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Interpreters, translators play vital but different roles
by Nathan Bierma
www.nbierma.com/language

An interpreter is not the same as a translator. That's what the makers of The Interpreter learned as they made the first movie filmed at the United Nations in New York. "After they understood the difference between interpreters and translators, they stopped calling us translators," says Brigitte Andreassier-Pearl, the UN's Chief of Interpretation Services, who consulted with director Sidney Pollack and actress Nicole Kidman in the making of The Interpreter.

Interpreters are in charge of interpreting spoken communication as it happens on the UN floor. Translators work with written documents "Some of my best friends are translators, so there is no antagonism," Andreassier-Pearl says. "But we're called 'interpreters.' We do a different job. That's one thing I explained to Sidney Pollack, and it's one thing I hope the movie is going to spread around."

The UN Security Council in session. The interpreters' booths, where Nicole Kidman
acted in The Interpreter, are visible at the back (Photo: UN/DPI)

Prepared for the part

Kidman, cast as a UN interpreter who accidentally overhears a secret threat on an African president's life, had her definitions down when she spent a morning in the glass booth of the Security Council, studying the interpreters and asking them questions. "She wanted to know how long you have to wait before you start your sentence," Andreassier-Pearl said. "It's a split second. But it depends how fast the speaker is. And in some languages, you cannot plunge right in - you have to wait for the verb."

Kidman also asked Andreassier-Pearl the most common question interpreters get asked - what do you do if you don't know a word? "We always work in the context [of what's being said]," says Andreassier-Pearl. "You try to understand the meaning and express the idea; you find an idiomatic equivalent right away."

Multilingual job

The UN em-ploys 113 inter-preters and nearly as many free-lancers. All of them are fluent in at least three languages. Each interpreter has what is called her 'active' (or native) language, and two or three passive (non-native) languages. Interpreters are assigned to interpret from their passive languages into their active language. The UN uses six official languages - Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

The job is a paradox - interpreters must remain utterly unnoticeable while serving as a vital link in international diplomacy. To make the job even more challenging, delegates are talking faster, Andreassier-Pearl says, thanks in part to time limits on speeches.

Occasionally, delegates file complaints with Andreassier-Pearl. "I always ask them to give precise and specific examples," Andreassier-Pearl says. "I don't [just] want to hear that the interpretation was bad in Room 2 on Wednesday morning. Interpreting is very easy to criticize, but it's very hard to do."

Actress Nicole Kidman in a scene from the movie The Interpreter.