With the advent of generative AI and speech-to-speech translation, many people are left wondering if technology will replace human interpreters. In this video, we go head to head with an AI speech translator and asses the results. Spoiler alert: Technology is a tool, a very powerful tool, but it isn't human and can't replace human interpreters...yet.

There are few things that will put an interpreter on edge like being asked to perform in front of a camera to interpret a speech that gets increasingly faster and more difficult and then critique your own performance. The real hero in this video is interpreter Katty Kauffman who interpreted the rapid-fire text exchange between two millenials. 

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I left a comfortable professorship to join a language tech company (remote simultaneous interpretation, RSI) that was in hypergrowth mode to build their client success team. This article in Multilingual Magazine explains why.  

This was fun interview with Ailsa Chang from NPR's All Things Considered when all eyes were focused on a diplomatic interpreter and her notes from a meeting between Trump and Putin. TLDR: don't subpoena those notes. Professional secrecy matters.  Being interviewed on NPR was a total bucket list item. Check!

Making yourself available to answer any question about your chosen profession can be a daunting task. But it was one I couldn't pass up when asked by WIRED to do an AMA (ask me anything) on the r/languagelearning subreddit, I couldn't pass it up. You can read the full exchange by clicking on the graphic.  

The popularity of this video about how diplomatic interpreters work continues to amaze me. 7.2 million views on YouTube and counting, and that doesn't include the many bootleg versions with subtitles in multiple languages floating around the internet. It was an honor to help creative mastermind Joe Sabia produce and direct this informative piece. Props to my colleagues Katty Kauffman and Adnane Ettayebi for joining me.  

For this appearance on CNN, I was interviewed by news anchor John Berman about the importance of confidentiality and professional secrecy for interpreters. He asked tough questions but followed up the interview with a hand-written thank-you note. Classy and much appreciated. 

I've been privileged to work with and learn from some of the best multilingual communicators in the business. One of them was Fernando van Reigersberg (b. 1937, d. 2021). Fernando stood countless times at the shoulder of history as a diplomatic interpreter. I interviewed him about his work with NASA astronauts on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. 

Most interactions between world leaders are usually carefully scripted and prepared. But sometimes Informal or impromptu conversations between heads of state at international meetings help keep the wheels of international relations turning. In this interview with CBC National Editor Chirs Hall, we discuss how even when world leaders don't agree, as in the case of Canada and China here, they still need to talk things through.