Poor speakers

At a recent session of the presentation interpreting course, we used the audio recording of a corporate introduction to individual investors. Such recording are freely available over the Net and are gems for training. The students who are primary students of advanced French rather than students of interpreting are discovering how bad speakers can be. This happens under any nationality but the tendency here in Japan is strong. hey are now and more than often for the first time lending a sharp ear at what and how the speaker delivers. The interpreting act requires way sharper than usual listening attitude. Yesterday's selection turned appalling at times. The students (and I) could not make any sense of bits and portion of the speech. Daily Japanese is awash with stages of awkward speeches in speeches situations. Politicians often lead the pack of mumbo jumbo,badly articulated lip service, but you would expect something better when an IR Dpt. staff delivers with clear purpose to induce the listener to buy shares of his company.

The interpreter faces the task to deliver meaning where there might be mostly nothing but linguistic filler. We tried paraphrasing, focusing on the bits that were stems of meanings until they would vanish after the fifth word or less, what with these typical loops where the speaker kind of wraps up his ware, rehashing keywords but keeping the confusion as confused as at the beginning. My suggestions was to skip it, not entirely, but cling to simple bits that weaved together would transport some sense and hope for the best. Even as a foreigner, you can reach stellar level of hot air empty Japanese granted you pretend mastering your thought trail and betting on the fact that the Japanese listeners at least won't raise a hand to notice and request clarification. Is this improper an attitude when the setting is such that asking for clarification is simply not permitted? Guardian the holy scriptures would say so. I won't. At least, one situation I have known is that by asking the speaker to rehash, or rephrase, you are potentially putting shame on him, implicitly pointing at poor articulation. That the interpreter is usually the prime suspect when meaning doesn't get through is the knowledge the poor speaker should cling at, granted he knew it.

There is only one case, in business interpretation, that I would unabashedly high-jack the interaction flow and ask for clarification to the speaker, shame or not on whichever side, for the benefit of my client. The next chapter would obviously to go deeper into the matter of how to manage shame induced by poor interpreting or not knowing that piece of vocabulary one should know as a matter of fact. Possible title for an how-to book : How to survive blunders and get back on track. A bestseller to be.