3 hours ago
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
What a day...
Today was an office day and I had to go to a client meeting in Kachidoki first up this morning. The client meetings are usually at Roppongi Mori Tower, but today the location was Kachidoki Triton Square and it was a bit of a hike... The client is an NPO and the member companies get together once a month for a committee meeting. As their PR agency, our team drives the meetings, prepares all the presentations, and I do all the translations and interpret for some regional members that dial in. I have been working on this client for 6 years so the translation and intpreting is not such a challenge, but the 3 hours of pretty much continuous similtaneous interpreting really kills me! Prefessional conference interpreters usually work in teams and take turns for 20 minutes each. This is said to be the maximum and most effective length of time for similtaneous. For consecutive interpreters, if the session is more then 4 hours, they usually work in pairs, so that they can have breaks. Similtansous interpreting takes so much out of you, and requires such a high level of concentration. I mean you are literally listening in one language, output in the other language and monitoring what you are saying at the same time. When it is a room full of speakers, sometimes speaking at the same time, things can get rather tricky! On the days I have these monthly meetings I usually come home a zombie. Tonight is no exception. I am absolutely beat...My brain is numb...I think I will be having an early one tonight....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Wow, that sounds very exhausting! When we watch nhk sometimes, we put it on simultaneous translation as we have english/japanese on ours, and the translator has to wait for the Japanese person to speak and as they are speaking she is telling us in english what happened (the news). It's a scary job! Especially live on tv.
I just read on your info you've lived in Japan for 14 years! Wow, i didn't know that...how old were you when you first went to japan? teens, 20's? And how long have you been married to mr nemo? :)
Hey Kelly! Yeah I have been here for 14 years in total. First time was a high school exchange to Nagasaki when I was 18. I had spent 5 years studying Japanese at high school, but had trouble undertanding the local Nagasaki-ben when I got there. It was stuff at first, but after 3 months I had my first dream in Japanese. I remmeber that so vividly to this day. Mr. Nemo and I are celebrating our first wedding anniversary next week! We have living together for three and a half years. Hope you are feeling better today!
You have one tough job! Hope you had a good rest.
Thanks Jo!
I love the pics of Jules and Tashio that you put up yesterday! thanks so much for sharing!
I think work period takes out so much from us, not so much the physical but all the brain power- I love doing PR and I admire you, would you mind me asking- how did you approach (and when) the Japanese language? Did you find something, or a book.. how did you first start out learning- this is something I am constantly struggling with.
Girl Japan, Hi! I first started Japanese in my first year of junior high in Australia (called grade 8 there). I studied it for 5 years at high school. Got a scholarship to go on exchange for a year at the sisters school in Nagasaki, while I deferred my university courses back home. Then I studied it at undergrad uni doing a double major in Japanese for 4 years, got a scholarship to go to a university in Japan where I studied applied linguistics and Japanese. Then I worked in Japan as a translator for 3 years, went back to Oz and did my masters in Japanese interpreting and translation at the univerity of queensland, and then a friend who graduated the year ahead of me introduced me to my current job in 2002. I have been here translating ever since. I struggled with my text book Japanese when I first arrived at the tender age of 18, but I wanted so much to be a part of the conversations my classmates and host sisters were haivng. I watched heaps of tv, listened to music, talked with friends, and when there was a word I didnt know I looked it up. Now I use Japanese dictionaries like a Thesaurus to give me English alternatives, not so much to look up the word meaning itself. I think it takes time and commitment to really emerge yourself in the language. It is hard if you have mostly english speakers around you. I have friends who have lived in Japan for 10+ years and taught English, and still dont feel confortable with the language. I dont know how they survive to be honest. I would get so frustrated and feel so helpless. I think the best advice I can give is to do something that you love in Japanese, whether it be watching Japanese tv, or music or taking up a hobby in Japanese. Other than that, I think studying vocab and grammer and trying to use it. I find that new words and grammer patterns dont stick with me until I actually use it myself for the first time in a sentence. I make mistakes but I learn from them. Being a curious and observant type also helps, but that is personality so isnt so much learnt behaviour. I examine how others use expressions or words and then attempt to do the same myself. Also, I think not having a strong Aussie accent helps with pronouciation. I am always getting mistaken on the phone for a Japanese person, and make a point of saying my first name so that callers know I am not Japanese. I once had a taxi driver say to me after I asked him to take me somewhere "phew, I thought you were a gaijin for a minute there!" You should have seen the look on his face when I piped up and said "Um, yeah, I am!" He nearly jumped out of his seat!! HAHAHA! Good luck with your studies. It will come with time! Trust me! Mine certainly didnt come overnight.
Hi Nooh, thank you!! I mean.. THANK YOU! You are right, my husband says the language can be my tool- I went to law school and took my MBA in Computer Science and marketing trends and I would love to be an asst in a Japanese firm or do marketing of some sort intertwining both cultures.
I work now (outside of teaching) do Native Translation (sounds odd) for the gov on contract basis, but you have such a valid and strong point- find something I love to do and learn it, speak it in the language I want to learn.
I was thinking of taking a baking class, or a design class just to get things started outside of the "must need to survive" Japanese, I need more. I just start there.. this was funny but the first words I learned was how to fill up my gas tank with High Octane.. I said Haiyaku instead of Haiyoku many, many times...
Post a Comment