I went to a club meeting in Singapore. One speaker gave a speech in English but half the time was spent on a long passage quoting in Mandarin. The evaluator said that the speech should be given again with the passage quoted being entirely translated into English.
Our venue was in a shopping centre. I was tempted to walk out and go shopping. If a latecomer or newcomer had arrived in the middle of the speech, they might have simply walked out. People in the audience were bored. A speech entirely in another language should have been listed as such in the agenda and announced as such.
In addition, the chairman and speaker should both have checked whether anybody in the audience needed translations. It's a courtesy which you need to learn for dealing with audiences outside Toastmasters International (speakers mutual help training group).
I've been at wedding where the visiting family of bride or groom spoke no English. You would not want them to think they were being ignored or laughed at. I made sure that they understood.
When I gave a thank you speech to my French hosts, whose guests were visiting English travel journalists, I translated each sentence as I went along. (Translating one sentence at a time was easier for me as as speaker/translator. It is also easier for the listener to follow the gist. Leaving some of the audience to wait for the whole speech to be translated means you risk them walking off for drinks or the loo, or doing their own distracting audible translation or talking to each other on other subjects.)
At a conference when your speech is translated you have to pause after every sentence to allow time for the translator to put together the sentence. Some languages such as German and Japanese have the verb at the end, so hearing the last word of the translation is essential.
Other helpful ideas are to give handouts with both languages in two columns, the language of the speaker on the left, the translation for others on the right.
Our venue was in a shopping centre. I was tempted to walk out and go shopping. If a latecomer or newcomer had arrived in the middle of the speech, they might have simply walked out. People in the audience were bored. A speech entirely in another language should have been listed as such in the agenda and announced as such.
In addition, the chairman and speaker should both have checked whether anybody in the audience needed translations. It's a courtesy which you need to learn for dealing with audiences outside Toastmasters International (speakers mutual help training group).
I've been at wedding where the visiting family of bride or groom spoke no English. You would not want them to think they were being ignored or laughed at. I made sure that they understood.
When I gave a thank you speech to my French hosts, whose guests were visiting English travel journalists, I translated each sentence as I went along. (Translating one sentence at a time was easier for me as as speaker/translator. It is also easier for the listener to follow the gist. Leaving some of the audience to wait for the whole speech to be translated means you risk them walking off for drinks or the loo, or doing their own distracting audible translation or talking to each other on other subjects.)
At a conference when your speech is translated you have to pause after every sentence to allow time for the translator to put together the sentence. Some languages such as German and Japanese have the verb at the end, so hearing the last word of the translation is essential.
Other helpful ideas are to give handouts with both languages in two columns, the language of the speaker on the left, the translation for others on the right.
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