If it’s your first time organising interpreting for an online meeting in Colombia or any other country in the world, it can be a little difficult to know which platform you should use. Below is a quick guide to help you with your choice.

Zoom Pro

We have a winner! Zoom Pro is the only platform that allows you to have simultaneous interpreting. This means that you can turn on the Interpreting function, and when somebody is speaking in Spanish, people attending the meeting can select the English button and here the interpreter speaking in English at the same time. This reduces the length of the meeting, improves communication and makes the session much more enjoyable for everyone. While Zoom Pro has a significant annual subscription fee, you can also rent it for a day or numerous days from ONG Traducciones.

Microsoft Teams

Due to its popularity with organisations and businesses, many online meetings are held using Teams. However, the Teams interpreting function is currently only one-way. This means that there is a function for interpreting from the speaker’s language into another language but if that person wishes to respond to the speaker, there is no second channel to facilitate that conversation. As a result, Teams is not advisable for an online meeting that requires interpreting.

Google Meet

Because this is a free platform, Google Meet does not have an interpreting function and consecutive interpreting is required. This involves someone talking for around a minute in their language, then the interpreter repeats what they said in the other language, etc. As a result, the online meeting will go for at least double the amount of time and the interpreting will be less accurate as it relies heavily on the memory of the interpreter.

ONG Traducciones offers high quality interpreting for Zoom calls. You can find out more about this service here.