Interpreting Services For The State of the City 2025

The State of the City Event is an annual address given by the Mayor of Boston that highlights policy goals for the coming year. Well-attended by business leaders, heads of local charities, and other dignitaries, the State of the City requires excellent translation and interpreting services to ensure the event runs smoothly and that all attendees understand the mayor’s goals for the year.

Language Connections has been a language service provider for the City of Boston for several years and frequently offers its interpreting and translation services to support the city government’s important work. This year, Language Connections had the honor to provide consecutive and simultaneous interpreting as well as translation services for 11 different languages.

The Event:

Mayor Michelle Wu held her third annual State of the City Address on March 19th, 2025 at the MGM Music Hall at Fenway. Her speech, which was held in English, had to be translated and interpreted into 11 different languages. This year’s speech focused on recent successes, including doubling the number of contracts granted to businesses owned by people of color and building 11,000 new housing units. The mayor also outlined several important new initiatives, such as expanding access to multi-family housing and lowering energy costs through new partnerships with Eversource and National Grid.

Our Solution

Translation

Language Connections approaches translation according to a precise and comprehensive workflow. This workflow is used for each project, and ensures that documents and texts undergo multiple rounds of review before they are presented to the client.

For the State of the City, we approached all translations according to the following steps:

1. Determine ultimate end use and users of the materials to plan for adaptation and final presentation.
2. Determine the content makeup and word count for each document.
3. Build teams of linguists in the target language(s) who adhere to strict quality guidelines according to the client’s preferences.
4. Build teams of editors fluent in the target language(s) to review the translations.
5. Develop a timeline for delivery, incorporating translation technology for more efficient work.
6. Begin translation and editing; translations are reviewed for the different target audiences.
7. In-house team of proofreaders check translations to ensure documents are cleanly formatted.
8. Deliver to the client; by this point all of the documents have been through multiple rounds of review, and are presented back in the same format as the original source files.

Consecutive And Simultaneous Interpreting Services

When clients approach Language Connections to coordinate interpretation for their event, we first thoroughly examine their specific needs, including:

1. Getting an idea of the scope of interpretation services needed.
2. Gathering details about budgets, schedules, when interpreters are needed and audience numbers.
3. Identifying language pairs and levels of interpretation.
4. Determining the mode of interpretation based on the events; this is either Simultaneous (done as the speaker talks) or Consecutive (done during natural pauses in speech).
5. Requesting any preparation materials the client has for interpreters so they can prepare in advance.

Our team relies on precise scheduling and organization techniques and the State of the City was no exception. We worked closely with the Office of Language & Communication Access (OLCA) throughout the course of the project, meeting frequently to discuss event details and organizing a rehearsal ahead of the event. Additionally, our team was available around the clock to troubleshoot any minor (or major) hiccups. We have built up a strong relationship with each of our linguists, allowing us to reach out to them day or night, and our technical team was on-site for the duration of the event.

The Result

Thanks to the excellent work of our project management team, the event was a great success. While managing a team of 22 interpreters can be challenging, our solutions ensured language access for all participants regardless of their native language, allowing them to fully understand the legislative direction of the city. Language Connections is extremely proud to have been part of this important event that emphasized the remarkable diversity of Boston. As a company founded by immigrants, we truly value the work the administration has done to make this event accessible to all.

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About Language Connections:

Language Connections is one of the top language service companies in the US. Over the last 30 years, we’ve focused on providing the best business translation services, interpreting services, as well as interpreter training and customized language training programs. In addition to top-tier corporate language training, we offer certified corporate interpreters and professional business translation services in 200+ languages. Our network includes linguists with backgrounds in all major industries. They’re ready to meet your needs, whether they’re for technical translation services, legal translation, government translation services, international development translation services, education translation services, life sciences translation, or something else. Reach out to us today for a free quote on our cost-efficient and timely translation services, interpreters, or other linguistic services.

Language Connections Inc.
2001 Beacon Street, Suite 105,
Boston, MA 02135
Phone: +1-617-731-3510
Email: service@languageconnections.com

Interpreting Services For The State of the City 2025

Translation

Consecutive And Simultaneous Interpreting Services

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