Market research glossary

Spoken translation of a research session from the language it is being conducted in to another language for the benefit of observers. There are two common forms of interpreting: in Simultaneous interpreting (also referred to as Simultaneous translation), the interpreter listens to the person speaking on headphones and speaks into a microphone as the same time – this is the type of interpreting that you may have seen used at meetings of big international organisations such as the United Nations. In Consecutive interpreting (also referred to as Consecutive translation), the interpreter waits for the person speaking to finish a sentence, then translates it while the speaker pauses – this is the type of interpreting that you see on news broadcasts when an interviewer is talking to someone who speaks a different language. Consecutive interpreting doesn’t require any special equipment but it does mean that the research session takes longer.