The real thing

"After we had tasted the vodka and the wine, he poured a light brown liquid into a small glass which he offered to Churchill.
  'You must try my "pertsovka",' he said. 'It is the best kind of vodka that we have. Ordinary vodka is all right, but too weak. This is the real thing..'
   When I had interpreted, I added in an undertone, not for Pavlov's ears:
   'May I say, sir, that this is vicious stuff, and I cannot recommend it.'
   Politely but firmly, and very wisely, the offer was declined."

A.H. Birse, Memoirs of an Interpreter
"he" being Stalin and Pavlov Stalin's personal interpreter.

Now, let's talk about interpreter's neutrality.

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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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Content for training in business liaison interpreting

Whereas informative content that helps keeping wet in matters of business talk is available aplenty, it is hardly the same when it comes to secure content that comes close what really happens during business liaison interpreting settings. I suspect that the key issue with developing curriculum is directly related with matters of content. After close to a semester of testing business presentation interpretation in the classroom, I can certify that it works and does look very much like the real thing. The trainer has to be a playful partner in the setting, pretending to be a real businessman doing a presentation. Online documents, especially power point presentations on many subjects are available for nothing. Some modifications are needed and the trainer cum presenter has to do his homework as much as the students. Ideally, the course would be run with two trainers, each a native speaker of one of the language pair. Currently, it is not the case so doing Japanese to French business presentation has been a little bit tricky. IR presentations, and especially corporate overview not too much loaded with figures are available online, in Japanese, with audio or video. That is what we have been using. As it is public content, the students can easily locate these although I strongly suggest them not to do so. The powerpoints documents are readily available so the students are given a full week to work on these. As far as recreating the real thing in the classroom, it can be better.

A more common situation however is the discussion sessions, negotiations, persuasions that take place in small committees around meeting table, sometimes with very thin attendance.   These could be reproduced granted we work as a combination and both trainers are budding actors. Getting involvement from students within formats to be defined is also a possible alternative. As most students are working grownups, some could be volunteers to make in Japanese a presentation of their own workplace must that may be tricky. Locating at the beginning of the new term those who might accept, those that are more open minded than the others may be required next time.

In the public sphere, the video of the grilling of the committee reviewing public spending and led by current Minister of State for Government Revitalization Renho could make for interesting training material, granted they can be retrieved.

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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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What the JAT Project 2010 in Tokyo tells about the state of interpretation in Japan

If you are into professional translation and in or around Tokyo on September 11, make a good investment and attend Japan Association of Translators full day conference. I attended the previous one. It is well worth the money and I still remember the clear, down to earth mood of some presentations telling you practical things like what and how to do to find work and keep your customer base. Only the presentation about interpretation was soporific BS.

Which means that if you are into interpretation, forget about Project 2010, but do have a look at the program and take notice of the single presentation about interpretation : Interschool.

There is no point here and no intention to launch a polemical attack. This has been over for a while. Cold, pragmatic observation of facts suffices. These facts invariably confirm my own long and tedious deconstruction of the market that started and was helped by writing this blog. If you go back several years into this blog - warning : there are much better things for you to do today - you may notice a clear mood of despair and unsettling. Now that my own mapping of the dynamics and ecosystem of the market has proved to match realities, despair is no longer in demand.

Facts :

- Interschool this year, Simul next year? The pivotal schools that format and define the interpretation scene here, the official one, are corporate machines who will deliver the holy words, and it doesn't matter who will be the presenter. He or she is not even listed.

- Foreign interpreters in Japan, at least for Japanese - Western languages are a marginal creed, and they work in marginal settings the big school cum agencies do not manage.

- Any single example of an interpreter who is Western and eats thank to the system is to be taken as a curiosity.

- As work is in the margin, a more interesting presentation would deal exactly with that : margin mapping in interpretation market in Japan for non native speakers.

- Probably no one, including the presenter, will notice the weirdness of the situation.

- Finding a presenter in the tiny community (wishful word) able to articulate a presentation based on realities for non native speakers is probably impossible.

- There is no conspiracy theory behind the deconstruction of the market. It is just like that for cultural reasons. But cultural dynamics being understood down the innards and deep nooks, it doesn't  make things tolerable all the same. The objective is nonetheless not to claim anything but build the margins into something bigger than a margin.