How to make the best web conferencing platforms multilingual

More and more events are being taken online to ensure we can stay connected, keep learning and continue communicating. For businesses, this means finding the most practical and efficient solutions to meet their needs. But with so many options available, what should they choose?

While the rush to digital was hastened by the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the benefits of web conferencing will likely keep many online even after lockdown measures have relaxed. And as businesses scale and grow a global team and client portfolio, there’ll be an increasing demand for real-time translation when the lingua franca fails.

As we move into the future, language and distance shouldn’t stand in the way of business opportunities. In this blog, we take a look at two powerful ways in which the top digital events and web conferencing platforms can increase the accessibility of their virtual meetings and events and make them multilingual.

1. Remote Simultaneous Interpretation

Remote simultaneous interpretation is the process of rendering a spoken or signed message into another spoken or signed language, preserving the register and meaning of the source language, remotely. This means that, unlike traditional simultaneous interpretation, with remote simultaneous interpretation interpreters no longer need to be on-site. 

Use case scenarios:

This method of interpretation is indispensable when you have an international audience. Because of its "simultaneous" nature, this type of interpretation is ideal for those meetings where a delay in the delivery of the speech could ruin the experience of the event. RSI is especially useful for: 

• meetings or events with an international audience where one or more participants connect remotely
• any event where interpreters of a particular language are not available locally

• any meeting or event where a person or a panel is speaking to an audience

What it looks like:

How to get started:

When it comes to making remote live interpretation available at your event, you could say there are two ways: getting a meeting platform specifically designed to support RSI, like Interprefy Connect Pro, or having your event on a platform where RSI is made available by a third-party RSI provider, like Interprefy does for over 60 platforms.

2. Multilingual Live Captions

Live captions are a live transcription of speech audio using AI-powered Automated Speech
Recognition (ASR) algorithms. When you add the multilingual component to it, it means that the speech is interpreted by professional interpreters into different languages and those languages are then transcribed into text in real-time using AI. 

Use case scenarios:

Multilingual live captions are one step forward towards inclusion as they allow users who cannot hear to understand what is happening in your meeting or event. Multilingual live captions are especially useful for:

• Individuals with hearing impairment who can follow the dialogue in written form.
• People who wish to follow the discussion but are in a location where another dialogue is taking place.
• Individuals in a noisy environment like in a café who wish to follow the event even
  when listening conditions are poor.
• Those who wish to have a readable feed to back up their understanding of what is
  being said. For instance, in a chemical conference when complex formulas are
  being voiced it is sometimes useful to have a readable text feed alongside the
  spoken words.
• Those attending (but not contributing) in areas of poor network connection where
  audio feeds may be unreliable.

What it looks like:

How to get started:

Interprefy provides multilingual live captions in combination with real-time language interpretation. Book a consultative call with us to discuss how Interprefy Captions can break down communication barriers at your events. Click here to schedule

Creating a powerful tech stack

While most remote simultaneous interpretation (RSI) providers offer a standalone multilingual web conferencing solution, Interprefy goes one step further by partnering up with leading web conferencing platforms such as ON24, Hopin, Notified (formerly Intrado), Adobe Connect, and many many more.

With Interprefy Select, we make sure you can use the web conferencing platform that ticks all the boxes and work with an RSI partner that can help link up the two systems and provide a stunning live translation experience anywhere.