Tips Effective Online Meeting With The Intervention Of An Interpre

In the current context, in which the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the economic world, conference calls and videoconferences are becoming more and more frequent, due to limitations in contact and travel – especially in work through screens. Our work habits have had to adapt to a great extent to this transformation process; many people were already familiar with this form of communication for a long time, inside and outside the company itself, because until now a frequent personal meeting of the participants in the meeting did not seem convenient either.

In international meetings, participants often do not speak the same language. When using a technical-based voice or audio and video communication, the very useful comprehension factor, such as “face to face” is very limited or totally absent, so it is often difficult to organise a meeting in different languages or even be the cause of annoying errors.

Often, in order to have a strong and therefore successful conference call or video conference in different languages, the support of an interpreter is essential, so that the reciprocal flow of information meets the expectations of the participants and is useful for your company. For this, it is essential to comply with specific rules with tools like Ringover.

Recommendations for organizing an effective multilingual online meeting

• First, the organizer of a conference call or video conference must set the source and target languages.
• In addition, it is advisable to draw up an order of the day or agenda as detailed as possible for the appropriate personnel and the satisfactory intervention of a (specialised) interpreter.
• Naturally, punctuality is necessary. For this, an email is sent to the participants informing about the date and time of the event and in which confirmation of participation is required. In addition, if a video conference is being held, each participant must be sent a link to the URL or to participate.
• As a fundamental requirement for the quality of the service, we provide our own virtual conference rooms for telephone interpretation. For video conferencing we use the media of two leading providers in the market in this field: Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
• Occasionally, in an online meeting with an interpreter, attention deficits and / or indiscipline may occur on the part of the participants. For this reason, the moderation of all events requires a certain authority to impose the necessary rules and, with this, ensure the regulatory development of the conference. In this case, the appointed moderator assumes functions of “referee” during the discussion to ensure consistency.

Other Criteria For Maintaining Successful Online Conferences

For technical and financial reasons, simultaneous interpretation is becoming less and less suitable for small group meetings. However, it has proven to be very effective for large (online) conferences and ensures that negotiations proceed with the necessary professionalism.

These large events are structurally digital, since there is no direct meeting of the participants, despite the fact that it involves considerable costs, especially at the level of dedication of personnel and technical implementation. For this reason, an (online) meeting of this type should be organized in such a way that the consecutive interpreter has enough time to translate the content of the conversation correctly and accurately.

For the rest, it is recommended not to make sentences that are too long, to facilitate the translation, and not to make parallel comments to guarantee the understanding of all participants. In order for the meeting to develop productively, the speaking time granted to each participant must be respected. For example, if participants are repeatedly interrupted, interpretation quickly loses transparency and hence efficiency.

In addition, it is advisable to remind the participants, at the end of the meeting, the most important points that have been discussed and summarise the agreements reached, as well as the ideas addressed, so that all participants keep them in mind from that moment regarding the results.

If requested and after obtaining approval from the participants, the meeting (online) can be recorded and set in writing, strictly complying with confidentiality rules.

By following these principles, you can organise your online meetings even more productively. You can obtain more information about interpreting by telephone or video conference by “Ringover” visiting  https://www.ringover.co.uk.