Don’t use humor or jargon.
The first time I experienced translation was in Korea in 1994 and it was an eye-opener for me. I was fascinated and somewhat anxious about the process. A colleague of mine, Grady Booch, spoke first. Grady was, and still is, a brilliant speaker, but it was probably his first time doing a simultaneously translated presentation. He talked quite fast and used quite a bit of engineering jargon and some folksy humor. The Korean audience was riveted, even though he did not adjust his speaking style much. His jokes received an authentic laughing response, although slightly offset by the few-second delay of translation. One joke in particular seemed like it should have been complete nonsense outside the United States nerd programmer community. It was something about “getting hosed by overusing go-to statements and ending up with spaghetti code.” Even to English-speaking nonprogrammers, this phrase should have been almost unintelligible.
