diplomats use earpieces for real-time translations in six official languages.
The UN has six official languages: Arabic, British English, French, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Spanish.
UN's executive branch primarily uses English and French as working languages.
Seats in the General Assembly and Security Council are equipped with earpieces and buttons for language selection.
Interpreters work in soundproof booths, maintaining industry standards for comfort and functionality.
Each interpretation booth must have at least two interpreters who are native speakers of the booth's language.
Interpreters at the UN interpret into their strongest language, requiring high language mastery.
The UN employs a 'relay system' for languages not directly covered by a booth.
Interpreters in Arabic and Chinese booths must be able to interpret both ways due to frequent relay needs.
The UN allows only one middleman language in the relay system to avoid confusion.
For speeches in non-official languages, a provided interpreter translates into one of the six official languages.
The UN has about 120 full-time interpreters, with exams offered every three years for new recruits.
Freelance interpreters at the UN earn $666 a day.
Interpreters receive advance information about meetings, including subject matter and documents.
Interpreters are trained to understand regional accents and maintain a perfect delay in their interpretations.
Live interpretation requires a combination of preparation, skill, and instinct, with a rate of 120 words per minute.
Interpreters swap every 20-30 minutes during meetings to avoid cognitive fatigue.
Interpreters' work is crucial for accurate communication at the UN, with little room for error.
International Interpreters' Day is celebrated on the first Wednesday in May.
The video's sponsor, Factor, offers a meal delivery service for those with busy schedules.
Transcripts
Last week, as one does, I was peeping some UN pics, and I noticed something: Â
Big. Boxy. Earpieces. Everywhere. Do these plug you into the Illuminati Â
mainframe? Charge a robo-diplomat? Is T. Swift farming streams in the Security Council? I put Â
my outside correspondent Amy on the case and turns out⊠no. Instead, these things are how Â
diplomats get reliable, real-time translations for every sentence spoken on the UN floor. But where Â
do those translations come from? Whose voice is in the earpiece? And how do they do it so fast?Â
The first thing you need to know is that the UN has six official languages: Â
Arabic, British English, French, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Spanish. That means, Â
among other things, that if youâre sitting at a meeting in the General Assembly, Â
anything you read or hear will be available to you in all six. It does not, however, mean that all Â
the signs around you will be in Arabicâthose are in English and French, the two working languages Â
of the UNâs executive branch, i.e. the ones the operation gets managed in. But if youâre actually Â
doing peace talks rather than communicating whatâs on the second floor, all six are in play.Â
Every seat in the GA and Security Councilâfrom the nosebleeds to the big onesâhas an earpiece Â
and some little buttons you hit until you hear your language of choice, or the ever-mysterious Â
âUnknownâŠâ which Iâm guessing is either Simlish, Toddler, or Marshmallow-In-Mouth. The disembodied Â
voice youâll hear isnât actually that far away. In fact, you can see them from where youâre sitting.Â
The interpretation booths are right up here, each labeled with their language. There are industry Â
standards for just about everything inside: the lighting, the air circulation, the soundproofing, Â
how comfortable the chairs are⊠but a copy of that standard costs 96 Swissfrancs for some reason, Â
so weâre gonna live without the details. Each booth must always have at least two Â
interpreters insideâwhich, by the way, is the word we should be using here. âTranslators,â in Â
this context, handle written stuff, while âinterpretersâ do the blabbing. Anyway, Â
every interpreter at the UN is a native speaker of their boothâs language, i.e. they interpret into Â
the language they know best, since it takes more language mastery to communicate your thoughts than Â
to understand someone elseâs. Someone staffing the French booth, for example, either grew up speaking Â
French, went to school in French, or both. If a diplomatâs speaking Spanish, the French Â
interpreter spits it out in French. If sheâs speaking French, the folks in the French booth Â
go chill mode while the other five interpret. The UN tends to staff the booths such that each Â
one can cover at least three of the six official languages. So the Russian booth, Â
for example, might contain two lifelong Russian speakers, both of whom can understand English, Â
one of whom can understand French, and one of whom can understand Chinese. But what Â
happens if someone on the floor is speaking a language a booth doesnât have covered? What if Â
someoneâs talking in Arabic, and nobody in the Spanish booth understands it, and vice versa?Â
In this case, they employ whatâs called a ârelay system.â Maybe there arenât any Arabic-Spanish Â
interpreters, but there is a Spanish interpreter that knows English. So an Arabic interpreter Â
would exit chill mode and interpret the speech from Arabic to English for the person in the Â
Spanish booth, who would then interpret that from English to Spanish, so when you turn your earpiece Â
to âSpanish,â youâd hear an interpretation of an interpretation of a speech, all in near-real time.Â
This happens pretty often: English-Spanish interpreters are dime-a-dozen, but what about Â
Russian-Spanish? Arabic-Spanish? Chinese-French? Those are unicorns. In fact, the UN needs a relay Â
system so often when interpreting from Arabic and Chinese that all the interpreters who work Â
in those two booths must be able to interpret both into their main language, like normal, Â
and out of it, for relay purposes. This means there are often three people in Â
those booths instead of two, and that they very rarely get to experience chill mode.Â
To avoid muddling things too much, the UN only allows one middleman language when they go into Â
a relay system. So while you could hear words that went from Arabic to English to Spanish, Â
they wouldnât give you a live interpretation that had gone from Arabic to English to Â
Russian to Chinese then back to Arabic for kicks then to Unknown then to Spanish.Â
âBut Sam,â youâve surely wondered by now, âThere are 49 countries that donât widely speak one of Â
the six official UN languages, according to the Wikipedia page Iâm looking at. What if someone Â
gives a speech in Japanese? Portuguese? Hindi?â Hey, good question! If you want to speak any Â
language outside of the six, you have to provide an interpreter who can interpret live from your Â
language into one of the six, then the UNâs staff will get it from there into the remaining five.Â
As far as I can tell, the UN keeps about 120 interpreters in their full-time staff, Â
and theyâre tough spots to get. The UN only offers exams for each language combination Â
roughly every three years, and you need a lot of qualifications to even take one. And if you Â
ace it, and nail all the following tests and interviews, you get a two year appointment, Â
after which theyâll either promote you or let you go. You could also land amongst the freelancers: Â
the people the UN calls upon when they donât have enough interpreters around to cover what they have Â
going on. Fun fact: Freelance interpreters at the UN make a devilish 666 dollars a day, Â
which I know because I read the UN and the Interpretersâ Associationâs 34-page freelance Â
employee agreement for fun, and I didnât even have to fork over 96 Swiss Francs for the privilege.Â
From 1984 to 1985, the only year for which I could find the stat I wanted, the UN spent a total of 78 Â
million US dollars on interpretationâequivalent to over 235 million dollars today. But of course Â
interpretation is expensive! Being able to tune in live to whatâs being said in front of you in Â
a completely different language than the one being spoken is basically magic. Mind you, Â
when some guys did it in the Bible, it counted as a miracle. They made it a holiday. Now Â
interpreters do it every day, and whereâs their holiday? Well, the first Wednesday in May, Â
actually, but what are you doing to celebrate? Doing a live interpretation demands a combination Â
of preparation, skill, and instinct. To prep, interpreters get some advance information about Â
the meeting theyâre covering: Theyâll know the subject matter and niche jargon they may Â
come across, plus they get advance copies of the documents attendees will have, and sometimes even Â
a copy of the speeches people are planning to deliver. Theyâre trained to understand Â
every regional accent of the language theyâre interpreting from, and they know how to maintain Â
the perfect delay between when the speaker is talking and when they start interpreting. Â
They need to delay enough that they can understand peopleâs full idea before they start repeating it, Â
but if they delay too much, they might give themselves too much to recall from short-term Â
memory while also trying to listen to what the speaker is still saying. The rest is instinct: Â
interpreters have to match their speakerâs tone and anticipate the end of their sentences to keep Â
up pace. They canât ask speakers to slow down or repeat themselves, they just have to nail it and Â
keep listening. Also, this is all happening at about 120 words per minute, as fast as an Â
average Biden State of the Union. Neurologists are still trying to figure out exactly how they do it, Â
but one study found that interpretation doesnât just use the parts of the brain that processes Â
language or talks, it draws on capacity from other parts of the brain that handle movement and stuff Â
just to coordinate all that listening, processing, interpreting, and speaking.Â
And if that sounds exhausting to you, it is! Staff interpreters only cover seven or eight meetings, Â
each three hours long, per week. And during those meetings, theyâll swap out with another Â
interpreter every 20-30 minutes lest they tucker their brains out and threaten a country Â
with âjuice and sâmoresâ instead of ânuclear wars.â Because sure, little errors in the live Â
interpretations get cleaned up before entering the record, but big errors just canât happen. I mean, Â
itâs the UN. Thereâs almost nowhere that âknowing exactly what someone else saidâ matters more.Â
So hereâs to you, UN interpreters, up in your boxes, making diplomacy happen from Â
the sidelines. You deserve some nuclear warsâno! Shoot! Juice and sâmores!! Man, Â
I am not cut out for this job. Quel dommage⊠But you know quel is not dommage? This videoâs Â
sponsor: Factor. Look, Iâm busy, youâre busy, UN interpreters are busy. And when work and life and Â
whatever else you do fills your entire schedule, itâs easy to slip into some rough eating habits: Â
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