Know the Facts about Bad Credit and Business Loans

Before setting up a business, there are two questions that you must ponder: Are you willing to finance your own business from your personal assets? or Is applying for a business credit a more practical approach? If you choose the latter, it is important to review your credit history.

Having a bad credit must not hinder you from setting up your own business though it cannot be avoided for the credit history to be reviewed whenever applying for a loan. This review would play a role in determining whether your application for a business loan would be accepted or rejected.

A good credit history can help you qualify to a loan with great rates, terms and conditions. On the other hand, if you have a bad credit history, you do not have any choice but to settle for a bad credit loan. A bad credit loan is designed to help people who have bad credit history. Unfortunately, not every lender offers these kinds of loans. Do not take that as an obstacle that you cannot overcome but it must motivate you to look for lenders who are willing to offer bad credit loans.

A nail in the neutrality coffin

An absolute must read, Interpreters' identities : An exploratory Study of Vietnamese Interpreters in Vietnam. It puts the liaison interpreter as a full flesh, bones and emotional actor in the center stage of the communication dynamics, where it had been set in earlier time as a sexless, invisible man with self-restrained emotionality. These words at the conclusion are jewels for things to come. Funny but in my own non-academic tiny and solitary hole, I was fuzzily thinking about things like that lately :

"The purpose of this paper has been to submit that the progressive disappearance
of the interpreters’ invisibility myth must be accompanied by an increased
attention paid to the “person” of interpreters. It is recognised that most
interpreters may not suffer from big pangs of conscience about their cultural
belongings and conception of the overall value of their work; nonetheless, a
better awareness of these issues would enable a better control of the situation,
and thus would certainly help improve the quality of interpreter-mediated
events and result in enhanced intercultural relations. Indeed, if experienced high-
level interpreters qualify situations in which they may find themselves from time
to time as “very delicate”, it is reasonable to think that the issue is even more
sensitive for interpreters at early stages in their careers. "

Accepting Credit Cards: Merchant Status For Your Business

A lot of people nowadays, prefer the convenience of purchasing through credit cards. In the United States, nearly 1 in every 3 consumer purchases are paid through credit. It is crucial therefore for companies to readily accept credit payments to avoid losing sales.

No matter what type of dealing you run, whether it is a small shop, online store or mail order business, having a credit card service for customers will surely come in handy towards your business’ growth. However, one cannot just accept credit card payments in an instant. In fact, one has to apply to a number of banks for a merchant status to be able to do this. But once your merchant status is established, then your business will be good to go.

How Does Merchant Status Work?

Your company must first partner with one or a few banks to be able to accept credit payments. Before doing so, you must apply to these banks to achieve the merchant status. These banks will work with you to transfer money paid through credit by customers within a day or two of the sale. They will also be responsible for collecting the money from the customer, and in return, your company will pay them a usual commission, ranging from 1.5 percent to 5 percent for each transaction. Other fees may include monthly support and equipment rentals.

What Do Banks Look For In Companies Applying For Merchant Status?

Applying for merchant status may be a process much similar to applying for a loan, as lenders would certainly investigate on your overall financial status. The feasibility of having credit payments used through your business will certainly be looked up. Here are some factors that lenders will need to consider before granting you merchant status:

Build Business Credit and See Your Business Grow

Planning and putting up an owned business is hard. It is a dream of millions of people around the globe. There are a lot of people who set up their own businesses but never quite get around to it. This can be due to one of the factors that can discourage these people from launching their own venture off the ground, which is the lack of capital. There are also others that fear the risk of losing their own money.

However, with careful planning, thought and effort, it is possible to raise some capital that can help to get the business started and it can be done through building a business credit. For short, you need to borrow against the business rather then from personal assets.

News from the front

Not my front door, but K. who is a veteran Japanese-English simultaneous interpreter here in Tokyo spoke more freely than usual about the state of the market and the new trends she has observed over the past, and especially this year.

Overall, there is less work in simultaneous and what is left tends to be assignments on very difficult subjects. The assumption is that for standard, daily subjects, corporations of some size tend to use in-house interpreters, or agree with an agent to use B level or less interpreters to save money. Young interpreters can accept to be paid JPY30,000 or less for a full day assignment and work all alone 5 hours in a row in simul. Talk about deflation and hard-work.

Half-day assignment now fits her better as it means less stress and less preparation for the same money. She can fill a single day with two short assignments and earn more than a full intensive day.

The school where she teaches consecutive is crowded with students. On average, 1 out of 15 students are showing potential competences at interpreting. There is a growing number of bilingual students who speak better English than she does herself. However, they are no better than non-bilingual, the key competence being a superior speaker of Japanese.

As a Japanese interpreter, you can be average in English but you must be brilliant in Japanese. Japanese clients complain more and more about details with the interpreter's performance. Veteran interpreters get less work from agencies as a result, the opinion of the client being top priority.

Japanese clients do not appreciate to see the interpreter chat with the Western clients. Chatting is so easy with Westerners as opposed with the straight jackets stultified Japanese clad in formalism. This upsets her more than anything.

She no longer works in French and has lost her competence for interpretation, but not for daily discussion. She wants to retire in five years time.

Interpreting lab

A short film on interpreting labs for the MA in Interpreting and Translating, Japanese Stream, at Bath University gives a glimpse at self-training PC systems. I would love to see and know what these systems allow to do.

Negotiating the Business Liaison Interpreter's role Boundaries

I am getting deeper into "Community Language Interpreting - A Workbook". This a practical book. It does not dive deep into theoretical considerations, but it does raise without discussing further issues of major interest, issues I have not seen developed elsewhere as well. I am referring here to page 52 and the brief explanation of the scope of work and contexts where business interpreting may take place. I am more especially interested with the sentence starting with "Business interpreting is different from community interpreting ....". You can read the page and more over GoogleBooks here although I would strongly suggest you purchase the book and in doing so, support further development of content geared at community interpreting at large. Free ad pitch ends here. The crucial sentence is this one :

"In the case of freelance interpreting, the interpreter's role boundaries have to be negotiated beforehand. Sometimes interpreters are expected to play the role of an agent or a delegate member, so the interpreter needs to clearly determine the boundaries beforehand to avoid disappointment and miscommunication and to curb the ever-present risk that the failure of negotiations or business meetings may be blamed on interpreters."

If I had colleagues in front of me ready to discuss this matter, I would ask them right away : "Do you have a standard discourse to your client explaining your role, the extend of it and the alternative positions an services you may provide or not"? My own answer to this question is negative. I don't have a formated ready to read aloud, and it does feel that something in the line of a formal discourse is in demand. Legal interpreters must sign and pledge an oath. Business interpreters may need to think and act in terms of warning clients prior to delivery.

Learning beyond languages

In the article "Interpreting is Interpreting – Or is it?"written by Holly MIKKELSON in 1998 and relaunched over the AIIT Winter 2010 newsletter, the fourth chapter "Qualities of Interpreters" lists up the following core competences :

1. Language skills
2. Analytical skills
3. Listening and recall
4. Interpersonal skills
5. Ethical behavior
6. Speaking skills
7. Cultural knowledge
8. Subject knowledge

The question I ask aloud to myself is how do you go developing these skills out of school? And incidentally, how do they cover these subjects in schools, especially 4 to 8?

Most of those skills I assume are covered in interpreting schools mixed in daily practicum. For interpreters who do not go through schools, most of these will pop up through real life experience, many blunders being part of it. In short introductory courses like the one I have been delivering over 20 hours, there is not much time to dedicate to deep analysis of the issue. I highlight these throughout the course again and again to try and impress students about the importance of each. It would be interesting to provide students with key readings pertaining especially of subjects 2-4-5-6-7-8. Speaking skills in Japan are usually extremely limited and go hand in hand with matters interpersonal skills and cultural knowledge. Students often discover how they have difficulties first building sentences improvised in their own language. But what about 4 and 7? 4. starts with an essential discussion - a one side interaction here - on being first aware of one's own patterns of communication and how smart or awkward one can be when meeting new people. The gap of awareness is usually huge. How do the individual must go and learn from that point? Is it recommended to suggest self-help kind of books? Awareness of non-linguistic issues is allowed at list by talking about these through the course but some more efficient approach is needed.

The Project Management Method – Curse or Blessing

Project management is an area of expertise that has undergone some significant development in the last decade. A business project can have a far-reaching effect on the business and result in either tremendous improvement in the businesses ability to function in the marketplace or a significant setback to that business entity.

The idea of a formalized project management approach has been around for quite some time. So it was not uncommon for any manager to find themselves learning the discipline of a structured project management system. That project methodology takes any given business or IT project through the same standardized steps from conception through implementation. Those steps would include…

A profession on the defensive

Reading the AIIC newsletter must be a feel bad experience for any "unprofessional interpreter" who is not a member of AIIC. That's what I feel each time I receive and peruse it. And I am not about to quit receiving and reading it. Because there's a common factor I am now clearer with that stands as a bond between the exclusive pro and the mass of improperly taught and raised interpreter. But there is a take to that newsletter that helps improve self-confidence and pragmatic look at the market.

This edition of Winter 2010 is symptomatic of something, I would call it, the profession under siege syndrome. It comes with two articles, a new one on Freelance Interpreting, and a ten years old "still valid" titled "Interpreting is Interpreting – Or Is IT?". They both cover the same topic but I think the older one has more juice than the first. Both display something like a strong need to self-legitimate conference interpreters as if they are under siege from badly bread interpreters. To put it differently in interrogative mode : do badly bread interpreters eat the lunch of AIIT interpreters? Are AIIT members loosing jobs because half-backed interpreters are eating into their pizza? The defensive tone of the first article sounds particularly strange. Referring to the many words piggy backed on "interpreter", the author starts with arguing that "The proliferation of titles and categories is often nothing more than a marketing ploy – create a niche and occupy it."

At gut level, I would argue : What's wrong with occupying a niche and get money to pay the rent? At a higher than gut level, here's what I think. The researchers who are at times AIIC members are the first to crunch, slice and separate interpreters into categories. Most categories are meaningless to the lay people with no experience at interpretation in client's mode. I claim I am a "liaison interpreter" to customers who are usually looking for a "translator". So, who am I trying to fool in with that self-heated claim that I exist as a "liaison interpreter", as in the title of this blog? The answer lies in a common factor of people doing it over the years without formal training. The keyword is shame, and adjectives before the name "interpreter" also functions as a carapace to accommodate the constant uneasiness at the fact that one didn't sit in classrooms at the Geneva.

My clients are more than usually SMEs, sometimes VSMEs (the V stands for very) if not individuals. I am delivering services at a level where no AIIC interpreter would ever be contacted for a quote. The "liaison" thing is described in books, the latest I have read giving so far the best synthetic description I know. The "liaison" dongle is a protection toward the (yuck!) "ad hoc" nasty bit of flesh. It is to tell that I don't belong to that scum, just like "AIIC" is a mark of distinction. Only kings do not need self-legitimacy until the next palace revolution.

The market does indeed use this as a ploy to lower the fees, and that doesn't include only agencies. Your average client will justify not spending a dime on "interpreters" by requesting "linguistic helpers" and other politically correct names to suggest that the context will be so easy that you just need to know a few words. Just last week, such public request for interpreters came out of the blue for the now running Strasbourg Christmas Market in Tokyo. The call for "help" was superb of non-ambiguous ploy, justifying the zero bill because "there is no budget for volunteers" (!), parallel to the person in charge to call in who was staying at the Imperial Hotel, not a crappy Sakura House. There was enough budget for accommodation. The politics of avoidance to pay for interpretation, that ploy, is endemic, but I assume not much in the high realms where AIIC members deliver. If so, isn't the tongue in cheek tone of an editor stating with "The proliferation of titles and categories is often nothing more than a marketing ploy – create a niche and occupy it." nothing but a symptom of a malaise not due?

I also see another symptom whenever there is a reference to terps in wars of local extraction that are always qualified as "never been through formal training". Incidentally, a military terps never get the quote of not having sat in Geneva or ESIT. Anyway, exclusive clubs need self-justification like anyone else down the ladder. I much prefer when an AIIC member writes something tangible and sensible about how to progress for those with the stigma of not having gone through formal (respectable) training. You'll be untouchable for eternities. Have no fear. Leave it to the "untrained interpreter" to carry on the stigma.

Note : The book "Rapt : Attention and the Focused Life", introduced as suggested reading in the AIIC newsletter can easily be avoided. I am selling my copy back Amazon right away.

DIPEx-Japan offers real life interviews of Japanese patients

DIPEx-Japan is modeled after the UK DIPEX charity association with the Healthtalkonline web site. There, patients of many illnesses talk about their experience with diseases. DIPEx-Japan has started delivering the same type of content, with victims of breast cancer. It makes for a still very rare and precious collection of short interviews of next door Japanese totally devoid of the marketing and TV artifices. Each video comes with the exact transcription. It is a sign of something to come, and right now, an incredible resource for Japanese learning and interpretation.

What technology should bring

What tools technology could bring at which level of the interpretation process in order to facilitate the job of interpreters. Glasses overhead display of words or expressions instantly flashing when needed is for the future although NEC announced something in that range a few weeks ago. The first stage that comes to mind for potential benefit to interpretation is at preparation level. Even liaison interpreters in business are summoned to deliver in many different settings and domains of speciality. Time being at times too short, as with over the phone interpretation, something in the range of automatic multilingual glossary generation based on key sources online like Wikipedia make for a appealing future. But glossaries only won't be enough for sure. I see something in the range of summaries of domains set in an ecosystem of parallel domains to highlight the whys and hows things fit into place. Browsing through the net and selecting interesting articles would be followed by the generation of glossaries with standard multilingual sentences examples. The overall purpose would be to accelerate the broad understanding of the "big picture" of a subject rather than spending too much time understanding the scope, delimitation and causal interactions with other "big pictures". In the meantime, strategies not to get lost when preparing on a subject, the how-to tangible guidances, best practices, etc. are demand to go beyond the now trite reminding that "you have to prepare your subject". I already covered this in some previous posts and I do think best practices on preparation are an important discussion theme.

What's the deal with Australia?

I am browsing "Community Language Interpreting - A Workbook", by Jieun Lee and Adiran Buzo, published in Australia by The Federation Press. I can't use this book alone. You need a partner to make the best of it. However, and despite this, it is a very straightforward book, and one that offers short explanations of various situations and contexts where community interpreting is performed, including business interpreting. I think the book would not have suffered with an additional audio CD, or best, mp3 recording of the many dialogues to download. It is a little bit strange in 2009, 2010 coming soon, that books in this category are still "voiceless". In Japan, it would have come with a CD. Buying and reading so much books and articles about interpretation comes with a lot of repetitive stuffs, definitions, arguments and important people's names references you start to feel familiar with, although you have never met or seen them. Some explanations of what interpretation means and involves in specific situations are better explained, or feel more tangible according to references. This book, like the remarkable "Liaison Interpreting - A handbook", gets down to business in a very clear fashion. I like the way business interpretation is described, as well as communication management by the interpreter is a key activity and competence in dialogue interpreting. The deal with Australia is probably that authors speak and write from hands-on professional experience vistas. It's a relief for academic papers overload.

Avoid undervaluing your knowledge and services

"First, research your competitors' rates. Then decide on a pay structure and avoid undervaluing your knowledge and services"

This is good advice. It comes from an article in Business Week titled "Determine What To Charge as a Consultant". The profession might differ, but the issue keeps the same.

"The rule is to charge what you are worth and what the market will bear", from the same article. Clients offering dead low rates based on absolutely irrelevant arguments should be dealt with a polite, short, non-elaborated refusal. I used to negatively try and teach reluctant prospects. I quit doing it as it has no impact and no value. It may hurt to come down to zero earning, but when you know what the market stands for, give up argumenting. You will feel bad if you accept, that is, you will feel powerless.

"Value-based billing is what a consultant charges when she is confident she can save her clients substantial money."

The problem with interpreting is that you hardly can suggest how much a client would save with you as compared with a less competent interpreter, or no interpreter at all but broken English on one side or both sides of the interaction. There are no nice formulas to provide.

And the last chunk: "don't fall into the cheap trap".

Not trained in Geneva

And doing it anyway. Another edition of the newsletter of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC). Another dose of that swinging feeling between deep interest and uneasiness. You have to have done your classes in Geneva, ESIT or Monterey to feel a part of it. Otherwise ... otherwise what? Take for instance this article :

"Interpreting is Interpreting – Or Is IT?

Analysis of the different types of interpreting shows that regardless of the adjective preceding the word "interpreter," practitioners of this profession the world over perform the same service and should meet the same standards of competence."

It is a very interesting article, all the more when you read it down until the end, to discover that is was in fact presented 10 years ago.

"Ten years later the editors of Communicate! consider the paper to be of continuing relevance and are pleased to be able to republish it. "

OK, so the situation hasn't changed over 10 years according to the editors. So does probably the stance of the AIIC editors.

I am wondering aloud about that mixed feeling of mine, something to do with a bit of shame, envy, despair and ire at reading the AIIC newsletter, despite, or, on top of the interest I find in reading it.

I am also doing multitasking while writing this sentence, like reading sideway some news with "interpreter" as a keyword, to find yet another brief news about an interpreter killed in Iraq. How many interpreters in Iraq went through Geneva, ESIT or Monterey. AIIC's natural, well justified, historically, socially, even sincere and unaware of itself arrogance in tone and manners is certainly the main issue. The community (pouah!) interpreters, the liaison (yucky!) interpreters that ended up doing it through .... just doing it, carry with them the shame stemming from deep and strong inferiority complex. They, we, but as this we doesn't point at least in Japan to any professional community, let's end up with a an arrogant "I" share the same feeling. The nostalgia for Geneva. What is a professional interpreter? An individual working as an interpreter despising other interpreters. Professionalism, from this point of view, starts early. Shame and despise are ingrained in the system.

So the impaired, never fit faked, pseudo, self-touted interpreters lacking a singular voice of their own are left reading the AIIC newsletter, rave, envy and lament in silent mode. The AIIC authors usually mix well justified self-sufficience with a dash of condescending arrogance toward those who do not "meet the same standards of competence".

It is funny to observe that at the same time, in Japan at least, and for business reasons needing a thorough although easy analysis, there are a lot of books to titillate the longing and envy for interpreters you see or rather hear on TV, coax that always ready to be coaxed inferiority complex toward whoever is linguistically articulate, especially in Thy Holy Language of Thee, English (THLTE, for a new acronym) that allows you to shake hands with celebs. There are magazines that make the wheel turn around the local ESITees and Genevees and Montereeys schools, waxing on the ever tensed, smiling, smart, independent (and terribly lonely, sexless, kidless) , shark like roaming interpreters on steroid, the she wolves. But they deliver, books after books on how to be an interpreter, books of exercises that do not tell even half of the story but channel the readers to the schools that shape the market. What do the AIIC top deliver to the mass in terms of enlightment, training material on sale at Amazon, practical how to suggestions, etc? Nothing.

"Not trained in Geneva", that could be a rallying title for the lesser ranked interpreters doing it anyway, the organ of a single voice to exchange of tips and tricks to raise.

Questioning prospective clients

I haven't read anything about prospective client interaction like "the 7 things to do when negotiating with a prospect". The recommendations you read starts and ends up with the standard "try and get as much information and documentation prior to the job". I see a reason to that, that conveniently collides with the latest release of the AIIC newsletter (more on this in another post). Anything that revolves around the practical, specifics of a profession is left alone on purpose, as a habit, almost unconsciously. I won't delve deeper on that here but instead deliver the kind of recommendations I would love to read from colleagues unheard of. A prospective client got in touch with me inquiring about my conditions for a still unfixed job involving interpretation in a very specialized, very technical subject. I jumped to the appropriate Wikipedia article and dropped jaws from the first sentence. Quantum physics might be easier. Anyway, I boldly jumped in and answered back with the following list of questions. Warning : First, there is nothing confidential in that list. That's why I am showing it. It could apply to so many inquiring prospect. Second : usually, I would ask for details in terms of prior availability to any ppt documents and pointers to online resources, but never before had I thrown at the prospect such a detailed questionnaire. So much that standard LOSCS lashed back a few hours after I answered. LOSCS stands for "lack of self-confidence syndrom" and you won't find this acronym in a dictionary. Before showing the list, I want to state that to my surprise - and proving that LOSCS was hypochondriac stuff - the prospect answered me back with detailed comments on each single questions. It may be that I don't get the assignment but I hereby deeply thank that prospect client for showing such level of professionalism. Here we go.

- Approximative dates when you will be giving your seminars.
- Estimate duration of one seminar
- What size of venues : small, medium or large scales venues
- Approximately how many attendees each
- What kind of locations: corporations, rented seminar rooms,
university, research center, else
- What kind of locations within the venues : seminar room, round
table, worshop, laboratory, etc.
- What kind of attendees, academics, engineers, researchers,
students, laboratory staff, etc.
- What rankings in the case where your seminars target corporations :
high ranking like CEOs, directors, or lab researchers, production staff
- What kind of interaction, mostly one way with a Q&A session or more
interactive
- What do the seminars cover? Processes, product or apparatus
demonstration, services, mix of these, else
- What kind of presentation, ppt doc. based, no usage of ppt but
hands-on demonstration showing how things work or are done
- What kind of documents can you provide ahead of time : exact
presentation documents or drafts, others
- Do you have audio or video recordings of the same, similar or
approaching topic seminar
- Will the seminars cover the same redundant story and will you have
multiple seminar contents over the period
- What are the main purposes of the seminars, teach, demonstrate,
convince, sell, test response, generate feedback and/or collaboration,
etc.
- What are you expecting to take away out these seminars? Contracts,
deals, connexions, else

This list reads like this whole blog here. It is not perfect English. But it is working English that generate responses back and at times contracts from prospects that are native speakers of English. Also, I didn't spend much time on the list, typing while thinking and sending it fast. It needs reordering and a trimming. The very fact that the prospect did answer back to each questions came as a surprised. They even answered to that question about availability of audio or video recording of a session or close by content. Incidentally, the answer was yes. The idea to ask that question came out of the blue while typing. In 2009, it is not odd to inquire about audio/video availability of something unless you have never heard about podcast, YouTube and the like. Questioning the prospect in details does make sense. I wonder where the procrastination to do so stem from. Because most interpreters work through agencies and are dependent and sheepishly waiting to be spoon fed as a habit? That's the case here in Japan but not my case. Does it come from the fear to be perceived as brash pedantic? Probably, and it shows where the shrink must focus with the patient's mind. I am not sure I would next time ask so many questions to a prospect coming to Japan peddling organic pasta or screw openers. I might do it, at the risk of loosing the appointment. In the meantime, the practical side of "doing business", selling one's ware, is not surprisingly totally absent of other public sources, including God's realms like the AIIC. Standing for oneself and developing a singular voice is the single thing to do for interpreters who did not got trained in Geneva.

Better Japanese pronunciation

Speaking better with better intonation and accentuation is the purpose of さらに進んだスピーチ・プレゼンのための日本語発音練習帳. Good when you are tired of doing shadowing. Good to just repeat while washing the dishes. It's jogging to the jaws, tongue, vocal chords, breath and concentration (unless you wash the dishes). Straightforward stuff with DVD-ROM (I don't see where the ROM delivers though) to deliver audio content.

Advanced level

Advanced books of Japanese for NNS (non-native speakers) are all in Japanese. Avanced books of foreign language for Japanese learners are crammed with Japanese language. Guess what?

Google Streets as a practicing tool

I am planning to use Google Streets next year for a one course practice at visual clues based liaison interpreting drill. Granted the Internet access speed allows it, we will roam some streets of Paris where I will deliver an improvised description of what we an see. Visual clues will be the only notes allowed as the student won't be taking written notes. It may turn an interesting exercise. The more you look into "virtual tours" or "virtual visits", the more you find interesting stuff to use in the classroom. However, serious network bandwidth seems to be a requisite.

Business goes to Cyberspace

It is a well known axiom of doing business in any industry that those who do not stay in step with the times will be those companies that eventually die out. There is no place where that truism is more evident than in the way that companies in virtually every business sector are finding to integrate an internet marketing strategy with their traditional communications and to provide the public with an internet “presence” to supplement their public profiles in other venues.

Of course, the value of the internet for sales and promotions has been well known in the industries that service the youth markets and for the companies dealing with entertainment and the arts. Because the internet is in virtually every home and even now on hand held devices of every description, the access it gives to reach a target market are phenomenal.

Self-help books do not help introvert interpreters

Self-help books are written by extroverts still craving for recognition. They do not help introverts who are diehard sceptics. Introverts are not looking for tips on how to turn extrovert, or how to fake extroversion despite leaning toward introversion. Introversion is a socially ingrained defect, that is, the society's voice obviously dominated by the cult of extroversion that calls it, your characteristic, a disease, a default, a handicap. Who knows better about your problem than extroverts who have none? Introverts are looking in facts for words that read like "it's OK being what I am". They are looking for serenity and the path to it is certainly not longing for turning an extrovert.

So what does this musing stand for in a professional blog about liaison interpreter? I read a while ago some chitchat exchange in some online forum I don't remember about where someone reacting to an article about interpretation was stating that "As an introvert, I could not cope with the stress out of forced visibility involved with interpretation. That's why I chose to do translation only."

Introverts are loosing time which is energy to try and fake themselves on the potential for change toward that other side of being which is supposed to be extroversion, which is forced upon to be perceived, at least on the Western side of that planet, as the correct way to be. I now find this two dimensional, ying and yang world wrong from day one. It is missing a third dimension.

That third dimension is Japan. Extroversion doesn't fit Japan, nor does it fit interpretation as constant self-control of behavior in a more focused way than the clients and their partners is required. This requisite is better managed by introverts, that is why I strongly refute that introverts do not fit interpretation. An extrovert in liaison interpreting will want to take the lead at a rate than can be dangerous for the outcome expected by the client. Sure, the introvert liaison interpreting has to deal with her special (what so special?) unsureness exposed when meeting new people. The extrovert is said to be reaching out with a vengeance, the introvert shows caution. A Westerner liaison interpreter in Japan must be a master of caution when performing intermediary conduit interaction. Introverts are better at that game. Extroverts may mess up with the situation. Introverts rule. Only, they need in early times encouragement.

I take almost pride to tread on the subject of emotion control, shame and uneasiness to meet new people that also comes together with public speech during my introductory course to liaison interpreting. Japanese students are a hell of lot ... quiet. I tell them that the teacher in action game I am delivering in front of them now is just that, a game. And game means control, including of emotions. I tell them that what they see in people demeanor doesn't tell the truth about tendencies toward extroversion or introversion, and that introversion is not an inhibitor of professional delivery granted the introvert comes to term with her being just that, and introvert, and move on to the next challenge.

Google Streets as a practicing tool

I am planning to use Google Streets next year for a one course practice at visual clues based liaison interpreting drill. Granted the Internet access speed allows it, we will roam some streets of Paris where I will deliver an improvised description of what we an see. Visual clues will be the only notes allowed as the student won't be taking written notes. It may turn an interesting exercise. The more you look into "virtual tours" or "virtual visits", the more you find interesting stuff to use in the classroom. However, serious network bandwidth seems to be a requisite.

Situation based liaison interpreting curriculum development 2

Multiplicity of roles in business interpreting are matched by the multiplicity of situations. Subjects may be infinite in numbers but situations can be wrapped up to essentials redundant settings:

- small groups around a table
- presentation in front of a small group
- presentation in front of a large room
- moving interpretation during visits of facilities
- triadic interpretation as in private consultation or job interviewing

I still may be missing some though.

All these settings come with a number of different moods depending for instance on whether this is a first time meeting or not, meeting people are on good terms or not, meeting people share the same kind of knowledge to be the subject of the interaction, people on the other side have hired their own interpreter or use an in-house interpreter or adhoc interpreter, etc.

How many situation ca you replicate in the classroom that engage all the pupils at once? The business presentation format with a presentator and a ppt document prepared by the students is the easiest, most engaging tested so far, although engagement by students as listeners need to be sustained by detailed comments by the presentator who shifts from standing as the businessman to interaction analyst. This requires playfulness as well as strong alertness by the teacher.

Virtual factory visits in the classroom

Alliance for Innovative Manufacturing at Standford offers an impressive collection of video material collected under a special interface untitled How everyday things are made. This is an introduction to the world of manufacturing that can be the basics for in-school practice at manufacturing tours interpretation.

The borderline business interpreter

"The Liaison Interpreter - A handbook" lays out bare the conflicts that practicing in business means in regard of the totemic rule of neutrality. The discussion in the book is short and exclude any discussion, simply stressing how difficult it can be maintaining neutrality. The paper "Community Interpreting, Reconciliation through Power Management" might give some hints about this issue from discussing what is the role of the interpreter in the dynamic of communication, although it sets "business interpreting" out of community interpreting, labeling it as a synonymous to liaison interpreting, thus putting the activity outside the scope of discussion.

An interpreter may work once and never again for a client in business interpreting. She may hopefully build long time relationship with clients, securing revenues and investing in knowing more about the client's business as to gain a certain level of deep understanding of the client's own point of view and circumstances. This bonding affects the neutrality rule to the point where it is no longer practical to pretend applying it. I wish there was some discussion related to that issue I do not perceive as a fundamental issue myself. Working for the side that pays you for the service comes as a matter of fact. But while neutrality is endangered or simply not tenable, there are some issues of control that must be managed and checked by the interpreter. Things gets less confusing but definitely through away the neutrality issue when long term client tend to see or effectively consider the interpreter as a full-fledge collaborator, asking more than the standard coordination, interpretation service, for instance with the request to perform as a formal or informal local liaison officer, point de passage when they are away from the scene of transaction. The interpreter turned representative, agent of liaison, fumbles with the never ending issue of presentation of the self, adding to her business card additional mention of business support, consulting and the likes. Interpreting as it seems does not match with consulting, at least on the business card. One day, the interpreter feels like her business card should introduce her as a wholesome agent and scrap the annoying, self-deprecating reference to "interpreter". Pure interpreters may not feel that way, but interpreters looking for more ma be sensible to this discussion about the "borderline business interpreter" whose role trespass on what an agent or representative should be.

Situation based liaison interpreting curriculum development 1.

Unfortunately, one need to be a Phd candidate or more to expect feedback from the academics, most of them. I tried and get in touch with that Trieste conference of last week but feedback didn't came. However, here is my attempt at an Off-Trieste one-to-one with myself session at "Learning to Liase in Business". I'd rather rename it to "Teaching to Liase in Business".

Re-reading the chapter nine of "Liaison Interpreting - A Handbook", I am impressed at how exact the description of the many situations and roles the liaison interpreter may have to deal and play with. It matches so much my experience as few other descriptions I have read about.

It also implicitly points at how liaison interpreter with a heavy hand on business must be presented to an introductory course like the one I have been teaching for more than 2 years now. I usually start explaining what interpretation can be in terms of technics and settings. I go further explaining what are the core competence of interpretation, starting from listening and understanding the message. Delivering a course of 20 hours in 10 sessions has been following a path changing over time, dwelling on the technics referred to in the introduction, words versus meaning and how interpretation is about meaning transfer, short utterances interpretation, note taking, speech structure with typical pattern like my favorite one I tentatively call "list stuffs", that is, list of items. Applying this in a classroom without any devices besides two large LCD screen, with at times 15 or more students have been a challenge.

Also, the course runs on the stance that it is not only geared at active or budding interpreters, but also at language learners who will find in the "technics" of interpretation strategies to improve, and additionally, new insights into what communicating is all about.

I assume the 通訳メソッドを応用する axis that are displayed on book covers to strategically progress in English, Chinese and recently Spanish are unique in Japan in the sense that they highlight mostly shadowing as the "miracle cure" to progress.

This I leave outside the class as a method I strongly encourage students to explore at home on their own. But inside the class, following a logical, progressive path of learning has always been somewhat difficult, what with the startling differences at times between students in terms of listening or talking competence. And also the ever startling gap they discover by themselves in terms of competence to build well structured messages in their own mother tongue.

A highlight of the course is the one or two sessions of mockup business presentation training. They are usually enjoyed by most students. The preparation comes like this. I select a piece of PowerPoint presentation on a specific topic you can find aplenty over the Net. They have a week to prepare it in a leisurely fashion or more on their own. They are working grown-ups and some are way too busy to request them and do a thorough preparation. The next week, I put a small table and chair adjacent my desk in the classroom, I pretend not understanding Japanese and one by one, they come on stage for a five minutes of interpretation of the presentation I deliver. The listening students are put into contribution when I ask in French through my interpreter to ask questions. Some will do it, which allows the interpreter to work from B to A. I interspace the play with highlights on the issues at stake, not much emphasizing the problems of vocabulary which I think not much relevant, but instead the issues of rendering, wrapping up, and also attitudes that all pertain to the work of interpretation. There are always new situations that allow to stress the problems interpretation has to deal with all the time, unclear statement, wrong statement and how to clarify, what to do with humor, and many other features.

The problem is that business presentation is not the single situation the business liaison interpreter has to deal with. Other situations could be mocked up in a classroom, but presentation especially fit the setting with a real audience called up for participation in not only listening but interacting in the play at work.

The other setting I wish to find a solution to mock up is the small group meeting centered around technical discussion, negotiation and the likes, down to the bare triadic exchange. Splitting the class into groups does not look to fit as a proper approach due to the gaps in competence of students.

An other situation I wish to develop is a mock tour of an installation. It could be based on the description of an object, a factory being by itself a usually very huge object. I remember a large poster like rectangular folding document I owned when I was a child showing in details in the innards of a Boeing 747. I am fancying also walking through Google Streets delivering a description of details to be interpreted on the fly by students one by one. A walkthrough of some industrial facility would be a fantastic practice object too. To be followed ...

Making Money from the Inside Out

It is a well-understood axiom of the business world that there are two ways to improve the bottom line of the business. Stated simply, those two ways are to make money or to cut costs. Now no business can cost cut their way to profitability. But by the same token, waste and excessive internal costs for any business can eat away any profits that business is enjoying. So to get ahead in a competitive business environment, both methods must be employed.

When a business turns its eye to cost cutting, there is a stated or unstated business objective that the business owners will discover significant bleeding of revenues that are going on within the systems of doing business. So if those systems can be improved to eliminate that waste, the business would literally make money from the inside out because the overhead of the business would drop so dramatically.

DVD slows down

Free advert. Ultimate DVD Slowdowner does the job. I was not aware of that software looks with obvious practical application. Some publisher in Japan offers movies locked in USB memories with add-in translations of the dialogues. What seems a good idea is - in terms of strategic learning - nothing but the standard approach of trying and acquire a language without the letting go of translating and thinking about that language from the mother tongue's perspective. Letting go of language A is a competence and a major differentiator between fluency and ever painful transition toward it.