Please consider these recommendations for ZOOM meetings and conferences with simultaneous interpretation.

Once the meeting is ready to start, the interpretation feature will be activated.

Once activated, those of you who are connected by computer will see an Interpretation button with a globe icon appear in your menu at the bottom of your Zoom window.

Those of you who are connected by a smartphone/tablet will need to select the “more” button in the menu at the bottom of your Zoom window to find the Interpretation button.

When you select the Interpretation button, you will have the option to either leave interpretation off or to select one of the interpretation channels (i.e.: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, etc.).

Those of you who are bilingual (in two language meetings) and comfortable in both languages should leave interpretation off and you are free to participate in either language throughout the meeting. You will therefore be listening to the floor.

Those of you who prefer interpretation should select the appropriate channel–for example, you should select the English channel if you require interpretation of the [other language] remarks into English. And so on.

One important thing to note: if you select one of the channels, please be sure to only speak in the language of that channel. If you wish to speak in another language, please change to the appropriate channel

In other words, if you are on the English channel, please only participate in English while on that channel, even if you are comfortable speaking in any other language.

It is also important that all participants leave their microphones muted when not speaking, to preserve the audio quality for the interpreters.  Interpreters working in simultaneous mode, meaning that they speak and listen at the same time without pause, require high quality audio.

Lastly, if you have a stand-alone microphone or a headset with an attached microphone, please use that during the conference, as it will make for the clearest audio and isolate any background noise and ambience.

These recommendations really make a difference if you require professional interpretation with an elegant and world-class delivery.

Have a great conference!