Earlier this month I gave a talk to 100 or so Italian entrepreneurs at Carlton House in London: they had come over to understand more about UK business and the political climate (!!). For only about the ninth or tenth time I was speaking with an interpreter. The relationship between a speaker and their interpreter is vital – after all he or she is your voice to the audience and it’s not just the words which matter, but the way in which they are said – especially with a language as expressive as Italian. Our interpreter was Luciana Scrofani Green. I was only due to speak at 11:00 but, Luciana would be interpreting for the other speaker before me so I arrived at 09:00 to give us 25 minutes in a wide ranging ‘get to know each other’ casual conversation. We focused on how best I should talk to give me the maximum opportunity to do her best job. It paid enormous dividends for both of us. It would have been poor for both of us had bilingual participants translated differently. I would recommend doing this for anyone who might be speaking with an interpreter on stage, or on line. They are as (maybe more) important than the speaker. It’s not enough to just ‘pitch up’ and hope that the interpreter will be able to follow. So enormous thanks to Luciana.
September 23, 2019