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Interpretation a fine art

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The measure of a successful interpreting and translation team at an international conference is that no-one notices they're there, according to Patrick Delhaye, Managing Director of Language Professionals Limited.

The Codex Committee on Meat and Poultry Hygiene held in Wellington recently relied heavily on the services of a team of 10 interpreters and translators from Language Professionals.

The team translated and interpreted using the three working languages of English, French and Spanish. With the limited amount of international conferences held in New Zealand it is rare to see this in operation.

With delegates coming from many different countries, the need for everyone to understand what was being said was absolutely essential.

"Interpreters talk, translators write. All the languages have equal status and everything has to be done in all three (languages)," Mr Delhaye says.

Mr Delhaye's team came from far and wide - Australia, Britain and Thailand. He is the only one resident in New Zealand.

He is French but has lived here since 1976.

Translating and interpreting for an international committee like Codex is a highly stressful and demanding job.

"It is a very, very specialised job and for my team I recruit specialists. Sourcing the translators is especially difficult as most translators like to work away from the madding crowd. 

There aren't a lot of translators who are able to withstand the stress of a conference when, despite everyone's best efforts the texts are generally given quite late in the day and we have a hard deadline since the conference report has to be available in all 3 languages on Friday morning."

His team was first used by MAF Food (now NZFSA) at the Codex Committee on Milk and Milk Products in 2000.

"I am sure they felt they were taking a risk. It was unknown territory here when we got the contract but we delivered in spades. At the end of the day either we deliver on the day or we don't but our motto is 'more than words, not just talk'," Mr Delhaye says.

"The measure of our success is our invisibility. Everybody knows there are interpreters but they don't see them."