Employers

Multilingual events

By considering the language needs of the participants, you ensure that appropriate language choices and clear language use support participation also with limited language proficiency.
The audience is listening to a man talking into a microphone.
Content:

Instructions for preparing and leading an event where participants have different language proficiencies.
For whom:

Employees responsible for event planning and implementation.
Time:

Reserve time to consider language issues.
Benefit:

Everyone can understand and participate in events as well as possible, regardless of their language proficiency.

Find out who participates

  • Ask about participants' language preferences on registration. 
  • Please note that deducing a participant’s Finnish or Swedish proficiency from their name alone is impossible.

Select event language appropriately

  • If there are only a few participants with limited Finnish, the event language can be mainly Finnish with introductions and summaries in English.  
  • In remote events, automatic translation tools can be used, for example, to translate chat messages or slides. 

Explain multilingualism

  • At the beginning of the event, explain which languages will be used at the event and in what situations.  
  • Giving instructions in different languages help ensure that everyone understands while simultaneously giving an example of multilingualism. 

Speak clearly

  • Remind speakers to speak calmly and clearly.  
  • Good general language is easy to follow regardless of level of language proficiency.  
  • There is no need to oversimplify speech, but dialects and slang are best avoided. 

Support participation

  • Consider allowing listeners to ask questions in their strongest language, and which languages can be used to respond.
  • The key content of each question and answer can be translated to the audience to for the benefit of everyone in the discussion. 

Request feedback and improve

  • Be consistent with event language practices: the same practices should be followed in organisation, communications and collecting feedback.  
  • Ask participants and presenters to provide feedback on the event language practices for continuous improvement.  

Organising a multilingual event and other tools for a multilingual work community are also discussed in the Monikielisen työyhteisön opas (Guide for the multilingual work community).

©2024 Johanna Komppa, Eveliina Korpela, Lari Kotilainen, Salla Kurhila and Inkeri Lehtimaja

Multilingual events, august 2024, produced by Johanna Komppa, Eveliina Korpela, Lari Kotilainen, Salla Kurhila and Inkeri Lehtimaja, is licensed under a CC-BY Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The material can be found at kielibuusti.fi. Photos: All rights reserved. 

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