Living Japanese 生きた日本語

Just received the book + DVD Living Japanese 生きた日本語. The simple pagination is very much remindful but on a shorter size of the books I used at Nagoya University. The DVD would not run on my MacBook but does run on another Mac computer. I just noticed right away how pragmatic the content is, which is very welcome. The introduction does not mention even once "shadowing". Maybe my obsessive side with the practice is popping up too much these days but by all means, shadowing must be highlighted as an essential approach parallel to listening. More on the DVD when I have time going through it.

Dialogue Interpreting

I started reading the book Dialogue Interpreting from St. Jerome Publishing. The introduction starts with this :

"Dialogue interpreting includes what is variously referred to in English as Community, Public Service, Liaison, Ad Hoc or Bilateral Interpreting - the defining characteristic being interpreter-mediated communication in spontaneous face-to-face interaction. Included under this heading are all kinds of professional encounters: police, immigration and welfare services interviews, doctor-patient interviews, business negotiations, political interviews, lawyer-client and courtroom interpreting and so on."

It is the first time I read such succinct stance that so much fits the format of the professional service I provide. Interpretation is seemingly monopolized, in the mind at least, with conference interpreting, meaning in terms of technique, simultaneous. Simul is king, whereas consec is a leftover and a stain telling you are not up to, not competent to do better. The literature around community interpreting is putting some weight in the balance but equilibrium of the two - not fundamentally - different although cousin activities won't be reached any time soon. The literature doesn't take into account the possibility that you may mainly work between B and C, or to be more precise, between B1 and B2. I doubt I am alone working mostly between two foreign languages. But as long as the interest for community interpreting grows - which includes in the broad sense "business interpreting", things will get better.

The scene goes like this. An interpreter is called at a scene where two people need a conduit to speak and understand each other. That's a standard triadic exchange. The interpreter takes out of a her bag two light headsets and invites the two others to done on. She already wears one of her own. Now the conversation can start. She delivers mostly in simul mode but sometimes switches to consec. In such setting, the flow management is an essential part of the interpreter's job. Switching between simul and consec, while keeping the interaction in proper order - avoid overlapping - is a demanding task and one that distinguishes amateurs from professionals.

End of the scene.

End of year, nothing to do except working on shadowing and intense listening.

Keeping abreast with general knowledge

This is an extract of my "Advanced Japanese Language Learning for General Learners and Interpreters" Google site located here.

The overall strategy is to keep afloat and constantly work to try and have wide views on contemporary subjects. The mega-subject here is Japan, and the strategies are different whether you are in Japan or not. The strategies within Japan can be applied outside Japan too but at a greater monetary cost. A daily portion of the Nikkei podcast for instance is helpful to keep abreast of current news subjects but my opinion is that it doesn't help when trying and build a larger view, the big picture of contemporary Japan. Keeping at bay Information overflow is a major task, even more for interpreters I believe. At the time of this writing, a week before the end of year 2008, magazine stands in Tokyo are a reminder that paper still matters. I would certainly not buy a monthly economy magazine that would be left unopen in no time, but at this very time of the year, there are end of year issues with the standard 予測 for 2009 that are much more valuable than a annual stack of magazines, because they sweep through wide arrays of subjects in condensed form. That the magazines will probably miss the forecast they deliver is not an issue. What matter is the broad view they provide on Japan and how Japan think about these issues. A book like 日本の論点 is a thick addition that is probably worth reading over time in tiny chunks. The standard 現代用語の基礎知識 as a hefty reference book might be good to have but you won't read it like a book. They provide this year a paper thin magnifier for the tiny fonts. For industrial subject specific references, there are specialized magazines for mostly anything, but books that summarize a specific domain are also aplenty. They are smarter than the Internet and Wikipedia in the sense that they bring cohesion and systematic structure within a closed environment, the book. From this point of view, reference books on industries within Japan are an incredible segmet of resources that is worth investing in when you are especially involved with that industry.

Nikkei podcast autopsy, and how to make the best out of it

The Nikkei podcasts （聞く日経）come in two flavors, a digest version of around 10 minutes, and a full version of close to 30 minutes. I am focusing here on the full version. The purpose is to break down the program structure and think about practical usage of the segments for training.

A standard podcast is split into the following sections. I skip the pretty long advertisements popping up in between.

News headlines, Top page news, Corporate new, Short corporate news, News from the 日経産業, Political news, International news, Products news, Today's agenda

News headlines
Short vocabulary rich sentences with verbal endings. A good way to train on vocabulary and short sentence retention with or without notes and interpretation.

Top page news
The newscaster read a summary of the major articles printed on the top page. If you own the Nikkei du jour, you can try and find as fast as possible the actual chunks of the article the newscaster is reading. Not an easy task but good to train browsing a printed document in urgency.

Corporate news
Picked from the Corporate news page but not only.

News from the 日経産業
Headlines from the top page of this other Nikkei daily.

Political news

International news

Product news
A chatty advertisement like dialogue based on some extract of the New product page.

Today's agenda

The vocabulary over this podcast is dense and intense and ask for a separate vocabulary note-taking strategy. There is enough material to work a few hours a day on this podcast alone.

Is Shadowing Japanese with transcript more efficient

Web sites like the NHK, iTBS or FNN allow to practice shadowing while reading transcripts. The Nikkei daily podcast - the long version - allows for shadowing with partial transcript support granted you have on hand the corresponding printed newspaper. Nude shadowing - shadowing without text support - may be adequate for alphabetical languages, but I wonder if the same apply with character based languages. The relationship between the written and the spoken discourse at the terminology level is so closely imbricated that shadowing while reading may be more effective and strategically essential to improve in Japanese than plain shadowing for non-native learners of Japanese.

Predictions

Although the focus is more into translation - the written stuff - than interpretation - the talked things - and also because at the fore-front of research, both are kind of blurring in the mist of human aided computer translation - or was it the reverse? - it is worth reading Global Watchtower predictions for 2009. Trailing the links also makes for surprising encounters with technologies being developed. As for terminology as cited in the same blog at this entry, what the freelance interpreter needs are tools to generate multilingual glossaries of most used vocabulary in a specific domain by pointing to the system links of related online reading material. Philosopher Bernard Stiegler often points to the requisite capacity in think under urgency. Liaison and phone interpreters too being put under urgency need the tools to match a quasi-unknown subject and situation ASAP and grasp the big picture in terms of knowledge (Wikipedia), and vocabulary in no-time.

Over the phone interpreting thriving in the US

This new piece of article in Reuters is shorter than a full book on the subject and tells the straight story as seen from the US. Of note is the cost for the OPI client stated as being between 1 and 2 dollars per minute. What is the revenue out of this for the interpreter? Better not think about it.

Specialization?

Specialization? Has the ubiquitous liaison interpreter more chance in the long term to make a living over the specialized interpreter? With languages of limited market - French is an example with Japanese-French - the question is worth pondering. We will spend the time next month at the Forum AIIFJ discussing about this subject. Whereas a newbie liaison interpreter may be glad to secure any assignment, she faces the competition of those pseudo-interpreters that thrive on the incompetence of clients unaware of what a good interpreter is and can do for their business, or choose on purpose to opt for the cheapest solution on the standard logic that "it won't be difficult". When thinking about specializing, one may be confronted with the dilemma of lack of experience. How do you perform in business interpreting when you have no previous experience of what a business meeting looks like? Pretty bad, believe me. In such chicken and egg who comes first scenario, can you at the early stage think and act accordingly about specialization? More than often, the majority of interpreters out of the conference market tend to be self-made people who one day are asked to deliver "because you speak the language". You get specialized more through trial and errors than through strategic self-training. The truth is that dedication to the profession may come after a while of doing it, unless the untrained self-touted interpreter quits for a more appealing job in-between. The discussion about the pro and cons of specializing is made possible whenever more than one interpreters get together and start a conversation. Otherwise, there's hardly a chance that the question be self-risen without a deep interest and perception of the profession. I was just like that for too many years, and that is why starting a conversation in a profession where discussions are rare is such an avant-garde move. If the question of specialization is raised at an early stage of practice, it opens up new vistas for strategic choices. What is the scope of the market, and within the market, are there any salient domains and reasons to believe that these domains are here to stay and maybe grow? Where and how do you train and grow in one specific domain? These are the questions we will talk about, and it will be probably for all participants the first such opportunity to exchange on specialization.

Shadowing works

Today I reviewed once again the validity to listen to and work with the long daily version of the Nikkei Podcast 聞く日経. Voiced over newspaper articles is not the way people talk in daily life, but the content is extremely vocabulary rich. I also gave a new chance to the 読売 podcast. The formulaic voice is even worse here, just like the lady on a radio program advertising chocolate cookies. But I was surprised that after reading the news headlines, the BGM totally vanished. One of my major discomfort with the Nikkei podcast is the constant BGM. I sort of remember that the Yomiuri too was smeared by BGM all the way through. If such was really the case, then let's call this a progress. Something I noticed while listening and shadowing the Nikkei podcast is that I could hear mostly everything and shadow between 85 and 95% of the voice trail on average. I started shadowing at least a year ago and never as regularly as I pledged I would. I remember using for a while slowdowning software not to be discouraged by loosing too much. Then a few months later, I quit slowdowning and using the dedicated softwares. I can testify that shadowing works, first at better listening, second at delivering better prosody. Shadowing must be a de facto tool in advanced learning for any language and even earlier. At our interpreters meeting last week, I asked who was doing shadowing. I was the only one. I. the only veteran in the room, humorously said that shadowing made him nervous and tired. Tired, certainly. Nervous? Not me. There's actually some pleasure doing it.

Off-record : 14歳からの社会学 —これからの社会を生きる君に

In Tokyo Jimbochô, not far from the book megastore Sanseido, along the Susuzuran street, there is a smaller bookstore under the name Tokyodo-shoten. The advantage of Tokyodo-shoten over Sanseido is that this bookshop operates a selection, which makes books on display more enticing. It is one of the reason why I bumped by chance onto 14歳からの社会学 —これからの社会を生きる君に by Shinji Miyadai. Shinji Miyadai is one of the coproducer of the Internet TV weekly debate over Videonews.com. If you are into advanced Japanese, this weekly show is a must see, or heard, as you can get an audio version only if needed. Videonews.com is unique in Japan. The show is visually bland, so much that the QuickTime audio version transfered as an mp3 file on an iPod is plenty enough. What makes the show called マル激トーク・オン・ディマンド unique is less the format than the content. On average, 2:30 of talk without a single advertisement, on subjects that are analyzed as no other audio/video media would dare in Japan. It can be very deep, especially when Mr. Miyadai talks using quite sophisticated vocabulary. The opinions expressed are not your standard brain washing bland propaganda. That's why it makes the program a requisite visit for the grown-up advanced learner of Japanese. I can also serve as challenging content for interpretation training. I have just started reading the book. As the title exposes, it is a book that talks about basic social concerns especially geared at a readership of 14 years old teens. The style is very direct, casual talking. It talks for instance right from the beginning about the gap between the idealistic "みんななかよしい"　standard propaganda that pervades schooling of early age, and the reality of daily life that confront the dogma. Shinji Miyadai reminds me to some extend to French philosopher Bernard Stiegler. Mr. Stiegler released exactly this year a book named "Prendre soin de la jeunesse et des générations" (taking care of the youth and the generations), an excellent book that stresses the need to take indeed care of the past and the future as well through their representative living people. Shinji Miyadai, by writing purposely for a category of young people for whom there is absolutely nothing available as far as serious reading material is concerned is putting care into action. I wish French philosopher would dare do the same.

Lagging

The progression in the book グローバル時代の通訳 offers obvious practical exercises to apply outside the domain of interpreting training, to the larger advanced Japanese training realm. Lagging practice is the way to go on self-training with a delay of one word, then two words when repeating single words voiced over with a pause in between each. The next step is to do the same with short sentences of 20 characters on average, starting maybe from shadowing, then progressively moving on to one-step lagging, then 2 steps lagging. There are enough 単語 books in Japan to fulfill the need of voiced over single words lists in English and Japanese, although the キクタン series for instance are marred by noisy BGM and shrilling voices on steroid. The CD that comes with the Global book is tamed down in atmosphere but the content is a little short for extensive training. How one goes creating self-made voiced over words and short sentences recording? By asking someone of course, or maybe by using text-to-speech software solutions. In any case, when it comes to sentence, collecting adequate samples in terms of length may be challenging. Also especially in Japanese, sources may as usual be a major issue unless using news material is not seen as a problem. When it comes to English at least, the number of books for business English alone coming with English only recording of usually short sentences is overwhelming and a boon to be exploited.

The book goes on from single words to short sentences to longer sentences that requires paraphrasing or summarizing. It steps then to note taking and some reference to simul. This is a standard progression that could be cloned to produce subject specific books with multi-usage, both geared at native and non-native, student interpreters or advanced language trainees.

Note : at high-end training, using the 聞く日経 podcast for short (but vocabulary dense) sentences is probably a good approach. Securing less dense short sentences in Japanese for the same purpose may be the issue.

When more than one person talks at a time

I read the following : "They also are taught how to interpret consecutively when more than one person talks at a time.", in this article. This is interesting. Any clue? No clue.

On-the-job English for medical and healthcare workers

看護・医療スタッフの英語　is a new book targeting Japanese medical and healthcare workers. It covers over 17 chapters every steps of a patient consulting at a hospital, followed by pre- and post-operation stages, administrative paper works and the like. It is not designed nor intended as a manual for medical interpretation. Unfortunately, the attached audio CD only offers English spoken at a very low speed for Japanese medical staff to catch easily. The equivalent Japanese is to be found in the book. However, as a bilingual introduction to medical language and basic E->J book, it can be alternatively used for a first step into medical interpreting and could make for a descent manual at that.

Quick response

I mentioned earlier about the practice so-called "quick response". It is commonly featured in books published in Japan about interpreting training. It refers to the task of reading aloud without interruption between the two one word in language A followed by an equivalent in language B. What is the value of the practice if any? I don't know. In any case, I found the book ニュース英語のキーフレーズ8000 the other day at the bookshop. Originally published in 2002 and reprinted in 2005, it already stands as an "old manual". The latest release in the same vein boast 10,000 words covering two many fields. This 8000 wordbook is focused on economy, finance, industry and business over 33 fields, It comes with two audio CD where each chapter words are voiced over in Japanese first and English with a lag of about 3 seconds between each. Not all 8000 words are recorded but it may be exploited as a training tool of sort for self-learning or teaching. The book itself offers under each main word a list of related or extended vocabulary plus examples. Unfortunately, the sentences are not recorded. There seems to be no end to the craze for 単語 books here in Japan. The record 10,000 words version could be soon be flattened down by a mega 15,000 door stopper.

The weather will continue bad

"There will be more calamities, more death, more despair. Not the slightest indication of change anywhere". (Henry Miller, Tropic if Cancer). That's what we had for lunch conversation. K. who is a high end professional conference interpreter told us this was the worst ever sudden slump in her career. November was still OK, then everything went crumbling down in a blink. But as I suspect, conference interpreters are gyrating the profession at such high level they don't have the slightest interest, if not any knowledge about the other parts of the galaxy. Community interpreting, over the phone interpreting do not mean anything to her. I told her the first time about my initiative to generate a dynamic of conversation between Japanese-French interpreters here in Tokyo. Everything she told me back I already knew. Japanese people are allergic, or simply non-responsive at grass root associations. I added my personal view on it : the successful initiatve must be a church like vertical hierarchy with a bearded individual on top promising paradise, or better, work, a sect structure, for something to take root here. I should grow a beard maybe. She said interpreters shun at communication among peers; she said that with French, there is a bunch of some ten high end interpreters that monopolize high end job opportunities. Opportunists of all creed and levels are monopolizing what comes way down under. I discovered nothing new that I had not inferred priorly. She blinked at the name of the single veteran interpreter I mentioned who is part of our tiny group of discussion. I pretended not to notice but I know this reaction by heart now. The despise of other interpreters is a strong common theme. I could have told her that I prefer to have a veteran who is not stellar but tells anecdotes and opinions during our monthly meetings than no veteran at all. I learned that simul from scratch without any preparation is virtually impossible or will be impaired enough that the client must be warned beforehand that the quality will suffer from the lack of preparation. It clashes indeed against the claim of those firms offering simul OPI. She talked about the students she teaches. Even the bilinguals don't talk. They stay sited, frigid in the classroom, not talking to each others. Classroom smell like big crowded elevators. No eye contact, no contact. Those future specialists of communication, those bridges don't communicate. After a few courses, tiny groups are generated, pairs or threes, but they don't mingle. There is no melting pot, there is no melting, there is no pot. All these things I have noticed enough at my own courses. Few are humanly competent at diffusing warmness. How they come spending so much learning a tool of communication when they don't qualify at the basics? Sounds like a nightmare. Better think of something else.

Simultaneous anywhere, anytime, really?

In the book I am reading about community interpreting, the list of ideal competences integrates whispering from A->B and B->A. It just reads like a high level community interpreter should be even more qualified in simultaneous than your average UN conference interpreter. Is this for real or a wish list for the future? Anyway, future expectations for simultaneous are raising many questions, what with the soon to be many firms offering simultaneous OPI. Who is a simultaneous interpreter ready or able, or both, to deliver within 30 seconds simultaneous OPI on any subject without any briefing? Are interpretation schools churning out so many competent simultaneous interpreters that the market glut makes some of them accept the necessary bad monetary conditions the OPI firms are paying? Is simultaneous outside of international conference booths so mundane and easily manageable a practice that mastering the technic is way much easier than it sounds in the literature?

Science Xitalk（サイエンス サイトーク）

A good source of spoken Japanese with low formulaic content, Science　Xitalk（サイエンス　サイトーク）is a 25 mn radio program at TBS delivered over podcast and a backlog of several years.

Peter Barakan as a model speaker?

I love the way Peter Barakan - broadcaster - speaks Japanese. I love the tone, the unaffected manner devoid of all the TV and marketing robotized formulaic crap. As the article linked says : " Peter Barakan brings a mature view to the masses", and a matured non-native spoken Japanese. Isn't it weird a gaijin could turn into a model Japanese speaker?

The CALPER Japanese Project

This project heavily strikes a chord with me. For non-native learners targeting or not interpretation, advance learning is a key issue seldom heard about. One day, there will be a need to expose the facts and reasons why a massive majority of Japanese interpreters are native Japanese speakers, or put it from the opposite viewpoint, why non-native interpreters are so few. One of these reasons, worldwide, is the lack of advanced Japanese teaching and learning strategies.

I love the following objectives :

CALPER Japanese Project
“Learning through Listening towards Advanced Japanese”

* To complement existing materials that tend to focus on reading comprehension (re: contents as well as structures)
* To explore critical approaches in teaching language and sociocultural issues -- 4D’s “descriptive, diversity, dynamic, discursive” (Kubota, 2003)
* To prepare learners for the language use outside of classroom and to have them reflect on their own performance
* To reconsider linguistic structures from the perspective of interactional necessities

And although the resources can't be accessed, it's good to know what was done:

1. Identified recurring topics introduced in published intermediate and advanced language textbooks.

(e.g., college life, home stay, customs, food, gender, education, pop culture, employment, cross-cultural communication, globalization, expatriates in Japan)

2. Asked Japanese speakers to discuss specific topics in a discussion or interview format.

3. Recorded 30 interactions (approximately 18 hours).

Usable chunks were selected:

4 Identified 1-5 minutes segments that can be used as instructional materials (based on sequential boundaries, quality of recording, clarity of speech, level of difficulty, content of discussion).


Subjects raised are:

* Topics currently available

・ Food ・ Gender

・ Gift ・ Home stay

・ Japanese and American Universities

* Topics to be added in the future

・ Education

・ Learning Japanese Language

・ Communication Styles and Identities

・ International Marriage

・ Popular Culture

The document is not dated so I can't figure out the status of this program. It highlights none the less the orientation towards setting listening as a major conduct of advanced language acquisition. It also highlights the need to create non-scripted casual speech contents. The primary competence of the non-native speaker is to be a non-native listener before turning a non-native talker. Non-scripted "natural" spoken Japanese sources are scarce and might need to be recorded in an ethnographical approach. Non-scripted "natural" spoken Japanese refers here to speeches that are not tainted by TV mimicking or formated by marketing.

How Japanese speak Japanese

Unfortunately, the links do not work related to this project:

A project at the Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research (CALPER) at Pennsylvania State University that makes available digital video clips of speech samples that can be incorporated into intermediate or advanced level Japanese language courses. These video clips have been developed from unscripted, spontaneous interviews and conversations with various Japanese speakers.

Spontaneous unscripted interviews of various Japanese speakers are indeed terribly missing. One day, you get up here with an acute realization that most if not all speeches in the media are produced by media speakers. The interviewing of "people", that is, unknown people, is only but anecdotal. I already wrote about it but there is no equivalent to This American Life or Street Stories programs. Radio is underdeveloped. TV is, well, I am not competent because I don't watch TV for mental hygiene reasons. Talking is not the forte of the layman, which means that people who do talk tend to be prominent, professionals and they end up shaping that mediative voice, the marketing tone of people selling goods and wares and news over the wires. Formatted self-conscious patterned ways of speeches. Daily life sounds different albeit not profuse indeed. It is a major issue with the meaning of what proficiency is all about from the standpoint of the non-native learner.

Addendum : the link that displays a ppt presentation document as html does work though (can't download). This is mightily interesting.

Why do simul

At yesterday third meeting of Japanese French interpreters in Tokyo, I who is the only veteran in the room - 25 years of practice - cited the reason why he quit simul a few years ago, simply because it was not worth the effort as the pay was the same as consecutive. He is kept busy these days with TV content translation, that translating into Japanese what is said in French newsreels.

Simultaneous Over the Phone Interpreting

As seen at Boothendo, there is a new provider boasting simul OPI with the usual marketing blurb reading that "Most companies will not offer simultaneous telephone interpreting because it is beyond their capabilities. " Sorry dude, they will. Anyway, as emphasized here, simul will turn ubiquitous out of the booth too. Consec will prevail in hard to systematize situations, but even there, simul will penetrate with portable easy to deploy wireless gears.

Follow-up on Curriculum

This is a follow-up on my previous post with remarks and questions in no special order. As the curriculum is geared at simul students, it is supposed that they have a very high level in their B and C languages competence, so much that courses to improve B, C language competency is not part of the curriculum. An alternate curriculum for not perfectly fluent students or practicing interpreters must actively take into account the absolute need to improve competences at A, B, C languages with a systematic approach. There is a reference to "easy speeches" as materials for progressive acquisition of interpreting techniques. I am not aware of "easy speeches" material for Japanese (there are news material in French with limited vocabulary just like what the BBC offers). Is the Nihongo Journal dead by the way? I never read this magazine but just thinking about it, I could not find recent reference about. In any case, securing easy material could open up interesting approaches, including stepping into simul. To be continued ...

Curriculum

I found this document providing curriculums for Conference interpreting master programs (European Masters in Conference Interpreting) at Babes Bolyai University - Roumania. It is the first time I see such a detailed curriculum with chronology. The program comes in two flavors, a one year and a two years version. I picked the chronology of the one year program, skipped the later part especially focused on simul, and added a few adjunct courses from the 2 years program that are of value to notice. My major concerns through this blog has been two-fold : consec in liaison (call it business consec or in broader terms something that relates in part to community consec), and practices of self-training. My stand-point is that of a standard interpreter with no formal training. My belief is that such profile fits to the greater number of interpreters world-wide. Books on community interpreting raise the fact - whether you hate it or not - that there are indeed many practicing interpreters and many situations performing their act with various levels of competence. A second assumption is that a majority of such self-made interpreters want to progress even out of school by practicing possibly in some systematic ways daily exercises. The Internet gives access to a wealth of resources in many language. The objective is to devise alternative usage strategies of those resources for the benefit of the freelance interpreter whose concern are two-fold : improving B language, improving interpreting techniques. Although not all entries of this curriculum are self-explaning, I find here hints at progressive tasks for self-training curriculum. What is missing here though is that with liaison consec interpreting, the interpreter must perform both A-> B and B-> A. I added after the original curriculum a tentative adapted curriculum that would ideally better fit liaison interpreting needs. This is of course a first shot open to harsh criticisms.

Original curriculum

October (4 weeks)

1. Rephrasing and paraphrasing exercises (A -> A)
2. Cognitive analysis and summarising (B -> A; C ->A)
3. Consecutive without note-taking (B->A; C->A)
4. Introduction to consecutive (B->A; C->A)

Additional

1. Active listening exercises (A->A)
2. Active listening and memory/focus exercises (A->A)

1. Consecutive with notes: easy short speeches
2. Consecutive with notes: medium diificulty speeches


November (4 weeks)

1. Analysis and synthesis (B->A; C->A)
2. Note-taking (B->A; C->A)
3. Speech preparation (B; A)
4. Consecutive with or without note-taking; comparative exercises (B->A; C->A)

December and January (6 weeks)

1. Consecutive with increasingly difficult speeches (B->A; C->A)
2. Public speaking
3. Consecutive, considerable difficulty (B->A; C->A)
4. Sight translation

Adapted curriculum centered on liaison interpreting

Original curriculum

October (4 weeks)

1. Rephrasing and paraphrasing exercises (A -> A; B-> B)
2. Cognitive analysis and summarising (B -> A; A ->B)
3. Consecutive without note-taking (B->A; A->B)
4. Introduction to consecutive (B->A; A->B)

Additional

1. Active listening exercises (A->A; B-> B)
2. Active listening and memory/focus exercises (A->A; B-> B)

1. Consecutive with notes: easy short speeches (B->A; A->B)
2. Consecutive with notes: medium diificulty speeches (B->A; A->B)


November (4 weeks)

1. Analysis and synthesis (B->A; A->B)
2. Note-taking (B->A; A->B)
3. Speech preparation (B; A)
4. Consecutive with or without note-taking; comparative exercises (B->A; A->B)

December and January (6 weeks)

1. Consecutive with increasingly difficult speeches (B->A; A->B)
2. Public speaking
3. Consecutive, considerable difficulty (B->A; A->B)
4. Sight translation (B->A; A->B)

My interpreter was rich

A fine piece of article on "merchant-interpreters" in Korea. Sounds so exotic!

Skype aided over the phone interpretation

The over the phone interpretation with minimum if no knowledge about the questions that shall be asked during a conversation for which only the subject is known may manage the situation properly depending on the very subject. But when it comes to pharmaceutical issues, the limit of the expectation for good performance quickly shows. The client could compensate the difficulties for the interpreter by allowing some text chat channel to be created with the interpreter during the conversation. The client could quickly type the substance or molecule names for the interpreter to manage in better fashion. I wish such configuration was used today. Preparation did not help this time. Technology is already here to make something like a Skype aided OPI session to happen right away. Only the business practices lag behind.

Voices from all walks of life

I finally ordered the book + DVD Colligan-Taylor, Karen. Living Japanese: Diversity in Language and Lifestyle. An article on this work I found introduces it in these words :

Living Japanese:Diversity in Language and Lifestyles (DVD/text package) is
an excellent tool for intermediate to advanced students who want to improve
their listening comprehension skills in contemporary Japanese as it is spoken by
native speakers.Most of the existing audio or audiovisual language teaching mate-
rials offer rehearsed speeches by one or two professional speakers scripted by
foreign language educators.Accordingly,they sound very clear,smooth,and gram-
matically correct and are easy to understand; however, they are different from
“real” Japanese. By contrast, the DVD in Living Japanese offers unscripted and
unrehearsed speaking by 33 native speakers of Japanese, aged seven to seventy-
five, who are not professional speakers, actors, or actresses, but, rather, people
from all walks of life and from different geographic areas in Japan.

Indeed, I crave for people's voices from all walks of life. The strategy to deploy in order to gather a collection of voices for interpreting training from Japanese to you-name-it language would be to record hours of TV and pick up morsels out of it. But to what extend are voices from all walks of life available on TV? Maybe the focus should be on documentaries only. Formatted news and journalistic voices are available on podcast, but what about non-media people's voices? I am dreaming of walking around talking to people and record their voices, but the feasibility of this may rate low. This book + DVD may provide some hint on how to foray into this audio realm. There must be stocks of thematic interviewing of Japanese people, but where to find them?

The meaning of 50% drop out rate

I. the other day provided very interesting insider feedback on a conference that was held in Paris about Japanese studies in France. The trend is not limited to France but something of a tsunami took place sometimes in the second half of the 80s when Japanese language teaching started to seep into high schools. When I started learning Japanese in Paris, there were nationally two faculties teaching the language. Now, and despite Chinese beating Japanese soon, training in Japanese is offered in many universities over the country. The new Japonism that started to grow at the same time has fueled the interest for the language. I. mentioned a concern of the teaching community there, being the fact that the drop-out rate is some 50%. If I remember well the drop out rate over some 4 years when I was learning in Paris was probably around 90%, which suggests that things has improved tremendously. I am concerned by the meaning of this concern.

Visibility of Interpreting in Japan

There is no equivalent of ESIT or Geneva school in Japan, except maybe the Kobe College three years program for interpretation and translation. Based on the online literature, this program is part of a national ambition to train at high levels Japanese people and turn them into very competent English speakers. The program's ambition is therefore not limited to nurturing interpreters but the accent on interpretation practice looks very strong. The site highlights 3 parallel objectives : 仕事で英語が使える日本人の育成, 通訳トレーニング法を活用した英語教育, 英語運用能力向上. Of much interest the second theme 通訳トレーニング法を活用した英語教育 has transpired into commercial books within the arena of 英会話 as well recently in other languages pairs like Japanese-Chinese or Japanese-Korean. The promotion of shadowing as a method to progress is probably a marketing by-product of that governmental effort. The site architecture is a little bit flawed so much that I can't find back some pages of much interest I navigated into almost by chance. There is somewhere a reference about a computer aided interpretation training system the students can access even outside the campus to practice on video documents. There is a reference to two major functions : a slowing down feature and a recording device that allows to record the student's voice for further analysis and discussion. These functions are readily available in market software so that building a makeshift platform for self-training may be quite easy. As the Kobe College program is nestled within the faculty of English, it is possible that the level of English required to register is not stellar, so much that the school trains in parallel English competences with interpretation techniques. This would therefore set apart the school from the ESIT and the likes who stress that they are no language school. Doesn't this parallel approach fit better with reality? Around me, among the interpreters I know more or less, some went through the Simul school training courses. Simul is the historical private school for interpreting training catering for more than English. But many never went to any specific training courses. I don't know whether this profile of no-training interpreters is to be turn into something of the past. It could, in Japan at least where interpreting training is publicly very visible. Even at Simul, I have heard that they provide entry level courses for those students who still struggling very much with their language B. The self-training interpreter faces the same issues and the same two objectives : raising in B language competences and learning interpreting techniques. Although the consumer books in Japanese covering interpretation are not thorough - much like introductory books with step by step explanations and examples - they provide nonetheless a public view to what interpreting training is all about. Interpreting is therefore very much visible in society, offering many vistas into some of the realities of the profession (a plural should be required here). This fact probably sets apart Japan from many Western countries where reference material accessible in the public market is scarce. For what it is worth, a search of books with the term 通訳 in the title yields no less than 463 results. As the word does not carry the multiple meanings of interpreter in English (what about Bible interpreting?), the figure is indeed impressive.

Highlighting culture

Cross-reading of several books at the same time may be confusing unless it provides serendipity. Just when I was mentioning in the previous post the issue of neutrality - having in mind a stressed situation where misunderstanding is the result of miscomprehension of the other's culture - I just read in "Public Service Interpreting" (page 48) reasons for the interpreter to intervene to preserve the communication, the last one being "to alert the participants that a relevant cultural inference may have been missed. This refers to an item of information that is not in the cultural frame of reference of one or more of the participants." Indeed.

Telephone Interpreting

Right from the beginning of the book Telephone Interpreting by Nataly Kelly, I quickly understood that I have been so far practicing in a niche environment that hardly compares with what is described in those pages. The book is truly fascinating starting from page one. The description of the skills required by a good OPI is must read even for consec interpreters delivering face to face. It reminded me the brief interacting experience I had (the lack of it to state things correctly) when I tried to get in touch with a few budding OPI service providers here in Japan that wanted to cash on Skype. None ever came back to me, but I for sure did not fit the requisite for aspiring interpreters, that is to be a housewife. And on top of that, I was and I am still a foreigner, which is even worse than being a housewife. Anyway, this focus on technology as THE way to provide a service is so ... well, so typical of Japanese entrepreneurship in a sense. There is a short chapter (from page 44) about patience which actually raises more questions than it answers. Basically, in community interpreting settings or close to these, as in the official definition of the role of the interpreter as a neutral agent of communication, discussions that turn sour, tense or more are to be dealt with just the same way as sweet words of lovers speaking different language calling long-distance. What is kept at bay and for a good reason is the issue of the interpreter as a cultural agent when not only language but customs keep both sides of the interaction apart. I am veering away from the book but I think the issue, in the broader perspective of the job of interpreting, cannot be pushed under the carpet like a tabou on the principle that the interpreter must absolutely and in any case stay in the neutral zone. I am looking forward to receive a book on the subject of dialogue interpreting, hoping that the issue of neutrality might be discussed there.

Business Meeting

I bought too much books today at the 英会話 stand of Sanseido in Tokyo. I skipped a rather new 単語 book choked full with 10,000 words (they don't call it a dictionary yet). But I could not put down the book ビジネス・ミーティング　すぐに使える英語表現集. I have seen over time books covering the issue of doing presentations in English, but this one extends the scope of presentation to cover the whole standard business meeting chronology, from mike testing to "thank you and goodbye". It is very exhaustive - mike testing alone comes in 9 variations. It also soundS very much real. The attached CDs covers the English part only - unfortunately for advanced learners of Japanese, but alternate usage like interpreting into Japanese usually short sentences is the first obvious unplanned exploitation of the book.

Class exercise for consecutive interpreting

How to create close to real life situations in the classroom for liaison interpreting? One idea I will test next year is to base a scenario on a selected Powerpoint document freely accessible over the net. There are innumerable number of these and selection might prove the hardest part. I shall provide the students with a copy of that presentation without additional information. Their task will be to get ready for the next course when I will do a presentation based on that ppt document, and they, one by one, will be in charge of consec interpreting for a few slides. At the end, for the last candidates, the other students will ask questions in Japanese to be translated to me in French by the interpreter being grilled. This could prove very interesting and a preparation to the devising of an advanced class for liaison interpreting.

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A quick search has retrieved very interesting examples of ppt files used for presentation. The course purpose would cover both the preparation and the actual interpretation. As the students are to be adults usually working with few time to allocate to preparation, part of the course would cover strategies to search for background data in a a state of urgency. Most students so far have not seemed to be much familiar with using Wikipedia and the likes.

Tasks of the students:

- study the ppt document, check for vocabulary and background information. Prepare 2 questions in French. Suggested time to allocate for the task : 1 hour
- be ready to interpret
- interpretation setting would replicate a standard business presentation with the presenter (me) self-introducing and giving a short message on his background.
- events - unexpected happenings during the presentation would be created to test and stress the need of flexibility for the interpreter
- post-mortem analyses should cover both preparation, interpretation skills and attitudes

Advanced Japanese Language Learning for General Learners and Interpreters

I am trying and collect things down in a wiki environment. The title is Advanced Japanese Language Learning for General Learners and Interpreters. The purpose is not to be encyclopedic and it is heavily biased on my experiences. I do wish this turns into a collaborative effort so you are invited to inquire.

At the risk of ....

I spent a few hours going through the many short video conferences at the EMCI web sites. I found the link to this site through the invaluable Interpreter Training Resources web site. This very blog is listed in the ITR web site, which is both an honor to me and a dishonor to the ITR, considering the poor level and amateurishness of my writing, ramblings and rantings. What I felt watching these video will not benefit to the already bad and justified unexpressed opinions on this blog - except for one anonymous who quickly came some times ago, saw, and unleashed a brief scorn at my poor English, a good point, the way a stealth invisible warplane can scramble in from nowhere, unload a missile and disappear in a flash. Both the anonymous commentator and the plane are on a single mission which is absolutely not about starting a conversation. But anyway, back to the subject. I was glad to listen to a speech on note taking. I can't read and listen enough about note taking. I was glad I discovered the video on dialogue interpreting, so much that I ordered a book on the subject at St. Jerome. Talk about compulsive unplanned shopping. I was a little puzzled about the stiffness of presenters. Maybe the setting, the format or whatever explain this. I noticed that the last in the list of those video, the one titled "Untitled" is about "the difficulty of the profession of interpreting, and the passion of the interpreters" was maybe the single one where "passion" was heard about. Many of the other video are - for justified reasons - lashing here and there - for justified reasons, shall I repeat again - at what distinguishes professionals from beginners or amateurs, although the term "amateur" is not mentioned as far as I remember. I blushed several time while listening to brief references at what unprofessional interpreters do, with that little voice in the background singing : "hey! sounds just like you!" As for shame and dealing with it - meaning first, understanding the issue - I could not enough recommend the book of Gershen Kaufman and Lev Raphael. Maybe it should be part of an interpreting curriculum. But beyond shame is that uneasiness at witnessing again and again, in books of course, in articles spread over the web, in video like these but in everyday professional life these tiny speckles of scorn with stiff upper lip at who is not a top-notch professional. Maybe this is part of a tradition or a strategy at conf schools in order to quickly get rid of who is not totally dedicated or not gifted enough from day one. Although progression is allowed and expressed as normal, including for veterans, what is at play, the stingy brief rantings, is similar and at the core of what makes here in Japan for instance dialogue with other interpreters almost impossible. I met K. the other day, a young lad, good French speaker, no training, doing from time to time simple stints at interpreting, mostly the community type with no risk and stress (no medical, legal and the likes). He wants to learn and told me how higher level interpreters are closed like clams, cannot be approached, won't talk, do not want to talk, etc. The standard tune I have learned myself. You know what, like it or not, there are way much more B class interpreters in this world than top notch conference interpreters. And you know what, the B class interpreters whom I belong to, are usually not eating lunch at the same table as the veterans. Even when markets are slim, we mostly don't compete, we don't eat your lunch. You would throw up on most of my assignments, especially at the fees. We are not menacing you, and on top of that, most of those I see and meet, my students, the majority of whom are in interpreting classes as a mean to progress in foreign language, not to be one day an interpreter, most are genuinely, keenly and seriously if at times awkwardly seeking to get better, to rise. Scorn although diffused, diluted, popping and vanishing in a blink is despite, or because of this, a ubiquitous feature. It flashes in the rare conversations I have with other interpreters of good calibre. It pervades the business. It filters unattended and is passed on through the progression of individuals. The once low profile beginner will turn your standard dashing professional smiling and shut as a clam at the same time, unless that other inquiring has been graced through reciprocal optation as with any other upper bourgeoisie. Medical interpreting in Japan, raising the issue of communication out of the booth and down into the lows of daily life may give a breath of fresh air into it, although I have already noticed in a recent book on the subject published here an obsessive rehashing on the need for professionals - burn the amateurs kind of advocacy. It is good advocacy but why the obsessive tone? Isn't this part of a legacy? Anyway, I am glad there are such video from stellar veterans giving advices and stressing the need for superlative professionalism. It is needed, in the streets of Bagdad as well when they have time to go to school and read the scholar books. So, this all was at the risk of loosing the last reader this blog might have, besides me.

Ultra-niche market

During our previous meeting with a small bunch of French-Japanese interpreters, students or just curious, one attendee briefly referred to an ultra-niche market she was thinking to invest in. She is a caretaker for elderly people and wants to target the target of elderly French people in Tokyo. It must be a tiny market but with perspectives to grow into something slightly bigger. Is it interpreting, or just a different profession extended through foreign language competences? That she felt it a good opportunity to come to the meeting suggests that the very perception of what an interpreter is open to interpretatio.

Alternate usage of 英会話 material

I make a point to visit bookstores and scan in details the many new books to learn English. The 英会話 is in Japan at least an industry with an obsession for fad and details that supports and keeps afresh the local complex of incompetence at English. At the same time, it is an incredible testbed for creativity in language self-learning learning, sometimes veering on the bizarre to the totally laughable (learn English in 15 minutes ...). Obama's speeches have already been turned into several books for English readers, but the purpose is not to change Japan's politics and raise awareness in any way. I feel a renewed craze for books about English in the workplace - the office - that can provide interesting content for training with interpretation in mind. As these books are developed for a Japanese readership, they usually lack some features that would be welcome to non-native interpreting trainees. They now all come with an audio CD but very seldom is the Japanese version of phrases and discourses recorded. Also and obviously, English being the key subject, the accompanying translations of phrases is not always correct Japanese, in the sense that it conveys the meaning of the English sentence but is not actually used by Japanese that way. Yet, as alternative usage is the point of interest here, there are still alternate ways to exploit these books with a mix of listening, rendering and reading. I noticed the other day a book covering presentations in English that actually explores inside out a presentation from start to end with a slew of alternate expressions that may come up in the standard chronology of a presentation. It is an exhausting As I could see it. As I am doing mostly business interpreting, there are basically three situations that may take place, presentation being the standard, most common setting, whereas news and information exchange and hard negotiations come next. Presentation is pretty much formal and follows a traceable pattern. Brushing up between assignments using such book, but also using it when teaching are potent activities. The systematization of alternative usage of 英会話 books is a subject I would love to explore with fellow learners, among many other subjects.

The interpreter's bag

"Training can only go so far to prepare interpreters for any situation. Experience and the support and advice of senior and more seasoned colleagues provide the rest. As so often, it is the simple preparations that make the difference between a professional and non-professional approach over and above actual interpreting competence ... "

I would have been glad to have bought the book on public service interpreting by Ann Corsellis even only for these simple lines. But there is much more than makes the book worth and an eye opener (and a welcome break from the unique perspective of life as seen from the booth!). Never had I read before about the public interpreter's bag content, dress code and the reasons for it, matter of safety for the interpreter herself and more. It is a fascinating read unless you are a seasoned public service interpreting. Some settings briefly mentioned read like urban war zone, not your cordial buffet for schmoozing around in cocktails or well behaved business presentation sessions. It tells about getting ready for the unexpected. I have had boatloads of this over the phone but it must a totally different action when face to face. And when at war ... !

Just when I was thinking about interpreters in conflictual settings, I found these rousing articles, in English and French by the same author. These are overwelming. Something is brewing in the closed kingdom of the AIIC. Looks they kind of feel there's a world outside the cocoon. Good. More bags in demand.

New IC dictionary

My new IC dictionary comes with an alternate voice - standard and whispered - recognition input function. It displays words in standard list fashion or alternatively in clusters of networked expressions with instant links to synonyms. It indicates for Japanese a ranking value of common usage in newspapers, it generates multicolumn bilingual lists to print out and use for quick response training. It comes with wireless access to the net and instant word link to Wikipedia. Only, it doesn't exist right now.

Interpreting in conflictual settings

An extended assignment around private people matters is making questions about attitude and competence all the more critical. It is in such time that the lack of opportunity to discuss with other practitioners is proving to be a major loss of opportunity to grow. Interpreters! Unit! From a pure practical point of view, people in conflict using an interpreter are no longer able to verbally fight at each other in standard fashion as the speech flow is broken by the need to have each side's stance be passed over - over time - to the other side. Lag with consecutive in such setting is revealing how people might benefit of simultaneous when arguing. The cultural gap on both side is huge, the communication lag certainly widen it. Another side of the story is about stress management. The interpreter may be neutral, but she thinks, in many terms, that are far from being solely matters of language. After more than 2 hours and a half - it was over the phone this time - I was worn out, cooked, and the echos of the ranting and mumbling were hard to keep at bay, not only during the session but after that. It's easy to state that the interpreter must shield the self from a situation where she is no stakeholder. The reality of such setting is challenging the virtuous and blind view on things that are not simple at all and can't be wrapped down with a short advice like : remember that ou do not belong to the crisis. I will try and list up the issues raised in interpreting conflict in a future post.

The events of people's everyday lives

"In the past, the primary focus of studies of interpreting has been on communication between groups of people with different languages and cultures at an international level. The present and the future are as much about communication between people of different languages and cultures within national borders and concerned with the events of people's everyday lives."

These are the starting lines of a new book, "Public Service Interpreting - The First Steps" by Ann Corsellis I am now reading. It's a good book, set in reality, especially that of the UK, that is pretty far away from Japan, although a similar book was published here a few month ago, also set in the nitty-gritty reality of life in the society. I am sorry business interpreting is such a matter of fact that it is out of the scope of any writing I am aware of, except maybe in academic circles, but even there, I doubt it is a matter of discussion altogether. It's a good book and it strikes a chord these days. Although not many, I do receive from time to time requests for interpreting by private persons in need of services that pertain to daily life. Someone called because there is a need to go together and open an account at a bank in Tokyo. To put things plain, the opportunity cost is too high to accept such assignments, unless the private person agrees to pay upfront my standard fees which are fees for corporations. There are volunteer interpreters of all kind, especially in the tourist guiding sector. I have met some, usually elderly people who relish in the opportunity to meet foreigners and use their foreign languages. The other side of the coin is to suggest and hire a beginner interpreter who will accept the opportunity to practice even if the money is short. Maybe I should consider this kind of activity into the old age. At the same time, while being in the market for money, I am not confident in certain cases to say no to certain requests, or I should set a special framework, something in the manner of "On Wednesdays, the barber shaves for free." Or rather "for less", because free interpreting, except for the exceptional, is not acceptable an option. It is a huge disservice to the profession; it spreads the word that interpreting is an occupational, philanthropic activity. There are very few reasons in rich countries where interpreting should be provided for nothing. If for something, that "something" could be defined as non-monetary, but not as "nothing". Also, my latest private person needing to go to the bank may be someone who would freeze at hearing my fees, but who is at the same time wealthy enough that shelling the amount would be, financially speaking, a non-event. I charge in any case a minimum of three hours in a row when dealing with corporations. Three hours means a short morning, from 9 am to lunch. A few weeks ago, someone called from the UK in need of a 30 minutes service in Tokyo, and was pissed of by my request. They don't teach the principle of opportunity cost at schools. That is the problem. Anyway, public or community interpreting in Tokyo will be a source of activity in the near future for the sheer growth of foreigners living here, that includes well-off foreigners as well. At last week's monthly meeting of the Forum AIIFJ, a embryonic trial at setting up one day an association of French-Japanese interpreter, a Japanese social worker briefly talked about a niche market she was considering in Tokyo, that is, taking care of elderly French people living in Tokyo. When thinking about it, it comes as a matter of fact, There will be a few hundred of such people in Tokyo in the future, probably historically more than any time back in the past. And that will make for a super tiny niche market of sort. Even if not practicing, thinking about public or community interpreting is setting light onto the reality of life.

Family matters

Consecutive can take place in an unlimited number of settings where simul will never reign anytime soon. In business meetings - some are performed using simul though - in the streets of Bagdad, in a hospital or at the home of a family the interpreter was called in. It happened to me the other day and it was the first time. The settings was divorce, not a joyful matter, not a complicated one too as very few legal wordings were involved. But emotionally speaking, it was no kid's game. I am used to be a confident of sort to strangers who need someone to talk to about matters they ache with. It started at school, and it's going on. You simply cannot turn away from the situation, unless you set a strict rule that you don't meet the client prior and after the session. Liaison interpreting may need extra task of accompaniment of the client. It was just what happened, and divorce in international weddings here being, as anything that strains couple relationships, a matter of communication, or more exactly the lack of it, I was avidly grilled before and after the session by the client about anything Japan, all the more that when it comes to communication in Japan from the point of view of a Westerner, I could already write a book about that matter. During the session of course, the interpreter delivers and must keep as neutral as possible, which means first trying and control emotion at bay, in a situation oozing with emotion, strain and tensed episodes. The interpreter must also limit the interactions with the participants, although he is called for opinions at time. Being a transmitter of meanings and culture put you in the seat of the guy with extra-knowledge. It is a deep an fascinating experience, also an exhausting one. Even with the homey comfort of nice house somewhere outside Tokyo, with drinks and cakes available, I delivered a good three hours non-stop in emotionally heated setting. One thing they don't teach you at language school is non-language communication and the reading of body gestures and faces. It is an aggravating fact and should be requisite in advanced language training. Being upset is simply not played in Japan the way it is somewhere else, and I had plenty of time to observe the show of faces, grins, slightly changing voice pitches that were telling a story not popping up as words. From that point of view, my client was totally - of course - uncultured, and the reverse was true. It was an exposure of gaps between two cultures, gaps that were incidently at the very core of the divorce matter. The cultured interpreter is strongly enticed to intervene beyond interpreting, and it is an issue that violently questions the neutrality of the job. Exhausted as I was, I hinted to the client that I will have to call it quit sometimes soon as we were getting into the late evening hours and the dialogue was an endless circle. It helped try and bring it to an unsatisfactory conclusion, and the role of the interpreter here, when the client under massive emotion is simply not able to manage the conversation, is a big question mark that can't be shoved aside. It is humanly exhausting, emotionally absolutely not neutral even if I was aware enough to keep things at bay with myself. If the call for another similar task come anytime soon, I will positively answer to it, because the situations are an open book they don't sell in bookshops.

Gillies in practice

An interpreter (or student interpreter?) over at this online forum is lamenting about his Gillies based note taking turning sloppy these days. Of major interest is his following remark: "The 'fact' is that it is nearly impossible for me to take notes from a fast speech (and I've been doing lots of TED speeches in consec lately, most of them are quite fast) if I try to use the subject-verb-object system. " Incidentally, what is TED? But anyway. If I remember well, Gillies doesn't argue that his method must be applied as is. The terrific value of Gillie's book is that it is the single systemic note taking laid bare for all to see down into the nitty-gritty details. It is therefore the solid ground and starting-point to think about note-taking. That's what I have discovered through teaching introductory consec the past months in Tokyo. It helps focus, whereas here in Japan at least, the many books about interpreting will deal with note-taking with a few lame pages stating that note taking is not stenotype, that you need to take only main ideas, and that each other interpreter has her own style. And you are left on your own. At JAT PROJECT Tokyo conference the other day, someone referred to an unpublished dissertation in Japanese about note taking without additional details. I wonder if Andrew Gillies sticks to his own method as well but it is the medium to concentrate on the issue and develop to some extend ones own framework. It is also the medium to talk about and make students think about note taking in a focused, constructive matter. A past student came to me a few weeks ago to say that she could not use Gillies method. I answered back that it was fine as long as it made her think hard about her own way to try and manage that essential task.