There is an insatiable curiosity with some clients who ask the interpreter questions on general and minute things about Japan during off or transition time. The liaison interpreter must be ready to answer with confidence in a way or another as she is expected to know everything. One client asked me the other the significance of those wood sticks shaped like skis she had seen in a local cemeteries. I could not give an exact answer but I had a partial answer enough that it settled the issue, but opened up the door for more questioning. The curiosity of the client is legitimate but the assumption that the interpreter know everything is wrong, but can't be avoided. Instead, it is a requisite for the sake of client's relationship strategy to avoid the dreaded "I don't know", even when the subject has nothing to do with the assignment's thematic.
Technorati Tags: interpretation, interpreter, interpreting, Japan, japanese interpreter, Japanese language, japanese translator, liaison interpreter, liaison interpreting, Tokyo, translation, translator
0 comments:
Post a Comment