Recently, Monterey Language Services provided simultaneous Spanish interpretation at a school board meeting. The parents of many students at this school are Mexican Spanish-speaking with a wide range of English proficiency, and the staff had become concerned that these parents were missing out on crucial information regarding school policies.

As a language service provider, we understand the importance of and advocate for information distribution. We jumped at the opportunity and immediately set to locating the most qualified interpreters in the community.

The Search

We have a vast network of interpreters, which allows us to choose the best interpreters for the job. In this case, we ended up picking two interpreters who were local to the area and subject matter experts.

You might be wondering why we assigned two interpreters. For a simultaneous event, it is standard practice to have team interpreters. Given the mental taxation for simultaneous interpretation, one interpreter will speak for a given amount of time (generally twenty to thirty minutes), then take turns with the other interpreter. This way interpreters can take a break, help with another matter at the event if need be, or provide notes or backup to each other.

We thought it was appropriate to assign interpreters from the area, as the interpreters have a closer association with local events and therefore have more enthusiasm in giving back to the community.

The fact that our two interpreters for this assignment are subject matter experts concerning education is another boon, because they know about the ins and outs of the education system.

The Preparation

Our office carries a plethora of equipment for interpretation events, including microphone headsets, transmitters, receivers, and receiver headsets. As a brief rundown, the interpreter usually whispers their interpretation into a microphone headset, which goes through a transmitter to the receivers; the interpreter’s words then are delivered right to the listeners’ ears through the receiver headsets.

We count out the number of headsets, transmitters, and receivers needed, then test each one to ensure that they work. Once all equipment is checked and accounted for, we wipe them with alcohol swabs to assure cleanliness before packing them into foam-lined cases to make sure nothing accidentally gets damaged.

Setup and Execution

Since this was the first interpretation event performed at this school, our office manager arrived an hour before the event. Preparation on-site began with introduction of the equipment to our client, in which we included written instructions for reference.

We also made sure to give the interpreters a place to be where they could see and hear the speakers, as well as see any supplementary material that the speakers put on a television screen. This setup allowed the interpreters to take in all available information so that their interpretation would be as accurate as possible.

Cleanup

Once all equipment was brought back to our office, we took great care to ensure that everything was still working well. Inspecting the equipment after an event can be a delicate process that includes checking for malfunctions, cracks, broken wires, etc. Given that Covid-19 is still a prevalent concern, we clean the equipment with alcohol swabs yet again before storing it.

Another concern is that, as our transmitters and receivers are battery-powered, we check for battery corrosion, which can harm the equipment and cause it to stop working. Leaving batteries for too long inside any equipment can lead to leakage of the hydrogen gas inside, so we always make sure to take batteries out when our transmitters and receivers are not being prepped for use or in-use.

The Result

The school office advertised to parents that there would be simultaneous Spanish interpretation at their school board event, and many of the people coming into the meeting were excited, even those who did not need interpretation services themselves. Spanish speakers eagerly took receivers and headsets, thanking our office manager and interpreters for the assistance. A conversation with a Spanish-speaking teacher revealed that there had been lots of anticipation around this event, and that the schoolboard was eager to provide an even better experience at the next one.

Getting to see how the Spanish speakers were excited about receiving information in Spanish at the same time as the English speakers is very inspiring and this is what helping people with communication is all about. It’s a rewarding experience and we look forward to the next one!

Subtitle translation is a very useful way to relay information, as subtitles are shown alongside videos. Like all media, it can range from simple entertainment, to scientific, political, or anything. We’ve collected some best practices for subtitle translations below.

First, be mindful of the length of translations. You have to remember that subtitles only have a set amount of time and space to be displayed on screen. You should try to be as concise as possible while also staying as true to the speaking character as possible. If you think you need more space to say something, consider how long the character is talking for. Would it be possible to separate the sentence into two or more parts? Let’s say that a character is talking for ten seconds. You could possibly split a line into two five second segments. That should ensure that you get the viewer has enough time to read the entire line without being too distracted by the length of the line.

Furthermore, do not ever exceed two lines on the screen at a time. Standard practice is at most two lines, but any more than that and it becomes a huge distraction and an eyesore to the viewer. The aim of subtitling is to avoid being intrusive while providing viewers a way to comfortably enjoy the media.

Also be sure to use the right kind of software. There’s a lot of different programs out there that subtitlers use, and it really depends on how you’d like to go about it. For example, while not industry standard, many people enjoy using AegiSub for its easy use and features that aren’t too heavy on resources. Other people may use other programs such as Adobe Premiere or even MemoQ. It all really depends on how you work and if your employer has a preference.

Most subtitlers come across a dilemma between “soft” and “hard” subtitles. Soft subtitles are subtitles that aren’t hard coded to the video. The best way to think of it is to imagine a picture. If you try writing on it, the writing will be permanent, unable to be removed. With soft subtitles, however, imagine taping your text onto the picture. It’s not permanent, and you can remove it whenever you like. The advantage to soft subs is that you can give the user more freedom. If they want to turn off the subtitles, then they can. If they want to use a different language subtitle, they can easily swap them out.

Hard subtitles on the other hand are hardcoded to the video. Once you use hard subtitles, they are not coming off of that video unless you manually edit them out. The advantage to hard subtitles is that people won’t have to go through any extra steps to load subtitles. They can easily just use one file to and enjoy the subtitles. Of course, they will lose the freedom of being able to turn them off, but that’s what the tradeoff is.

The last thing to be mindful of is that subtitling is, in most cases, localization. You are not expected to do a 1:1 translation of what characters are saying. You are expected to give characters their voice in another language. That being said, you should be careful of over-localizing to the point that the character is completely different than what they sound like in the original version. This is where it’s useful to have editors and QAers to help review your subtitles and make sure that they’re good to go.

There’s a lot to keep in mind while subtitling, but one good way to keep in mind what best practices are is to review other websites’ guidelines. For instance, many people follow Netflix’s guidelines for subtitling when doing their own, even if they aren’t employed by them.

Subtitling is fun, but it takes time to become familiar with the process. The good news is once you get it down, it’ll be second nature.