Speaking at a conference with live translation

Finish the thought before moving on

For a translated presentation, build sentences people can understand by listening: finish each thought, give numbers with their units, and explain visuals aloud. Keep your own speaking style. Focus your preparation on passages where someone hearing the talk could lose the thread.

A sentence that starts with one subject, wanders into an aside and returns with another asks listeners to reconstruct your argument. Before an important passage, decide what you want to say. State the point, then give the explanation and its limits. For example: “This measurement covers the pilot sites. We are not yet extending the finding to other sites.” The qualification stays connected to the conclusion.

Pause when you have finished a sentence, then move to the next idea. Avoid stopping halfway through an explanation. For example, say “The turnaround is shorter than it was in September” before pausing. If you stop after “shorter”, listeners have not yet heard what you are comparing it with. If your speaking time is cut short, drop a secondary example so you still have time to explain your conclusion.

Keep a conversational pace

The European Commission’s guidance for speakers recommends natural, reasonable pacing, moderate delivery with pauses when reading, and clear pronunciation of numbers. These recommendations were written for working with human interpreters. Follow the same speaking habits when using AI translation: speak naturally, allow pauses and pronounce numbers clearly.

Mark the conclusions you need to finish and the transitions you need to announce in your notes. A sentence written for silent reading may need several spoken sentences. There is no universal words-per-minute target to adopt here. The guide to live translation latency addresses the delay heard by listeners as a separate question.

Say what a number measures

A number on its own does not tell listeners whether it means a duration, an amount or a share. Say the value, its unit and its scope together. A fictional example: “The average turnaround was twelve days for cases closed in September.” This also identifies the period and the cases included. Avoid leaving those details on the slide while saying only the headline figure.

When comparing percentages, name both situations. Moving from twenty to twenty-five per cent is an increase of five percentage points. Calling it a five per cent increase would mean something different. If you correct a value, repeat the whole phrase: “A correction: fifteen days, not twelve.”

Make a chart understandable through speech

Saying “this curve here” does not identify the series you mean. Name the chart, what its axes measure and the trend that supports your point. In a fictional example: “This chart shows registrations by month. They rise from January to March, then remain stable in April.” Add any qualification that matters, such as whether the figures are provisional.

The W3C recommends describing relevant visual information during a presentation. Convey the content through speech without reciting every label. This also helps people who cannot see the screen clearly. It does not, by itself, meet every accessibility need.

Rephrase the point clearly

If a question reveals a misunderstanding, return to the statement involved. Replace “as I just said” with a self-contained explanation that names the subject. Make a distinction between clarification and correction: “Let me clarify the scope” and “Let me correct that figure” tell listeners different things.

A speaker vocabulary sheet prepares terms beforehand. The task here is to make their meaning clear in the sentence you actually say. Keep three reminders on your notes:

• Finish the statement and its qualification before changing topics.
• Say numbers with their units and the groups they describe.
• Explain the result shown and explicitly announce any correction.