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Even the most multilingual heads of state and politicians utilize conference interpreters in important meetings and crucial events. They know when it comes to the fragile, silken threads that often bind international diplomacy on all fronts – political, professional and humanitarian – precise words are essential to fluid communication. This respect for language and its…
French is one of the world’s most widely spoken languages, one of the few to be spoken on every continent, and ranked the sixth most widely spoken language after Mandarin Chinese (over a billion speakers), English, Hindi, Spanish, and Arabic. It is an official language of 29 countries, second only to English. There are currently over 220 million French…
At multinational events, professional conference interpreters rely on several working languages. Obviously, interpreters are considered by most people to be bilingual – fluent in two languages. However, many of us are actually multilingual and we work in what we call A, B and C Languages. The majority of professional conference-level interpreters speak two to four…
What do Arabic, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Afrikaans, Swahili, Wolof and Amharic all have in common? They are all languages spoken in Africa, and this list doesn’t even begin to cover all the myriad of smaller subsets of various language and indigenous languages and dialects that pepper this vast continent – There are thousands! Indeed,…
When planning a meeting or event with multilingual participants, it is important to determine the best way to ensure that all participants can understand what you are saying. To this end, there are several different types or styles of professional interpretation. Two of the most widely used are simultaneous and consecutive interpreting. It’s useful to…
You’re planning your firm’s annual migration for a global summit taking place in Brussels. While one of your colleagues spent a summer in Provence in college, and a few others took French in high school, you’re well aware that you need a professional interpreter to make sure everyone is on the same page. Awesome! You’ll…
If you work for the government and will be headed overseas to a non-English speaking country, odds are you’ll be sent to one of the esteemed Foreign Service Institute (FSI) language learning institutes. These are the Federal Government’s primary training institutions, which prepare American diplomats and other professionals to advance U.S. foreign affairs interests overseas….
Each year, thousands of people move through the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute. Among other things, these students learn, absorb and practice in The School of Language Studies where they’re immersed in intensive foreign language classes. For some diplomats, the goal is to become comfortable and socially conversational in the language of the…
You’ve probably heard of the Hippocratic Oath, by which physicians vow to “first do no harm,” and uphold certain ethical standards. Lawyers are also sworn in using an Attorney’s Oath. In the state of California, among other standards, new lawyers pledge to uphold the Constitution of the United States and also to conduct themselves…
English English is spoken by some 380 million people as their first language, including 231 million in the US and about 60 million in the UK. As many as 1 billion people use it as a second language. While English is only the 3rd largest language by number of native speakers (after Mandarin Chinese and…