A full-fledged profession

I am slowly reading Liaison Interpreting - A Handbook. This is a consistent book, crammed with issues that would best exploited through discussions. In fact, the ideal setting would be for liaison interpreters to read the book and gather for a session on each chapter. An ideal nowhere to start with. I wonder how the authors would update the book today after 12 years of the original publication. I wonder how they would comment on the book with the perspective of time and what progress if any have been made, at least in Australia as the authors are Australian. There is so much for instance substance of debate with the issues of ethic - the idealization of the interpreter being first and foremost, if not exclusively, a linguistic agent. Reality clashes often with what the authors rightly expose as being the do and do not of the liaison interpreter in action. More than often, clients would ask for hints about the current situation. If the interpreter's role is threatened by such expectation, what if the interpreter flatly but politely decline to answer on the basis that this trespass the appointed role. It could bear a negative opinion on the interpreter by the client. This is but an example where I have been thinking while reading that real life is not always if not seldom that clear cut. The authors seem perfectly aware of that fact though even if they don't delve enough in my sense on these ambiguity that arise in real assignment. It is definitely the only book I know focused on liaison interpreting as a full-fledged profession.

Sale

M. who is not an interpreter told me he is reducing his fees. He is not an interpreter but he is a freelancer. That's the common feature we share. Reducing fees won't make customers come easier. Both of us in our far away professions do not advertise fees on our web sites. I have seldom seen a freelance interpreter providing a public fees page. Anyway, despite the financial slump and economic gloom, despite the high Yen, corporate Japan is a share bargain and commerce could to some extend grow despite low domestic consumption. Those are the only macroeconomics factors to cling to in times of recession. And that more SMEs will google interpreters in the coming months.

Japan gets expensive

Japan is today more expensive than the day before, and much more expensive than the previous week. Right now, a spree in New York or in Paris is to sound like a bargain flying from Tokyo. Only the airfare are higher than what they should cost. It also means that SMEs visiting Japan are put under pressure, and this shall have a negative impact on the number of future assignments. Revising ones fee to match reality may be needed soon. More focused online advertising too.

Leaving translation altogether?

You know translation, that is, written translation, is no longer part of the world you want when you cringe when an agency calls like yesterday, asking right away whether you are free the coming two days (for a marathon piece of work). I would jump right away for a customer requesting me to interpret in 1 hour somewhere downtown in Tokyo. I freeze at the prospect of doing so for translation.

Technorati Tags: interpretation, interpreter, interpreting, Japan, Japanese language, translation, translator

Individual identity and back ache

M. thinks there is a conscious and a feeling of identity among French-Japanese interpreters, but not at a group scale. An association would make sense granted people could make a living out of the profession. I am standing on the opposite side. Grouping could be also a way to expand the market, but apparently, I am alone thinking like that. An assignment today took more time than scheduled. The non-technical side was more difficult to manage that the discussion around specs. My client who was suffering of severe back ache asked me at the end how to say "Paracetamol" in Japanese. I grabbed my bag and gave him some I had with me, with the package in case he would need more. "Paracetamol", as I experienced many years ago, is unknown in Japan. The word, that is. The very same stuff, acetaminophen, is available in any drugstore. In case of need, ask for example for the brand name "Norshin".

Elitism

An unexpected brief encounter with a top class interpreter today brought clearer light on what is eating the innards of that small French-Japanese interpreters microcosm. Let's call her M. M. then right into the beginning of the conversation expresses her dissatisfaction at the fact that E. another interpreter, is listed in a public place I am dealing with as providing simultaneous services whereas "she is not competent to do that". I have worked as a matter of fact with E. I don't know about her competence in simultaneous but she performed very well in consecutive. And what if E. is not up to the requisite for simul? How M. is threatened by the fact? Is she feeling threatened, bruised or simply disgusted? She wants me to apply filtering to the people - then I should filter myself out - but I can't tell her my view because a moron coming from nowhere breaks into the conversation as French morons so casually do.

So the top class want exclusivity. Me think that even without a visible association, they already enjoy exclusivity. What do they want then? That other interpreters of any rank by no means associate. They want to keep the implicit hierarchy, they don't want to mingle with low down beginner, except in the classrooms. They don't want to share whatever they could share if they knew the meaning of that verb. They don't want to communicate. But the problem is that down at the bottom of the mountain, the B and C class interpreters don't want to socialize either. Actually, I don't know if they know what they want. I suspect they can't even think about that. Elitism up, lobotomy down. Oy, Oy, Oy! (a little redundoncy here)

Liaison interpreting - A Handbook

I received at long last the secondhand copy of Liaison Interpreting - A Handbook, and I am more than glad for it. It was published 12 years ago, and as far as I have read it so far, it is chocked full with clear insights I have never read anywhere else. It is a pity, and it tells a story, that it is no longer available but at random, and that nothing I am aware of have been written about the profession later on. Books on community interpreters - a category comprised in "liaison interpreting" have been produced in the meantime and new ones are still coming, but this thin one seems an excellent introduction. It also shows how unrecognized the profession was, and still is, blurred at least in Japan in a hierarchy where simultaneous is king, and consecutive a proof of second rate. I had to raise voice last Friday at the meeting where one speaker delivered the standard bias of the superiority of simultaneous. It won't change anytime soon, and interpreters are the primary culprits for the situation. The book actually focus on that issue from the beginning, in very clear fashion. Many sentences should be hanged on posters on ones room and read aloud daily.

Raising powerlessness to the impossible

The aftermath of last Friday's meeting feels like a hangover. Only two of the +30 attendees joined the online forum. Some saw the meeting as a success. After all, I was planning for a mere 10 or less visitors. But the success can only be measured by the rate of action and reaction of the attendees. The result is pathetic, yet in line with every previous assumptions I made. The young ones are mostly dumbs, killed in the egg from school, raised on keeping quiet for fear of shame. How can they be, turn into interpreters? A veteran attendee who was very vocal during the session but in negative ways summed it up later in a personal mail: "I still don't clearly see the interest nor the objective of this initiative". Sounds like this: I have been toiling in that profession for more than 30 years with minimal if no interaction with my arch-ennemies-colleagues. The market is shrinking. Every other sweet ideas uttered during the meeting have to take the acid test of the market scope. What's the use of it when the patient is slowly dying? Besides, we have nothing to talk about. We are KGB meeting CIA. Every other word is top secret. Talking about the weather barely allowed if not already risky.

It's pathetic. Ask the doctors about what's the use of having doctors associations. Ask the fishmongers about the use of having fishmongers federations or syndicates. Ask about the value of meeting, networking. Raising powerlessness to the impossible is feasible, but clutching to that impossible point is hard alone. Yes, we had a nice post-meeting dinner. But messages and calls for ideas after calls for ideas over the forum yield nothing. And not a single current member is apt to raise hand and collaborate. We could clutch better when two.

I was a little bit surprised when one interpreter exchanged business cards with me, to notice afterwards that hers carried no email ID. Welcome to 2008 hightech Tokyo. No email ID. I am still speechless. Reciprocal suspicion, fear of the other, and on top of that, tech backwardness. Oy! Oy! Oy! My goodness.

Being read

Not red but read. An interesting development I won't dwell into is taking place that illustrates the risk of being read, and the risk of telling one own story, which is by definition biased, one-sided, in blogs. Friday meeting was a success, but the aftermath may not be. Envisioning the market, that is, having a broad perspective of the pool one is swimming in is in my view a potent way to modify even in discreet ways the dynamics of the water. But broadening the perspective can be done efficiently if people start sharing their own view on the market. It is the addition of the views, like a puzzle, that will make it possible to build an image, draw a sketch of the market, with its curves and hidden niches. Once this is done, new ideas shall flourish. Staging a first meeting was a personal endeavor blessed with much luck. I hope this change sometimes and the monocephalic endeavor turns one day into a collegial effort. I need other opinions of people not only giving other opinions but willing to grasp the rope and pull together. We are seeing exactly this phenomenon happening at FFJ. Someone, important someone in the sense of his capacity to lead people into participation or procrastination, kept referring to the tiny size of the market that made all wishes of development irrelevant. He was supposed to join us at the diner but left the room at the end of the meeting without a single goodbye. Things need to be practical, otherwise it was all hot air, was his view he hinted at several times during the meeting. Meaning that creating a professional forum in his view was nothing practical, that is, not useful. I could read in his mind at his first utterance, that he was already out, against what he saw as "useless". He was being read by inference, without blogging loud and publicly. His opinion was tantamount, heavy in his power to change or keep things as they are. He chose to change nothing and set a mood, a trap, where some of the attendees certainly followed suite. Still a long way to go, unless the younger ones take initiatives. Some are showing their will to participate, in a tame fashion though. I forgot this Japan.

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Upbeat but lucid

The first meeting in Tokyo of the embryo forum to gather interpreters of French and Japanese was a huge success. 30+ attendees in a crammed and sultry room. Quite a lot of interaction on a standard Japanese scale. At the same time, very few if no positive ideas and suggestions, especially tangible suggestions. Passivity is a scourge and Japan is rich with it. After 48 hours, I have received but a single request to register to the forum. My guess is that granted the attendees were Westerners in their majority, the forum would have seen a good 20 newcomers in no time (maybe I am optimistic here). As one attendee suggested, the level of real life Internet savvyness down here is way much lower that suggested in the media. And technology is not much the issue here, but rather that good old Kantian fear and cowardice, what the contemporary politically correct jargon calls procrastination. Anyway, despite a few followers but still lacking collaborators, we have kingly decided me and myself to hold a monthly meeting from now on, this having been the first one. Upbeat but lucid. This endeavor may lead to nothing, and as previously stated, I shall do my best not to care too much if it does so.

Linguistic helper, light interpretation and other euphemisms

"Linguistic helper" they call it. Yet another request from the school to find out willing students with:

- a fair to better competence at talking French
- to attend honorable visitors from France
- for "light interpretation"
The candidate must be:
- smart
- sympathetic
- able to anticipate and take initiatives
The pay is equivalent to a job at McDonalds. Why don't they call that sea-chicken a tuna? They want interpreters for cheap. That's all the deal. And what does "light interpretation" stand for? No cholesterol? Fat free? Sugarless? When is interpretation light? When does it turn "heavy"? Before it gets sour?
Do I have to pass the offer to my students and have them unwillingly, and unconsciously, hammer yet another nail in the profession's coffin?

Technorati Tags: interpretation, interpreter, interpreting, Japanese language, translation, translator

When does an assignment start

Prior to the first meeting, I had a mundane and briefing talk with the client about various things, they asking me questions about business usage and the importance of this or that company. We were still 30 minutes away from the meeting time but the assignment for me was already on air. Trying and answer meaningfully to their questions was, is part of my job, because clients also judge the quality of the business liaison interpreter by knowledgeable answers to their concerns. Language competence of the Japanese we were about to meet was also a big issue. They had no clue. I offered them to clarify this subject right away after we exchange business cards. After the exchange, I quickly took a smily, lenient attitude to ask them about their English competence and how we could efficiently proceed: everything in Japanese or only Q & A. One of the objective in this first cordial contact managed by the interpreter after agreement with the client, is to grease the wheel of communication, what with a case where the interpreter is not a Japanese national like myself. There is no definitive answer to whether this introduction can be waved or not, but I have the feeling that it works at reassuring the Japanese side tat everything will be fine. When the real interpreting session begins, it is nothing but the second stage of a play that already started at least an hour ago. Do they teach you issues of interaction with clients and that other side at interpretation schools?

Hello, World

Interesting, this blog is listed as "Japanese Interpreter Blog" in the Interpreter Training Resources web site. Do get confused, I am French.

I Stay With You

Reading this article about a survey revealing that some 70% of Japanese inns don't want to cater for foreign guests, I am thinking of a niche service for foreign visitors to Japan. I Stay With You is a Stay-in Interpreter service for wealthy visitors of Japanese inns, relieving the stress of inns hosts and deciphering the inns usage for the guest. Not "I sleep with you" but "I stay with you", until specialized geisha fluent in foreign languages start to pop up in the market, someday, maybe.