After more than 2 years of doing RSI, finally I had a chance to do an SI in a Physical Event again using a Physical SI System. The event was the 2nd RCID (Regional Conference Industrial Development) that was held at Jakarta. The main sponsors of the show are the Indonesian Ministry of Industries and UNIDO.

It was a great experience doing SI and high level relay functions with the best people in the industry. The language interpretations were in English, Japanese, Mandarin and Korean.

*I blurred out the faces of the other interpreters for their privacy.
All of us has passed the PCR test and we only put off our masks during the pictures.

ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta has been one of my most valuable client. I have been receiving many repeat orders from them in the past recent years. However due to Corona Virus Pandemic, the project with them has been halted since March 2020 because Jakarta was entering a Lockdown situation (It still is until now because we are entering lockdown phase 2 this September in Jakarta).

But the show (Projects) must go on, so they resume the project in September and used Zoom to facilitate the event.

My main job was to deliver interpretation from Japanese to Indonesian language. I expect many more projects will come in the form of Online Meeting such as Zoom in the future. Even now, 90% of my jobs came from one form of Online Meeting or another. Let’s survive and thrive in this Pandemic Situation together.

If your Windows 10 is updated to version 2004. There is a chance that your Japanese Keyboard setting might be messed up a little bit. I will show you the way to reset your Microsoft IME (Japanese Keyboard) to the previous version.

• Press Windows Icon
• Cick Setting (Gear Icon)
• In the search Box Type “IME” and choose “Japanese IME Setting”
• Click General
• Scroll down to the bottom of the page and Click On next to the “Use Previous version of IME”

And that’s it, you got your IME just working again just like before.

Nowadays I think we all have to agree that the Online meeting platform has became the Normal way to conduct a meeting and or event. So let’s see my experience with some of the platform that I’ve used in my work.

• Skype : especially before 2018.
  Mostly for a small scale meeting without discussing something sensitive or confidential contents. I got 0 clients that are still using Skype in 2020.
  Access from Skype App.
• Zoom : since early 2019 (this is my major platform to receive online job in 2020).
  Mostly for market research type of discussion and or meeting with a lot of sensitive and or company’s confidential and credential stuff.
  Access from Windows App / Mobile App or Web Based (any browser).
• Microsoft Teams (only have 1 experience with 1 client per August 20,2020)
  Same with Zoom. Market research Discussion related topic.
  Access from App or Web Based (Have to use Microsoft Edge Browser).
• Other proprietary Online Meeting system (such as Cisco system).

Currently, Zoom is still the market leader in my surrounding environment. And in my opinion, Zoom has the best accessibility and more robust features comparing with the other competitor. It’s not perfect, I already discussed some lacking feature in Simultaneous Interpreting mode inside Zoom in my previous post. However I believe that this is still the most complete online meeting platform that you can use right now.

As you might know already, almost every meetings are conducted via Zoom nowadays. It really took the world by storm and became one of the most successful company post Covid19 era.

I have been using Zoom since the last 3 years ago, giving my service as interpreter with consecutive interpreting method. And currently Zoom also provide a new simultaneous interpretation function and I have been using that several times with my clients.

I won’t be covering how you enabled this function because zoom has a restriction that only host with some plan or business account can access this feature. And I am sure what kind of account can access this feature might be changed in the future, so if you want to get more information about that, you could go to :
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360034919791-Language-interpretation-in-meetings-and-webinars

Here are my thoughts/experiences regarding the current Zoom interpretation function (per early July 2020).

• I have several occasions where the Host forgot to enabled this function so I could not be assigned as interpreter. And when the host finally remember that he/she has to enabled it, it was too late because the webinar has already started.
  (Updated on April 2021 : more people has become aware and familiar with the operation and I didn’t see any of this trouble again lately)
• It was designed to be a one way presentation. So whenever the speaker open a discussion or Q&A session, it was a challenging situation because the speaker couldn’t hear the interpreter unless he/she changed the channel, however if they change the channel, they will lose the access to the audience’s voice.
  (Updated on March 2021 : Zoom provided a feature where you could hear the interpreter’s voice with certain percentage of volume and also the mic from the speaker with certain percentage of volume)
• No force – mute. In the offline Simultaneous interpreting booth, it is a very common to have a force mute button to force mute your partner if he/she forgot to mute when you are interpreting. Or in a recent one, the system is automatically rigged that whenever your mic is on, your partner’s mic will be muted and vice versa. Zoom doesn’t have this functionality yet.
• No Bahasa Indonesia’s label. Zoom only provide about 8 languages channel right now. So imagine if I want to interpret a Japanese speaker to Bahasa audience, there is no label for it. Let’s say we use the Korean channel as Indonesian Channel, so the audience that want to hear Indonesian interpretation has to choose… Korean… that is so confusing for the audience. I’m not so sure why they do not provide us the custom label / channel that we could set.
  (Updated on May 2021 : this issue has been resolved since Zoom already provide us the free text label for the language)

I do believe the function will get better in the future since almost all of the meetings will take place in Zoom world and more of this interpretation function will be needed across the whole world.

I rarely comment about this kind of topic, but I am impressed with the service so it made me want to post about it.

Background Story :

My passport has expired and I didn’t notice it until a month ago. Due to the Covid19 partial lock-down situation, the immigration offices were also closed. They finally opened again in the mid June 2020. And I decided to try to register directly to government and make passport myself without any help from the agent (In Indonesia we call them Biro Jasa).

Procedure that I went through :

• Get an online queue number. This is the most frustrating and hard part. After this part is done, everything went smooth. So the thing is, you must apply an online queue number using android application at the specific time and day. They opened the queue line every Friday at 14.00 PM. But I failed several times, probably due to the server couldn’t handle all the requests at once.
  In my case, I couldn’t even access this function until later at night. And luckily I still see some spot left in my preferred Immigration Office (I chose Soekarno Hatta Airport Immigration Office because of their good rating I heard from a lot of people)
• After you got the online queue number, go to immigration office that you chose with all your supporting documents (original and copy). If you are an Indonesian citizenship just bring your valid ID, KK, Birth certificate, proof of marriage (if available). The good things about Soekarno Hatta Immigration office is that they have a photo copy center just 10 steps away from the registration booth, so it is really easy to copy your document in case you forgot.
• Fill in some registration form.
• Wait for interview and Photo session.
• Finished. At this time you will get 2 piece of papers. The first one is an invoice stating how much you should pay and the second one is the instruction how to pay and a list of what Bank that you could use to make the payment.
• Make a payment in your preferred Bank. You need to keep the printed proof of payment, so it is advisable to use ATM machine.
• Wait for 7 working days to go back to get your Passport. They will send you an SMS text message, however the staff at the immigration office kindly explain to me that sometimes their SMS blast system is having problem, so whether I do get the SMS or not , I need to get back again after 7 working days. Wait too long (such as longer than 30 days) and you might need to restart the whole process all over again.
• In My case I did get the SMS exactly after 7 working days, so I went back with the invoice and proof of payment. Scan the barcode using the invoice to get another queue number, wait for your queue, and retrieve your new passport after you gave the invoice and proof of payment.

The best thing about Soekarno Hatta Immigration office is that they are not crowded, I chose to went there at early morning (They open at 8.00 AM). Both when I went there to register and to retrieve my passport, I only saw less than 10 queues. When I went there to register the first time, it took me around 15-20 minutes, and when I went back to retrieve the new passport it took me less than 10 minutes.

Additionally, all the staff in the immigration office were kind and helpful, such a really good service attitude.

Conclusion :

If you could get pass the online queue number system using your android, it is best to register on your own without any help of agent (using an agent will took you twice the normal fee).

The system is far better right now. I remember back then when I renew my passport in Jakarta Immigration office, I waited for 4 hours (using an agent). I also saw someone else that have been there before me but they are not yet handled even after I’m done. Back then we didn’t have the queue number, so the staff will call out your name if it is your turn. I assume I got the priority because I was using an agent (but still 4 hours waiting though). So I am really glad to see that the system in Indonesia improved a lot.

Being a Trilingual Translator and Interpreter for almost a decade, it is imperative for me to have a Japanese Keyboard on my PC and my preferred display language is always English.

Recently I just bought myself a brand new Laptop that came with Windows 10 Home. But I didn’t aware until I set the Windows that the version is a Single Language. During the setup I chose English as my Display language because that’s the way I prefer it. I thought I could easily just add a Japanese Keyboard later on. That has been always the case up until now (at least from XP ,7 and until 8 it can be done this way).

But Alas when I tried to add new Language/Keyboard, it showed me “only one language pack allowed”. Hence the Japanese Keyboard is installed but I can’t type anything in Japanese because the system will do anything to prevent it. Almost frustrated with this condition I tried to find my way around and finally resolve the situation.

This is the solution :

• Go to Setting -> Region & Language -> Add new language -> Add Japanese
  It doesn’t matter even if you get “only one language pack allowed”, you still need to do this step before moving on.
• Go to Typing setting (you can search it in the box for easy access) -> advanced keyboard settings.
• Under the “Override for default input method” choose your language (in my case it’s Japanese – Microsoft IME).
• Done. Voila now you can have Japanese Keyboard with English Display.
  (In Japanese Keyboard, you can still type in English because there is a toggle to switch into alphanumeric mode, the toggle switch is Alt+Tilde~)

*I wrote this in my blog for a future reference in case I need to remember this and also hopefully it can help other people that have the same experience with me.

This is my 2nd post regarding cadence, and proudly to say that I am a Certified Cadence Interpreter now. A little bit about cadence, it is an interpreter service agency that mainly deals with due dilligence and market research project. You can visit them on www.cadencetranslate.com

A few months ago, cadence tried to separate their interpreters level. In order to do that they put a test to their interpreters, and the one who passed the test will be marked as a certified cadence interpreter.

It was very straightforward to get certified :

• You submit a resume with cover letter to explain why you consider yourself worthy to get this certification.
  Some may have different opinion, but for me a good resume is between 2-3 pages long.
• You go to their affiliate website to make a recorded interview.
  You will be asked several question and then you need to record your answer and submit your video, the web system will handle all of the video submission process. Some questions didn’t allow you to retake the video, and some questions such as what is your strength and weakness can be re-recorded for up to 2-3 times.
• You make appointment to do 1:1 interview to once again explain about your specialty, what industry that you’re good at, your experience interpreting difficult clients, etc.
• Wait for the result.

Kudos to cadence for always upgrading and improve their system.