At the forefront of medical interpreting in Japan

What a surprise to find a link to this blog featured (until it lasts because I asked to be removed) over the page about Japan at the International Medical Interpreters Association. It took me time to understand why on earth was I featured here, when medical interpretation is mostly a subject I am not covering here, for sheer lack of competence, but there is no lack of interest. Quite a lot of years ago, I attended to some meeting on the subject, and felt like a Martian coming uninvited of planet Venus. I started writing a blog about medical interpreting but moved toward better known shores. The choices of links on the page (what does the interpreter of Mr. Toyoda has to do with medical interpreting) is a remembrance to that "something" wrong feeling I had at the time.

There is one of the big school of interpretation in Tokyo that started last year advertising a training course on medical interpretation, and I have been playing lately with the idea of going through some training, knowing that locally there has been nothing until Intergroup, that's the school name, came in. The problem is that unless you are local and unaware, Intergroup and the other big ones are businesses defining what the market is and making money, in the case of medical interpreting, on the idea that there's a future market for this. There are needs, but don't call it a market. Intergroup training is a one year costly investment, in time as well, that doesn't show its ware online. Which makes it all the more fishy. The picture of simultaneous interpreters on the ad page is one typical example of slanted cuckooed subliminal meaning largely unrelated with hospital interpretation. But we are in Japan here, not in Texas.

Being in a hospital right now, pampered (maybe not appropriate) by excellent monolingual staffs, I reckon again how the nurses are masters of intercultural communication, only they don't speak English. But intercultural communication at its core about serving people, whoever they are, and they deliver. It's not about linguistic competence but communication competence, and they are better than I at it, believe me, and usually superior to the more intellectual doctors who would switch to English a few hours ago while it hurts. There is a telling about what and where "natural interpreting" may be all about, dwelling at the very center of helping the other soul. A one year course at Interschool may be not enough to learn it.

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Lionel Dersot
Language Interpretation for Business and Technology in Tokyo
Japan Liaison Agency and Business Support Services
Mobile : +81 90 6858 1106
Fax: +1 815 572-8300
lionel.dersot@japan-interpreters.com
Skype : lionelskp
http://www.lioneldersot.com
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