More than words | Laura Burian, Miguel Garcia & Barry Olsen | TEDxMonterey

Can you distinguish language translation from language interpretation? In what may be the first ever tri-lingual TEDx talk, Laura Burian, Barry Olsen, and Miguel Garcia demonstrate the power of human cognition as they explain the subtle but important differences between professional translators and interpreters with assistance from Weihao Zhang (Chinese) and Beatriz Rodriguez (Spanish).

Laura Burian is Associate Professor of simultaneous and consecutive interpretation of Chinese and English at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She has worked as an in-house translator, interpreter, and legal assistant in the Beijing office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and freelanced as both a translator and interpreter in the US, mainland China, and Taiwan.
Barry Olsen is Assistant Professor of simultaneous and consecutive interpretation of Spanish and Russian at the Monterey Institute and has been working as a conference interpreter and translator since 1993. Over the years he has interpreted for the U.S. State Department, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Organization of American States, National Geographic Society, C-SPAN Television, and many other public and private sector clients.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

[luzmercedesvilcaaguilar]

¡Excelente demostración del trabajo de los intérpretes!

[agustinadamore]

Barry is AMAZING! His Spanish is perfect.

[Translationzworld]

Fantastic presentation. Hard to believe that simultaneous interpretation only been around for 60 years.

[Liface]

Professor Burian is unreal. I've never heard a foreigner speak Chinese that well.

[jwadewole]

I am an American Sign Language / English Interpreter. It is fascinating to see my spoken language counterparts do their thing. So impressive!

[EUInterpreters]

Awesome presentation. Congratulations on making the profession clear to everyone!

[anirutvideo]

I'm a professional Thai-English simultaneous interpreter and hats off to both speakers and the interpreters.

[challengersue]

Awesome! Amazing professors and interpreters! Thank you for sharing this on YouTube :)

[polyglotdreams]

I love languages and it just so happens I can understand all the languages they are interpreting into (I mean the whole list he mentioned. not just the examples spoken in the video). 

[Adapice]

Wonderful presentation! thanks for helping to promote our profession.

[saltaybrincaful]

Wonderful, I have to say that I am studying English-French Translation Interpreting  Degree, and I have to admit that I have been inside the booths of my faculty in Las Palmas. And being in the booth interpreting a speech of more or less 15 minutes is very stressing, but now I am used to that long. I love Interpreting.

[morqesahar]

Wonderful presentation. It's so uncanny seeing it all playout in real-time.

[cameljaque]

I love this and the clarification it gives to those who have never had the experience of this or who need clarification of what is entailed and why

[zadaben]

Wonderful talk!  I just wished this was captioned as well, relying on google captioning is not always the best.  Those that are Deaf/Hard of Hearing would benefit from this being captioned. They are missing out on a great talk and a resource for what they are confronted with on a daily basis.

[JerryZHANG-gi]

Still working on my interpretation and hope I can finally do it!

[mariapazconcha]

Great video and great way of explaining what is done in our profession, colleagues. 

[Nataliewms]

Great presentation! I'd love to share this talk with my Deaf and hard of hearing friends, when do you expect a captioned version to be available? Or if it already exists, I would appreciate a redirect. Thank you!

[HaruSkage]

8:07 That's so meta, it got the interpreter herself laughing.

[keni]

Que tremendo nivel de español tiene ese hombre

[mdrovell]

So like I am looking up TedXMonterey because I live there and I find someone I know lol. The woman is one of my school friends mother.