I’d rather donate blood than interpret, or speakers’ accent is interpreters’ bane

This time it happened during an alternative energy forum. Even though this issue has received a lot of attention these days and I have had many opportunities to interpret and research this topic, it is still full of pitfalls, as you never know how far down the rabbit hole the speaker will go into technical details. However on this occasion the pitfall was of a different nature. The chairperson of the event was of Indian origin and it quickly transpired that his fluent English came with a very heavy accent, rendering it practically incomprehensible. My colleague and I looked at each other pleadingly and only shook our heads as there was little we could do about it. We struggled along the best we could and finally made it to the first coffee break when my colleague threw down his earphones and said “I’d rather donate a litter of blood than interpret like this”.

There are two schools of thought: acolytes of one prefer to interpret native speakers, the other – those who had to learn English as their second language.

I belong to the supporters of first school, who argue that even though native speakers invariably speak faster, use more sophisticated vocabulary and may too carry a regional accent, their speech is still much more precise and when they say something this is exactly what they mean.

The advocates of the second group would have it that non-native speakers speak slower as they need more time to think though what they are saying in a foreign language and this way you get a benefit of time to account for inaccuracies and mispronounced words in their speech. Also non-native speakers usually make an extra effort to speak clearly and make themselves understood.

Indian speakers in my humble opinion represent the worst of two worlds – they speak fast like native speakers with inaccuracies and mispronunciation of non-natives. The “sing-song” nature is what renders their speech particularly confusing, when they apply syllable stress of Hindu to stress-timed English.

Now when preparing for an event, especially when it is expected to be a ‘one man show’ I make a point of trying to find the person on Youtube to familiarize myself with their accent in addition to reading up about them. When possible I also use the change to introduce myself to keynote speakers to tune in to their accent. This way donating blood becomes a less attractive option.

#accent