Living Japanese 生きた日本語

Just received the book + DVD Living Japanese 生きた日本語. The simple pagination is very much remindful but on a shorter size of the books I used at Nagoya University. The DVD would not run on my MacBook but does run on another Mac computer. I just noticed right away how pragmatic the content is, which is very welcome. The introduction does not mention even once "shadowing". Maybe my obsessive side with the practice is popping up too much these days but by all means, shadowing must be highlighted as an essential approach parallel to listening. More on the DVD when I have time going through it.

Dialogue Interpreting

I started reading the book Dialogue Interpreting from St. Jerome Publishing. The introduction starts with this :

"Dialogue interpreting includes what is variously referred to in English as Community, Public Service, Liaison, Ad Hoc or Bilateral Interpreting - the defining characteristic being interpreter-mediated communication in spontaneous face-to-face interaction. Included under this heading are all kinds of professional encounters: police, immigration and welfare services interviews, doctor-patient interviews, business negotiations, political interviews, lawyer-client and courtroom interpreting and so on."

It is the first time I read such succinct stance that so much fits the format of the professional service I provide. Interpretation is seemingly monopolized, in the mind at least, with conference interpreting, meaning in terms of technique, simultaneous. Simul is king, whereas consec is a leftover and a stain telling you are not up to, not competent to do better. The literature around community interpreting is putting some weight in the balance but equilibrium of the two - not fundamentally - different although cousin activities won't be reached any time soon. The literature doesn't take into account the possibility that you may mainly work between B and C, or to be more precise, between B1 and B2. I doubt I am alone working mostly between two foreign languages. But as long as the interest for community interpreting grows - which includes in the broad sense "business interpreting", things will get better.

The scene goes like this. An interpreter is called at a scene where two people need a conduit to speak and understand each other. That's a standard triadic exchange. The interpreter takes out of a her bag two light headsets and invites the two others to done on. She already wears one of her own. Now the conversation can start. She delivers mostly in simul mode but sometimes switches to consec. In such setting, the flow management is an essential part of the interpreter's job. Switching between simul and consec, while keeping the interaction in proper order - avoid overlapping - is a demanding task and one that distinguishes amateurs from professionals.

End of the scene.

End of year, nothing to do except working on shadowing and intense listening.

Keeping abreast with general knowledge

This is an extract of my "Advanced Japanese Language Learning for General Learners and Interpreters" Google site located here.

The overall strategy is to keep afloat and constantly work to try and have wide views on contemporary subjects. The mega-subject here is Japan, and the strategies are different whether you are in Japan or not. The strategies within Japan can be applied outside Japan too but at a greater monetary cost. A daily portion of the Nikkei podcast for instance is helpful to keep abreast of current news subjects but my opinion is that it doesn't help when trying and build a larger view, the big picture of contemporary Japan. Keeping at bay Information overflow is a major task, even more for interpreters I believe. At the time of this writing, a week before the end of year 2008, magazine stands in Tokyo are a reminder that paper still matters. I would certainly not buy a monthly economy magazine that would be left unopen in no time, but at this very time of the year, there are end of year issues with the standard 予測 for 2009 that are much more valuable than a annual stack of magazines, because they sweep through wide arrays of subjects in condensed form. That the magazines will probably miss the forecast they deliver is not an issue. What matter is the broad view they provide on Japan and how Japan think about these issues. A book like 日本の論点 is a thick addition that is probably worth reading over time in tiny chunks. The standard 現代用語の基礎知識 as a hefty reference book might be good to have but you won't read it like a book. They provide this year a paper thin magnifier for the tiny fonts. For industrial subject specific references, there are specialized magazines for mostly anything, but books that summarize a specific domain are also aplenty. They are smarter than the Internet and Wikipedia in the sense that they bring cohesion and systematic structure within a closed environment, the book. From this point of view, reference books on industries within Japan are an incredible segmet of resources that is worth investing in when you are especially involved with that industry.