Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques - 221. Don’t Get Lost in Translation: Staying Cool When Every Word Counts

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

How do you stay clear, calm, and precise when every word counts and there’s no room for error?Staying calm and focused while translating high-stakes conversations in real time isn’t just a language skill — it’s a masterclass in communication under pressure. And for Giampaolo Bianchi, simultaneous interpreter for the United Nations and World Health Organization, it’s a challenge he meets with presence, precision, and a whole lot of preparation. In this expanded conversation from our Spontaneous Speaking series, Bianchi offers a behind-the-scenes look at how he prepares for — and performs in — moments where being calm, in control, and adaptable are essential.“We don’t translate words — we translate ideas,” Bianchi explains, highlighting the mindset shift that allows interpreters to go beyond language and convey meaning with clarity and nuance. He shares the role of rigorous preparation, physical grounding, and mental focus in his work, and explains how tools like note systems, pre-session rituals, and active listening help manage cognitive load during live interpretation.In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Bianchi and host Matt Abrahams explore how the principles of simultaneous interpretation apply far beyond the booth — offering valuable strategies for anyone who needs to communicate effectively under pressure, adapt in the moment, and ensure their smartest communication happens without a script.Episode Reference Links:Giampaolo BianchiEp.197 Prep or Perish: Mastering In-the-Moment Communication (1 of 3)Ep.198 Pause and Effect: Mastering In-the-Moment Communication (2 of 3)Ep.199 Blunder Pressure: Mastering In-the-Moment Communication (3 of 3)Ep.203 No Script, No Problem: Final Secrets to Speaking Under Pressure (Bonus)   Connect:Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart PremiumEmail Questions & Feedback >>> [e-mail] Transcripts >>> Think Fast Talk Smart WebsiteNewsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>> FasterSmarter.ioThink Fast Talk Smart >>> LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTubeMatt Abrahams >>> LinkedInChapters:(00:00) - Introduction (02:55) - Becoming a UN Interpreter (04:03) - Staying Calm Under Pressure (05:16) - Translating Emotion, Not Just Words (06:23) - Memory and Focus Techniques (08:04) - The Power of Preparation (09:30) - Pre-Meeting Rituals and Readiness (10:47) - Handling Mistakes in Real Time (11:57) - Interpreter Habits in Daily Life (12:58) - The Final Three Questions (17:52) - Conclusion ********Thank you to our sponsors.  These partnerships support the ongoing production of the podcast, allowing us to bring it to you at no cost.Strawberry.me. Get 50% off your first coaching session today at Strawberry.me/smartJoin our Think Fast Talk Smart Learning Community and become the communicator you want to be. 

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Visit strawberry.me slash smart to get matched up with your coach today. That's strawberry.combe slash smart and get 50% off your first coaching session. It's the most affordable time ever to see if coaching is right for you. meaning matters, especially in high-pressure negotiations or crisis situations. And we can all actively work to make sure our messages aren't lost in translation. My name is Matt Abrahams, and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. As part of our four-part mini-series on spontaneous speaking,

we introduced you to a number of coaches whose jobs require successful, in the moment communication. So many of our listeners found value in our coach's advice that we wanted to provide you with an opportunity to hear our complete interviews. So today, I'm excited for you to learn from Gianpaolo Bianchi. Gianpaolo is a simultaneous interpreter who does work for the United Nations and the World Health Organization.

His main areas of focus are on international diplomacy and politics, human rights, global health, and foreign policy. Let's jump right in and learn from Gianpolo. Jim Pallo, welcome. I look forward to our conversation. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Excellent. Shall we get started? Let's. So for over 10 years, you've been a high-stakes language interpreter for the UN and other governmental organizations. What languages do you speak and what trainings and experiences led you to do this kind of work?

Here in Geneva, I mainly work with English, Spanish, and French. As for my training, well, I started out 10 years ago at the University of Hawaii. And then eventually I obtained a master's degree in conference interpreting at the University of Geneva here in Switzerland. I'm impressed that you went to school in Hawaii. I think that sounds awesome. So is a lot of the training just doing translation in real time? Is somebody drilling you and making sure everything you said is accurate? More or less, yes. You start with simple speeches and you work on those and then you gradually work your way up and do things that are more difficult until by the end of your training. you are, you know, working for a half hour at a time and interpreting very difficult speeches. Wow, that's amazing. Could I put you on the spot? I'm going to ask you a question. Would you mind translating the question that I ask and then answer it back in English? Would that be okay?

Sure. You've translated in really high pressure situations with super important conversations happening. How do you stay calm and collected while also thinking on your feet during these tense moments? You've interpreted in situations where there are much pressure and in where they're celebrating conversations very important. How you maintain you the calm and the compostura at the

way that thinks rapidly during those moments of the attention? Wow. Wow. Wow. Of the question. And as for the answer, well, there are a lot of sort of smaller actions that you can take to help you focus.

For example, just your posture, the way that you hold yourself while you're working. You know, you're sitting in the booth and you have both feet planted on the ground. You have, you know, you keep your back straight, try to anchor yourself to the ground. And that helps. Remembering to breathe is also very important. And on a mental level, zero in on the present moment. You know, just focus on what you're doing at that exact moment. Don't dwell on anything.

anything else. I want to just point out for our audience who can't see you, but I can. Two things happen. When I asked you to translate, you actually did go into that position naturally. It's not that you were slouching or leaning, but all of a sudden I saw you become more formal. And I definitely saw you take a breath. I want to ask you a question that came from what you said in Spanish. You were clearly not just repeating my words, but you were inflecting those words to convey some of the same emotion that I was trying to convey. Talk to me about the role of conveying emotion. Sure. Well, in our profession, we often say that we don't translate words.

We translate ideas. The idea is to try and embody the person that you're interpreting. Try and sort of get into their head, figure out what it is that they're saying and why they're saying it. And yes, you know, follow the tone or the inflection. Without exaggerating, you know, you don't want to become a caricature of the person that's speaking originally. You're almost playing a role in a sense. Oh, that's really interesting. That's fascinating. It's scary that you're trying to inhabit, you know, what I'm trying to say because I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say.

How, you know, I can imagine in these intense conversations, people go on for a long period of time. How are you remembering everything they're saying as they're saying it? Is there some way you do that? Well, it depends on the mode of interpreting. There is simultaneous interpreting and consecutive interpreting. A consecutive is just when a person speaks a phrase in one language, then you repeat it in the other language. And we do take notes when that happens.

We have developed a system of notes to help you kickstart your memory and to sort of guide you along the speech as you're interpreting. And as for simultaneous, misinterpreting. Well, you are going to have to concentrate very hard for a sustained period of time. So it's very taxing. Would you mind sharing like one thing you do to try to maximize your cognitive bandwidth? I know that when I'm really trying to concentrate and remember a question somebody asks or something, I might look down in a way because looking at people's faces gets distracting to me. Sometimes I do something similar. You know, sometimes when I'm really need to concentrate, I'll close my eyes.

and put my head in my hands and try and focus that way. Sometimes, on the other hand, I do actually have to look at the person. Sure. Because there are lots of nonverbal cues that can help me, you know, body language and so on. But I would say, like, the number one thing that I do to avoid cognitive overload is just preparation. Okay, so tell me about that. And what's that preparation look like? When a conference interpreter works at a meeting, they have to know,

almost everything about the meeting before it even begins. So if I'm interpreting a conference, I will look up the organization that I'm working in, you know, figuring out who's the director general, who's the deputy director general, what's the structure of the organization, what do they do? Why do they do it? And then I'll look up the specific meeting. Why are they meeting? What are they there to discuss? What do you think is going to be said at the meeting? I see. Given the delegates that are there, you know, Sometimes you might even go so far as to look up the delegates online and see if they're already recorded speeches of them so that you can listen to them and sort of prepare by getting used to their accent. You can also look up the jargon that's used in the organization. Are there any important acronyms or any technical terms that you really need to know?

Because if you prepare that information beforehand and if you really study it and learn it by hearts, you can almost, automate the process of thinking about those things so that you can then dedicate your mental resources to something else. Because if you spend, you know, every second that you spend thinking about, oh, what does that acronym mean? Is a second that you're not spending on understanding what is being said and interpreting it? That's phenomenal. So it is in that in-depth preparation that you are freeing up your cognitive bandwidth in the moment. One of the things that you mentioned that I think is so important is many of us are in interactions with people who don't necessarily speak the language we speak as their native tongue, so they have accents.

And I love this notion of actually trying to see if you can hear the person speaking prior to ever being in the moment with them. So you can train your brain to be prepared for what they're saying. That's really important. I really appreciate you sharing. I'd like to go to the moment before you start, because I can imagine there's some anxiety. some excitement. What do you do to prepare yourself that helps you get ready to get started? Well, one of the things that every good interpreter does is they usually arrive at the venue at least half an hour before the beginning of the meeting. You want to be there as early as possible so that you can iron out any technical issues that might pop up, talk to the technicians and perhaps

even delegates and try and get information from them that way. It sounds to me like it's almost a ritual and that ritual might actually also help you calm down and get prepared. Yeah, it is kind of like that, yes. It's interesting. So I've interviewed actors and actresses and a lot of what you're describing sounds similar to what they do. I am sure you're human that you have made mistakes or you've been less accurate than you intended.

How do you recover in those moments? Well, the first thing that you have to do, if you're able to correct it immediately, then you can just correct it immediately. Above all, you just need to keep calm, sort of keep it in the back of your head and try and go back to it whenever you can. Excellent. Well, yeah, and I think that's true for any of us when we make a mistake. You have to make an in-the-moment choice. Can I correct it now or do I have to come back to it later? Or maybe it's not significant enough to even matter. I'm curious at the completion of a translation. Do you ever talk to the people for whom you translated? Do they ever give you feedback? Do they ever say,

thank you, or that was helpful? Or is that something that you just don't do that's not allowed or expected? It's not something I do very often, to be honest. We interpreters tend to be more behind the scenes, people. I know we go into the booth in the back of the room and then we do our job. Do you find it hard to turn off this way of communicating when you're just in everyday communication? You know, as somebody who teaches communication, I have had to learn over time.

to just turn off my brain and not be analyzing the things that I get paid to analyze, you know, the things I teach. Do you find yourself in like everyday interaction switching languages or noticing things that you get distracting from the moment of being real, really present and connected with the people you're talking to? Yeah, it does happen a lot. I mean, I tend to use a lot of interpreter speak, even when I'm not interpreting, and sometimes I need to stop myself and say, you're not, you're not, You're not interpreting anything. You are just having a normal conversation.

Conversation. And it also happens that you'll be interpreting. Sometimes I'm interpreting for so long that I'll find myself interpreting everything else in my head. So, you know, I'll be watching a TV show and interpreting it in my head. Sure. We'll be right back to finish our conversation. But first, a quick word from one of our sponsors. Their support allows us to bring you this show free of charge.

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explaining them in a way that is very easy to understand. He's just an expert at teaching you very complex ideas and doing so in a way that is very natural and almost spontaneous. And I think that's very admirable. You're right. I mean, he was very good at doing that. And I'm not surprised that somebody who does what you do would admire somebody who, in a similar vein, translated very technical scientific information for those of us who are less technical and scientific. Question number two. While those listening likely won't need to speak in the situations you do, what advice would you give for them to be better spontaneous speakers in the moment? Analyze what people are saying. What is the idea that they're trying to communicate and

how are they communicating it? Why are they using certain words and not others? Or why are they avoiding the use of certain words? And really try and analyze what people are saying and how. and why. And that'll help you when you have to, you know, do it, do it yourself. Yes. So to be a really detailed observer of the communication, not just what's being said, but how and why in the language, to help yourself, but also I think as you shared, you get deeper understanding. Yes. Final question. I'd like you to give me some homework. What is one communication thing that I could do in my life that simulates something you do regularly. What advice would you give me so that I could do that thing well? Well, I guess this goes back to what we were

saying earlier about preparation. The language that we speak is our primary tool when we're interpreting. And you should learn to use that tool as efficiently as possible. And one of the ways to do that is to practice different ways of saying things. For example, there's an exercise that interpreters do when they're preparing. They'll take a concept and they'll think of as many different ways of saying the same concept as they can. So, for example, how many different ways do you know of saying go up? Something can go up, but it can also grow. It can escalate.

It can hike. It can balloon. It can skyrocket. And then the opposite, you know, for things that are going down. They can descend. They can plummet. They can bottom out. And really practice those things over and over and over.

And then try to use them in your everyday language. Instead of saying the same thing more than once, just use a synonym. Well, thank you for elevating our game without lowering our abilities. That was really helpful, and I'm going to practice that. I think that's a wonderful tool. Well, Gianpalo, this has been incredibly educational. Thank you for sharing what you do on a daily basis and translating that so the rest of us can understand. I really appreciate your time.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Much gracias. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. To learn more from our spontaneous speaking. coaches, listen to our four-part mini-series, episodes 197, 197, 198, and 203. You can also go to Faster Smarter.io slash spontaneous. This episode was produced by Catherine Reed, Michael Riley, and me, Matt Abraham's.

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