needing to know every regional dialect for your language AND a knowledge of a couple foreign languages is insane

Did amy had to become a member of the UN to sit there and test the headphones?

I used to interpret for medical appointments and it really is exhausting. Even though your brain gets used to spitting out what other people are saying, it’s so easy to mess up one word and then you’re behind and need to figure out how to convey what was said without getting further behind.

I was once with a landlord who is German who needed to communicate to my Russian parents. He had a friend with him to interpret German->Spanish, but I didn’t know Spanish but my wife did, so she interpreted Spanish->English, then I interpreted English->Russian. I can imagine that thats a daily task in the UN

1:13 The "unknown" option is just to hear the microphone audio feed without translations. Helps when there's a lot of reverb or if someone is speaking too quiet for some reason. 😊

Amy deserves a raise for being such a workhorse for the channel!

I was searching KZfaq for a video explaining how UN translators work a few days ago out of curiosity and found no good videos. Thanks, Sam

The European Parliament is working in 24 languages. All languages are spoken and interpreted, and all documents are published in all 24 languages.

I went to Colombia a few years back and was the only Spanish speaker among 10 people. After 2 day of constantly translating between English and Spanish, i was exhausted. I can't imagine being a UN translator

Hi. Wonderful video. As an interpreter (simultaneous and consecutive) this video touches pretty much all the basics. Just wanna add a few things: - Although interpreting seems hard to the laymen, much of it is an acquired skill, meaning anyone could do an ok job with some training/experience. It takes some time to get your bearings but once you get the hang of it, you can snap into that vibe in a couple of minutes. - As Sam put it, the reason there are at least two interpreters in a booth is mostly due to exhaustion. After about half an hour you start to slip up. Especially if you are interpreting in between languages with different grammatical, syntactical structures so two interpreters switch every 30 minutes or so. I have experienced my share of exhaustion during college years and at some jobs. I remember I forgot who I was, where I was for about 1.5 hours after interpreting for about 6 hours. - And as Sam stated, most of the job is the prep work. If done right, you can go through the day easily. - The gap between the original text and the interpretation is called decalage and it is a topic of heated discussion in the translation/interpreting circles. It is heavily dependent on the aforementioned differences. - Also, you can ask the speaker to slow down (preferably brief your customer in advance) or say "The interpreter missed this part of the speech due to technical/speed issues." It may not fly in the UN but most common interpreting jobs give you that leeway. Most politicians, executives, scholars etc have experience with interpreters so they tend to facilitate your work. - The same goes for jokes, uncommon proverbs, similes etc. you can just say "The joke cannot be interpreted. Please laugh." or localize it to the best of your abilities. - There have been a few instances of famous interpreting mistakes/failures and unfortunately, it is one of the professions in which you only get to screw up big once so the best way to avoid those is to prep the hell out of your upcoming gig but I think 90 percent of the jobs are really forgiving.

I am a translator for the UN and to be a good translator, one needs to have a good working memory. It begins with an IQ test that is an hour or so long where you must repeat numbers and test for reflexes and some puzzles. However, they look at your working memory and processing speed scores. If you do them well, you can be a translator, which you are give a year of training first. My IQ was average, at 102, but I scored highly on speed and memory, and so was allowed to be employed. It was a nerve wrecking IQ test and my armpits never sweated so much for any test lol

My uncle used to be an interpreter for the UN! Don’t realize how complicated this was until watching this, he definitely left out the nitty gritty details 😂

Last time I was this early this series was called ‘That Wikipedia List’

I work in the control rooms of one of the UN's agency and can guarantee this informations are 100% accurate. in the agency I work in we only have 4 officials languages (arabic, english, french and spanish) relatively ch 1, 2, 3 and 4 on the taiden system we have equipped but we also have two spare channels ready for russian and chinese. I actually was surprised to see that at the general assembly they also have a taiden system. I always saw it as the low budget alternative to the bosch conference system. ps. most of the times the english interpreters do absolutley nothing during some meetings (since most participants speek in english) , it's hilarius to see them just chill out and get payid a fortune while the others almost never stop working.

I've been an Educational British Sign Language Interpreter before I had to stop work due to ill health, and to describe the process of receiving - processing - outputting (be it BSL to English or English to BSL) is hard. I relate it to driving a car; when learning, you're aware of everything that you have to do, and that awareness causes mistakes to happen. However, after a while, you're able to just get into the car and drive without needing to think too much about what you're doing - it's second nature - but when you then start thinking too much about what you're doing, mistakes happen. Tiredness is a definite factor, like with driving, and I know that when tired, the lag (the time between language 1 and the output of language 2 gets shorter, which impacts greatly upon the quality of the output. A 10 second lag is a good aim. It's quite amazing how our minds do it....but we can.

Sometimes the other speaker would crack a joke in their own language but its impossible to translate into, so the interpreter would literally say "He said a joke, please laugh".

The reason there's two interpreters in the booth is also because of memory issues. The person taking notes translates so there's a written copy of the dialogue taking place, and so that any ambiguity between what the two people hear can be cleared up.

Hi, I’m an interpreter (not UN, but still)! Thanks for clarifying the difference between interpreter and translator because those are very different skills and interpreters so, so often work without the level of prep and time that translators have, even at the UN level! It is TOUGH, but it is also *SO* rewarding!!

Bro that is freaking insane.🤯 Live interpretation seems something unbelievable when I think about how they listen, translate and speak around same time. I can't even imagine how much their brains have to process for this. Hats off to all those interpreters.

Professional live interpreting has got to be some crazy exhausting work. I've tried casually doing it for some friends a few times and it's just so easy to get overwhelmed, especially if you're doing it for something on television or for something else where the person isn't going to stop talking just so you can catch back up if you stumble.

Still can't fathom how they do it almost real time. I could _maybe_ manage 6 seconds of that, then my brain would fry and just speak gibberish. They can hear, translate and speak faster than I can think. Wild.

I experienced real time interpretation at the CJEU in Luxembourg this year and it was a truly magical experience.

Marshmallow-In-Mouth is actually just Danish

Reminds me the joke: Mark Twain went to listen to Kaiser speech in German, halfway through the interpreter stopped while Kaiser was still speaking. Mark Twain puzzled, he asked the interpreter why did he stop. Interpreter replied: I am waiting for the verb.

Wendover productions would pay the 96 francs. Step it up!

*No man is too rich til you leave the earth you leave with nothing*

3:03 As a former spanish-english interpreter, I felt that

Jokes on the UN, the EU has real-time translation in 24 languages for the parliament

Ludwik Zamenhof sitting in the back, brooding, "They could all be speaking Esperanto..."

Back in 2015 I was a part of Universal Periodic Review regarding of LGBTIQs+ rights in Thailand, and what I saw is that they having real interpreter sitting in their boxes doing real-time translation from word to word in almost exact match to the sentence in such sudden time. I know myself I didn't need any translation tool but when someone who came from Malaysia and Indonesia and their strong part ain't English, I use it, and since I have Southern Thai Muslim Stepmum I know few Malay/Indonesian words and found that the accuracy and speed is just insane. I respect those people. I used to be interpreter 3 times, and no more because my skill ain't that high.

Thank you for making a distinction between translation and interpreting!

The stakes are also insane. Krushchev's "we will bury you!" statement was possibly mistranslated. It was taken by NATO as an explicit threat of nuclear war but it is possible that a closer translation would be "we will be at your funeral", more akin to "we will outlive you." That's far less of a direct threat and, again, the stakes are literally nuclear war.

You should do a video on the interpreter services in the EU parliament where they have 24 official languages!!

2:55 the way i froze every part of my body just from reflex actions at this point

My cousin worked at the UN as an interpreter. She can translate to/from English, Danish, and Filipino/Tagalog.

My husband and I were fortunate enough to be able to pay off our mortgage early. We were both still working, and took the payment amount that we had been using to pay off our mortgage faster and we put it straight into investments. We were able to retire early because of almost 7 years of putting away what would have been our mortgage payment as well as maxing out our 401K/403B plans. Thankfully we were taught by both of our parents the value of living within our means. Thank you for your advice. I know it will help people. we are interested in investments that could set me up for retirement , I mean I've heard of people that netted hundreds of thousands during these crash, I listened to someone on a podcast who earned over $650K in less than a year, what's the strategy behind such returns?

every first gen immigrant had to be an interpreter for their parents at least once

I accidentally read the title as "How the UN untranslates everything in real-time."

Every regional accent is the real struggle here I feel. At what point is a language not close enough to be a regional accent. For some this might be more chill, but given how fragmented the colonial powers languages got, and how some people have very strong accents, this can't be that easy.

I love how amy teleports everywhere

Great video! I do that job but for commercial clients and churches. I have seen all sorts of conditions from interpreting in a field while dumper trucks drove by to a chateau in France with really fancy food.

3:53 lichtenstein, sweden, and iceland certainly can speak english

That frazzled "BUT SAM!!" made me laugh so hard 😂😂

I've done simultaneous interpretation for a bilingual congregation. It is exhausting. After the first Sunday I had to rest for about 10 minutes before I could hold a normal conversation. I'm barely fluent enough in my second language to interpret simultaneously (I still struggle with several accents). The idea of doing relay interpreting in a high-stakes setting is terrifying.

I'd expect the unknown channel to just be the original, whatever language is spoken.

Dude, your videos are awesome, keep it real

So when is the brick 2.0 video coming?

Gosh, these interpreters are MVPs, props to them !! I can't imagine translating important diplomatic, super sensitive stuff IN REAL TIME. I live in france. My stepbrother married a greek girl he'd met while they were both working in Edinburgh, UK. Celebrated once in greece, convenient for her family, though his close family went too. And also celebrated in france. In total, 17 greek people came and all of them spoke very decent english. But of course, SW france isn't known for its fluency in english, let alone greek. Only my stepbro speaks english (thick french accent), my mom a little bit, enough to have simple yet pleasant chat with the bride's parents; and the bride, though learning french real fast, at the time only spoke greek and english, sooooo YEAH X__X Between the chitchat, the visiting in town AND the ordering in noisy restaurants with french-only-speaking staff, at the end of hot summer days, I almost passed out !

In the European Union when it was the EEC they said that the Danes always laughed last.

3:41 - "I Google Translated a diplomatic negotiation through 100 languages and got this..."

This is amazing very accurate picture of how interpretation works. It is SO much easier to interpret into your native language. Huge kudos to people who can do it both directions.

5:46 I spoke at one of these things and had to meet with the interpreters the day before. They went thru my speech, took notes, asked questions on the technical jargon, etc. so that as I was giving it, they all pretty much had it written out in their languages and were not live interpreting at all. Then there was a Q&A afterward for about half an hour and that was a live translation from the audience and back again. Pretty surreal experience.

“English/Spanish interpreters are a dime a dozen.” Thanks so much.😢 It’s also true, lol! 😂 I work as a Spanish language interpreter for the LA Co. Superior Court. People have no idea what we do or how we do it. Thanks for getting the information out there.

i love it that this channel evolved from reading wikipedia articles (that wikipedia list) to actual having correspundents and live research... what a evolution... keep on the good work sam

This was a really interesting video, because I and my father did probide interpretation for conferences for many years in Hungary. It was great to hear how they do it in the highest level!

It would have been so neat to have a Babel sponsorship for this episode

UN Interpreter here; It was amazing & surprising at the same time seeing this stuff getting covered! Super niche subject. TYSM!❤️🇺🇳

This is so cool! I wasn't even looking for this, but I'm glad I checked this vid out.

Really appreciate you making a fun, detailed video about our profession that helps clarify several common misconceptions. So awesome!

0:10 Why does a robot have abs?

I'd love to know how big is the delay between the speaker speaking and the listener hearing it.

Happy New HAI video for all who celebrate

Its astonishing how somewhat accurate that scene in the Bond movie was where someone was killed through a loud sound with these…

Just Casually taking un picks

Bless whoever wrote the ad read for this video. It comforting to know that im not the only one that delivery pad thai has in a choke hold

My 6th grade science teacher worked as an interpreter for Korean for a few years. It’s a cool story.

RIP when a speaker uses a word that has no translation into the target language lol

Simultaneous interpreters are actually magicians.

I love this kind of thing! Communication is so interesting.

As a professional interpreter it's great to see HAI talking about my profession, and actually batshit insane to see you actually read the UN-AIIC rates and conditions agreement. Truly, no-one is doing it like Sam and Amy.

Airline Pilots and Air Traffic Control solve this problem simply by having everyone speak English on the radio.

Sam, are you a fan of the UNs new policy on bricks?

Insane editing, Im very fan !

I work for the UN in Bangladesh as a consultant and I was also amazed by when I first time saw they were translating everything live!

UN level interpreting is high stress. 🤷‍♂️

what if an interpretor do some big errors and how does it is ensure that big error doesnt happpen. Like how does they make sure the integrity of the interpretation.

Imagine the precision needed to translate complex diplomatic talks on the fly. That's serious skill.

The bit where you translate it a bunch of times reminds me of one of the DVD extras for Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They played a scene with the Japanese dub, then had the English translation from that as subtitles.

Didn’t they use a method like this during the Nuremberg Trials?

Juice and smores 😅

One of the best videos of this channel!

Actually they do ask the speakers to slow down, and sometimes stop interpreting altogether if the quality is too bad or it becomes impossible to interpret (some meetings interpretation is mot covered or if it runs over they leave). At that point usually the chair interrupts to have the speakers slow down

The UN Needs A Robo Diplomat

where is my half as interesting, this is like 4/5ths as interesting

Becoming fluent in French studying Italian, and starting German classes, being at the UN or an embassy was one of my college ambitions. Life got in the way, and I ended up teaching French, and later, Spanish, instead. When I traveled with my son throughout Europe for several months, I was able to instantaneously interpret for and from him. It was joyous. That said, speaking either of my other languages today does wear me out about 20 minutes in.

The Gaddafi interpreter who fainted after his 75mins of rambling diatribe was a classic interpreter exhaustion!

1:25 No but actually, what is "unknown"? I can't find anything online.

having seen how they do it in the EU parlement the UN version seems like a easy day. there are 24 interpreter boxes (Belgium and the Netherlands and Germany and Austria share a booth) however most interpreters and also members just hook in to the English speaking interpreter.

this video was INCREDIBLY interesting like seriously

You all are spreading so much joy. Thank you for being so wonderful!

Will this affect the fact that the United Nations has a plan to pass the International Bricks Act?

British English??? So Americans don’t get simplified language

As someone who has done live interpretation I can attest that it is exhausting. It is probably the most exhausting mental task I have ever done. A few minutes is fine but if you do it for a couple of hours it really wears you out. It gets more exhausting when someone doesn't understand public speaking. The cadence of how you speak matters a lot and it can get really frustrating when you have someone who uses a lot of slang or idioms or has a habit of not finishing their sentences.

I always wondered how they did it! Cheers to the interpreters

It actually is all the illuminati. In fact, amy is a member of the illuminati

Do they have translators from British English to American English? 😜Got to make sure that the American diplomats understand that when the Brits say "crisps", they really mean "chips", and when they say "chips", they really mean "fries".

I used to be a technician for these things at a university in the U.K., we used to teach folk how to do it. Mostly Brahler kit. I used to hook them into video conference units so we could do it cross-country too. Ours was infra red rather than cables or RF, so there were hotspots in the room to fill in

My Nanna was an interpreter for Spanish in the UN for a short amount of time before leaving because she wasn't exactly ready for how fast she needed to interpret & speak.

14 seconds and no views You really fell off

Just think about the EU, which has 24 official languages