Where are the growth markets

A reader of another source of information about interpretation I collaborate to contacted me asking questions about schools teaching Japanese-French interpretation in Japan. 23 years old, bilingual, enamored with Japan. A growing set of characteristics bound to grow further with bi-national weddings. But what about the markets to ...

we interrupt our broadcast due to a small but sensible earthquake in Tokyo ...

Back to work. The players in the market this young person is dreaming about are mute like clams. Even tighter in the small JP-FR pair. There are three schools I am aware of offering some courses in JP-FR interpretation. I teach in one of these. One of the other, Simul, is the black hole of interpretation in Japan. It sucks out large amount of money from students, on the premise that if they get through, they will be part of the Simul Inc. agency rooster and by back their financial and intellectual efforts. I have heard from several channels that teachers at Simul are reluctant to talk about market realities. After all, they are paid to lure in students, and are politely despising each others, unless they are tiny enough a group to understand that there's no need to fight internally. They do train the next generation, despite the fact that at conference level at least, JP-FR is said to be replaced by JP-ENG-FR. 

In consec, the market is massively of the liaison type. It's partially a try-your-luck market, partially a organized market where embassies and chambers of commerce attract demand and offer.

There is the open wild market : be present on the Internet and wait to catch a bird. Or rather, get caught.

This market is untapped in my sense, although JP-FR is and will be always be marginal. JP-ENG-FR is a better combination. I believe that partnership and common visibility over the Internet are one of the combined untapped strategy. This strategy doesn't appeal to people I have approached. They are all deeply buried in the lone wolf scenario of independence. They do have professional friendship circles, small groups of same job people, but they don't think to transform this dynamism into visibility. Rodents meet rodents. I think this is lame.

As training is scarce, most have had few if no training at all. In liaison, it is my belief now that training is 50% dialog with practitioners to understand the ecosystem, the dynamics at stake when aiming at this job.  I know for sure that in other schools, trainers don't talk about practicalities. You will learn on the job, is the mantra. I believe that part of this on the job experience can be padded with prior theoretical knowledge of what empiricism will teach.

Many interpreters in JP-FR I have met also do translation. Interpretation alone won't feed them.

This does not answer the title question, "Where are the growth markets". I am not about answering it, but when I see with many clients how bad communication, half-cooked English, cultural gaps have left trails and trials often meaning loss of time = $$$, in the SMEs category at least, I believe that growth markets are the one stemmed by some different approaches and attitudes of liaison interpreters being proactive.

Miscellanea

Don't bring billions in speech when the client is an English speaker from Europe, outside the UK. Translating figures between Japanese and English (and French too), when bigger than 10K and reaching for the sky is a torture. I have my chart ready but billions were a mystery to my clients. Now I have revised it starting for 1,000 millions, and more.

"I have to inform you that the Japanese party will come with an additional 4 people." Do you have to worry more because more people are coming to that meeting?

What do you do when the opposite side spends way too much time talking to each other? My clients rightly asked me what they were talking about, when at least 4 people were talking among each other. on the other side I knew I could not manage the mess. I requested the opposite side to talk to my client in priority rather than speak among themselves for so long time "as I am supposed to translate anything". My being a Westerner, that is a cheeky lad, allowed me to do so. You know what? It did miracle and greased the meeting's dynamics.

Sometimes, you are a stand-by interpreter, listening intently, taking notes, but leaving the exchange happen in English. But you are ready to jump to the rescue whenever something get wrong, or weird, and intervene when you think, or better, plainly see that they are no longer on the same bandwidth. These situations are getting familiar these days. Why then would the client hire me? Exactly for the above mentioned. Being ready to jump in when things get awry.

I know someone in some embassy who is bored with excellent but mechanical interpreters. Good news.

Keep your language lean

I wrote some times ago about how the Westerner presenter should avoid flowery language. There are deeper meanings and consequences in business. Assessing that keeping the discourse lean and flowerless is for the sake of the interpreter's work load reduction is too easy an explanation, at least between Japanese and French or English. When one is able to read technical Japanese, which includes business Japanese, there is quickly an impression that the Japanese used in articles as well as business presentation is clearer than equivalents in the opposite languages. It is often not an impression but reality. In business, in technology, Japanese presenters would avoid flowery language. Not that the language does not allow for jingle and catch-phrases like formula, but "faire de l'esprit" is fairly inappropriate when presenting companies, stuffs and things.

At school, when working from Japanese using recordings of real corporate presentations, the only trouble that may arise is when the speaker evokes corporate "philosophy". Those airy flowers tend to be thorny. But besides working for a better world, descriptions of services are straightforward, leaning on dullness as is often the case as seen form a Westerner's point of view with formalistic Japanese.

The other side is usually more challenging, loaded with catchy bits of trendy expressions, the getting traction shunning at the now miserable momentum. French too can be awfully complicated by presenters getting enthusiastic. For fairly high level students of French, the challenge is tremendous. Tongue in cheek means the interpreter may stall. There is an extra layer of deciphering the language, that is turning it into duller stuff when going Japanese. Adding spices on the reverse is usually welcome, otherwise, the listeners may think the interpreter, not the speaker, is oversimplifying.

The consequence of growing flowers into speech can have inappropriate effects on the business, by generating a haze of permanent misunderstanding. This issue deserves more than a single entry.