The translator broke down during Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s speech at the UN, shouting into his live microphone “I just can’t take it any more” in Arabic.
Ironically, the translator was one supplied by Gaddafi, who refused to use the regular UN interpreters. Those who have translated for Gaddafi in the past empathized with the frustration of his interpreter:
He’s not exactly the most lucid speaker. “It’s not just that what he’s saying is illogical, but the way he’s saying it is bizarre.
UN rules normally limit the time a translator does live translation to 40 minutes, but Gaddafi’s translator broke down after 75 minutes. Another translator immediately took over, translating the final 20 minutes, but even he was given the following day off to recuperate.
3 Comments
I wonder how long a Glenn Beck translator would last.
Or a George W Bush translator
Yeah, how do you translate a mispronunciation? Or something that doesn’t parse as a sentence? Like “We cannot let terrorists hold this nation hostile”