We’ve probably all seen the recent catastrophic meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Selenskyi. Even though the Ukrainian president isn’t a native speaker of English, he didn’t make use of an interpreter, so the two weren’t playing on a level field from the very start. Would the conversation have gone differently if President Selenskyi had had an interpreter with him?
There is much to be said in favour of using interpreters: If you have your statements interpreted, even though you do speak the language of your counterpart, you kill two birds with one stone. Firstly, you have more time to think of a suitable answer to tricky questions, and secondly, and this is even more important, you can observe how the other person reacts when he or she hears the interpreted statement.
Take, for example, the question “Why don’t you wear a suit?” – a question that obviously caught the Ukrainian president, otherwise a brilliant and extremely quick-witted speaker, off guard. Had an interpreter been present, he wouldn’t have had to react straight away.
This is not only the case when it comes to the sphere of politics. In contract negotiations, too, or in the courtroom, there are people who like to show others up or who try to make their counterparts lose their nerve. And from what I’ve been told during my career as an interpreter, it can be enormously reassuring and stress-reducing to have someone at your side who can diffuse or de-escalate a tense situation.
Read all about the opposing arguments in Part 2.