Listening well

It is one thing to stress how listening well is the starting point of interpretation. But there are situations where listening is simply challenged by the conditions, that of the environment, that of the circumstances of the interpreter. I have been challenged this week more than ever by situations I have known to be challenging, dialog interpreting, impromptu, in noisy environments. The example of a noisy environment could be the toilet paper manufacturing factory we visited today, but a plant is a plant is a plant, and noise a matter of fact. En aparté, visiting a high end toilet paper factory is a humbling experience. The mother roll, a huge mega sized roll that will end-up sliced into "child rolls" is enough for the consumption of 10 humans during their whole life. Humbling experience indeed.

End of the aparté.

Much more challenging than the noisy plant is the noisy coffee shop, the dreadful local train where discussions à bâtons rompus require the intervention of the interpreter in most uncomfortable settings. I dreaded these while revising last week and was right to do so. Devoid of elephant's ears, loosing maybe the competence to focus and filter, dreading small voices that don't adapt to circumstances, the business liaison interpreting has been contemplating to apply hightech to an issue that hurts these days, literally.

After looking around for devices outside Japan, I am seriously considering acquiring in Japan the Panasonic hearing aid device ONWA (the blurb in English here is pathetic).