Online magazine Slate recently outlined how interpretation works at the United Nations.

The brief article by political reporter Christopher Beam explained the difference between interpretation and translation and between simultaneous and consecutive interpretation. It also described the working conditions of the interpreters:

At any given moment, the U.N. Interpretation Service has a dozen interpreters working six booths—one for every official language. The pair of interpreters in the English booth translates into English, the French booth translates into French, and so on. Attendees can then listen to the interpretations on headphones, clicking across channels for different languages. The job is exhausting, so interpreters will usually switch off every 20 minutes or so. They can also take breaks when the speech is in their language, since no translation is necessary.

The article gave a shout-out to AATIA member Stephen Mines, as well as American Translator Association President Jiri Stejskal and Hossam Fahr of the UN Interpretation Service, for their help in the preparation of the article.