Latest / Found in Interpretation Podcast / Ep. 46 - Interpreting in the Land of the Rising Sun with Allyson Sigman

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Ep. 46 - Interpreting in the Land of the Rising Sun with Allyson Sigman · Found in Interpretation Podcast

0:01
Hello, hello and welcome to another episode of Found in
0:04
Interpretation podcast. Once again, I'm one of your Co
0:07
host Allen and I'm here with Brian.
0:09
Brian, how you doing? I'm doing fantastic.
0:12
I'm really excited for this episode.
0:14
We've got Allison Sigman with you and yeah, I'm looking
0:17
forward to it. Alright, and today in this
0:21
episode we're going to talk about Japanese English
0:25
interpretation. Alright, let's kick it.
0:38
Alright, we're here with Allison.
0:40
Allison and is an Ohio based conference interpreter who works
0:44
between Japanese and English. Born and raised in the United
0:48
States, she began studying Japanese in high school.
0:51
Through a love of drawing and animation, she did three study
0:57
abroad trips to Japan to advance her language abilities.
1:01
After earning an MBA in 2010, she went to work at a Japanese
1:06
manufacturing company in Ohio. She worked as an in house
1:11
interpreter until 2017 when she went freelance, working part of
1:17
that time in Tokyo. In addition to her day job,
1:21
Allison teaches English Retour at Grins Academy and formerly
1:26
taught at interpreting courses at Rico Rico University and The
1:32
Ohio State University. Alright, Alison, So how does 1
1:39
become an interpreter for Japanese that you go to Japan to
1:44
also to do some courses or did you base all that in the United
1:47
States? So that's a very interesting
1:50
question because I'm a bit of a rarity.
1:53
There are two main paths that people tend to take when they're
1:57
doing Japanese interpreting. 1 is they'll go to a trade school
2:02
in Japan which is maybe a year or two year course and.
2:05
It's not a masters. It's not a masters.
2:08
Japan only has one, two universities that offer a
2:10
masters in conference interpreting.
2:13
And I think one of them is actually translation
2:15
interpreting hybrid, but it is more of a trade in Japan.
2:21
And so I did not do that. And the other pattern would be
2:26
to come to Middlebury and get your degree here and then go
2:29
back and work in Japan. And I also didn't do that.
2:31
My MA is in something completely different.
2:34
So for me, I got trained on the job when I got my first job,
2:40
they I applied and they said, hey, can you interpret?
2:44
I said, I don't know, maybe. And they're like, well, why
2:46
don't you just interpret this interview?
2:49
And I'm like, well, that's me speaking.
2:51
That's very hard to do. But I basically gave my answers
2:55
in 2 languages. And then they were impressed and
2:59
they had a good training program on the job.
3:01
But I am what I like to call it, interpreting nerd.
3:05
So I read all of Andy Gillies work, I read all of the training
3:10
material that any major interpreting school would use
3:13
and then I joined practice groups like Grins Academy that
3:17
you mentioned is an online interpreting school.
3:19
We practice together, we use UN speeches and keep each other up
3:24
to speed. So.
3:25
And what about your Japanese language?
3:27
I mean you don't. You didn't just learn by
3:29
watching anime. You must have lived in Japan or
3:31
what for awhile or went to school just for Japanese
3:34
language, right? No, actually that's.
3:36
Much better than I. Well This is why I'm a weird
3:39
person to have on this podcast. Hopefully I can give other
3:43
people a route to take that is not the traditional one.
3:46
Many of my peers lived there for extended periods of time like
3:50
you mentioned. Many of my peers or grew up
3:55
there and are actually, you know, native Japanese speakers,
3:59
even though they look like me. And in my case I started.
4:05
Reading the sense that they grew up in sorry, but in the sense
4:07
that they grew up in Japan, yes, but they're they're, I mean.
4:12
Missionaries, kids or diplomatic transfers.
4:18
I know some people who are just there.
4:20
You know, Dad ran a company and he got transferred to Japan, so
4:24
they went over too. So there are native Japanese
4:27
speakers who don't, who aren't ethnically Japanese.
4:31
That's the right term, yes. So.
4:33
I'm not one of those. In the in the jet for those.
4:36
Yeah. Well, for one of the, I mean for
4:38
people who don't know about Japan, there's Japanese people
4:41
and then there's foreigners and foreigners as like anything that
4:43
doesn't look Japanese. Well, from my experience of
4:47
living there. Exactly.
4:48
So in Tokyo, it was fine. Living in Tokyo, people didn't
4:53
really point and stare at you. But anywhere you go out in the
4:57
country, it's like whoa, like a zebra walking down the street.
5:03
Have you, have you ever had? I mean, your Japanese skills are
5:06
probably amazing, especially compared to mine.
5:10
And have you ever been in a situation where just because of
5:13
our, your looks, some people would just try to speak English
5:18
to you and then you would speak Japanese and then they will keep
5:21
on speaking English, although it's horrible English and your
5:23
Japanese is much better than theirs.
5:24
And then what they, what happens is what I call a dual.
5:27
So we kind of look at each other and then at some point my
5:31
Japanese is much better than their English.
5:33
And then they crack and then they're like, OK, we'll keep on
5:35
in Japanese. And this is kind of a, this is
5:38
kind of a how it happened for me.
5:40
I have had that dual but since I didn't mention this, my
5:44
background is in TSOL so teaching English as a second
5:47
language I tend to let them win. So I have had the dual that I
5:52
have tried to press forward, but usually I will let the other
5:56
party win. If they really want to speak
5:58
English, we'll do that and then if we if it doesn't work, then
6:03
I'll step in. Well, that's true too.
6:07
Well, yeah. You want to give the other
6:08
person the opportunity to maybe practice something that they
6:10
don't usually practice. Whereas your Japanese is is
6:13
perfect. So yeah.
6:14
Oh no, it's not perfect. No.
6:16
Well, I know how to count to 5 in Japanese.
6:21
If I if I can learn how to count to 6, I'll have learned
6:24
something. You get there, there's a gin
6:28
called Roku that's a very popular right now, so that'll be
6:31
your tip for remembering 6. OK, cool.
6:36
And so we, we talked a little bit about the schools and, um,
6:42
and then when you show up in the booth, some people may be
6:46
surprised about the, because basically when we don't look
6:50
ethnic Japanese and we don't fit in a box because Japan's a
6:54
society where you kind of fit it, you have to fit in a box,
6:57
then people must be at least first at first surprised, right?
7:01
Of course, I mean I I've been interpreting for 15 years and
7:07
many of my peers now know me or at least have heard of me.
7:13
Don't want to sound overly proud, but that's the reality.
7:15
Don't be. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a
7:18
hard language to master. But initially, especially when I
7:21
was trying to break out of just being in Ohio and start working
7:25
in bigger conference settings, it was hard.
7:30
It's still is sometimes hard. So I just, you know, greet them
7:35
politely in Japanese first thing when I opened the door and then
7:40
hopefully we have a good relationship after that.
7:43
I I try very hard to be a very good booth partner because of
7:47
exactly what you're saying. And I mean, I find also, like,
7:51
with a name like Brian Bickford is like, oh, this guy speaks
7:53
French in Spanish like, so yeah, I guess I get it.
7:56
You can't tell anymore. No, you can't tell anymore.
7:59
Yeah. And oh, by the way, Brian, if
8:02
you want to learn one more word in Japanese, Allison comes from
8:05
Ohio. And Ohio in Japanese means good
8:09
morning. Ohio, Yeah, so.
8:11
Exactly. It's not morning right now.
8:16
Though I know how to say it too. So very good.
8:19
And then I got the gozaimasu. Thank you very much.
8:21
Right, yes. Ah, there you go.
8:24
And have people have ever been doubtful about your abilities at
8:28
first when you're going to the booth or just because we don't
8:33
fit in this stereotypical type that they would expect?
8:39
Hmm, that's a very interesting question.
8:42
I've never had the hmm, I've never had a booth partner tell
8:51
me, Are you sure you're up to this or do you want me to take
8:55
the E to J and you do the J to E or something like that?
8:59
I've never had that experience. I do get asked by clients to
9:03
have a pre meeting and the pre meeting is to see if I can speak
9:07
Japanese. Can you really do this thing?
9:10
But your resume says you can do. And so my colleagues who are
9:15
non-native speakers call it a level check.
9:18
They just want to. They just want to hear you.
9:21
Hmm. So do or do they ask for an N1
9:24
for instance, like 04 for those who are listening and there are
9:30
different levels of Japanese and five is kind of the recognized
9:35
first level and and one is the hardest level.
9:38
And let's say a Japanese child that would do elementary senior
9:44
in high school would be able to pass the N1 test.
9:48
So it's a Japanese proficiency test.
9:50
Sound like an N6 and below the end 5.
9:57
They don't test for that. They don't do that.
9:59
There's no test for that. So do they ask for an N1?
10:04
I do hold an N1. It doesn't matter, OK?
10:08
Most of my clients aren't really aware of it and most of my
10:13
colleagues don't care because it's only a written test.
10:16
It has nothing to do with translation.
10:18
That would be has nothing to do even with speaking ability.
10:21
And so I think one agent asked for it and that was it.
10:27
OK. I have a question about
10:30
preparation because like we for us using the same alphabet to do
10:36
preparation in English, French, it's not not that difficult I
10:40
find. But like, what is it more
10:41
difficult if you're doing if you're writing in Japanese, like
10:45
when you're trying to prepare for a conference?
10:47
So there are some terms that I will not be able to read the
10:51
kanji easily offhand. Um, do we need to explain kanji
10:55
or is that kind of universal? Japanese characters.
10:59
OK. That are not readable like the
11:01
alphabet so. If they're they're ideographs
11:04
and they can have multiple pronunciations based on whether
11:07
they were borrowed from Chinese or borrow or original Japanese
11:11
words that were given that kanji.
11:15
So there are times in my glossary where I will have a
11:19
phonetic pronunciation next to it.
11:21
But in general, it's all about what I'm preparing for and how
11:27
familiar I am with that topic. OK, so I the thing I found
11:33
recently is that if I'm trying to use speech recognition with
11:37
my glossary, and I have the phonetic pronunciation written
11:40
out, then the system is looking for the kanji word and the
11:46
phonetic pronunciations, effectively looking for a
11:48
repeat. And it's not going to find that
11:50
when it's listening to the transcript, so it doesn't pop up
11:55
the word from my glossary when it's transcribing.
11:58
Put me in context here. What do you mean by that?
12:01
This is not a life conference, it's a prerecorded speech.
12:04
No, what I'm talking about is using something like interpret
12:08
banks ASR or um Simo note they never heard of it.
12:15
Oh, sorry. They transcribe and then they
12:18
also will look for words that in the transcription that are in
12:22
your glossary and they'll pop those up for you.
12:27
However, if I have. Missed you speak.
12:29
As. As.
12:31
As as you listen, yes. Yeah, yeah, it's a pretty cool
12:35
tool. Sounds awesome.
12:38
If I have, let's say this is the Japanese characters, but then
12:42
I've also written the phonetic next to it in the same line in
12:47
my glossary software, it won't be able to find that.
12:52
OK. OK.
12:53
And. That's overly specific.
12:56
I know that's that's really. Is it?
12:58
Is it like? Is it like a bit like the zoom
13:01
caption feature? So I'm just trying to picture
13:04
it. OK, so you have a transcript of
13:09
let's say I'm in the booth. I connect my I connect my
13:15
console to a splitter and the splitter goes to my headphones
13:18
and then to my computer. So my computer's hearing the
13:21
speaker's audio and then it starts transcribing.
13:26
As it's transcribing, it will highlight numbers, dates and
13:31
then if let's say greenhouse gases is in my glossary, it will
13:38
when it hears the person say greenhouse gas it'll pop up the
13:41
translation for that no. On my screen, yes.
13:46
What repeat the name? Of this is this, What year is
13:50
this? Interpret bank does it, and so
13:54
does SIMO. Note but it's it's spelled CYMO.
13:59
M OK, already downloaded both as we speak.
14:05
I like interpret bank because it's all so glossary management
14:09
and it doesn't really good job at that.
14:11
I'm not paid by them. We had a responsive.
14:16
Show we don't. We don't make money with this
14:17
show, so we don't have sponsor. We're not.
14:19
Nobody wants us to sponsor anything.
14:21
Don't worry yet yet. Yet, yeah, internally here.
14:28
We're waiting for your call, OK? OK, Yeah.
14:31
It's been a year. I don't think that there's gonna
14:32
they're gonna get any calls anytime soon.
14:35
I'm gonna get 250 episodes soon. Terminology software for
14:38
interpreters. Wow.
14:39
OK, that is that is really interesting.
14:43
So it you have to connect the physical device.
14:47
Who? That could be a whole
14:49
conversation. It does have to be connected
14:52
somehow to your laptop. It there's ways to work around
14:56
it if you're on a RSI platform, but it's difficult and I've
15:03
honestly never got it to work correctly.
15:05
That could be a user error. Like you wouldn't be able to do
15:07
it but just use zoom or whatever right?
15:10
OK. No, but.
15:11
Before, when you're in the booth, it's pretty easy.
15:14
You just split the audio line one goes into your computer.
15:19
Wow that's that's pretty awesome, I never heard of it.
15:24
Is it for? Especially for Japanese
15:26
interpreters, use this or no? Nope, I I am very into computer
15:31
assisted interpreting. I want to be at the forefront of
15:37
it, so I try all kinds of things.
15:40
I've tried bilingual captioning that's not for interpreters.
15:44
The two solutions that I've mentioned are specifically for
15:47
interpreters, but no, it's not a Japanese market thing.
15:52
Are you learning French by any chance?
15:54
Because you made me taking her job was pretty soon, no?
16:00
I have passable Spanish and that's it.
16:02
OK, but careful Spanish interpreters out there.
16:06
Allison's coming for you. You're aware, I mean, I, I, I'm
16:12
not sure if it's common knowledge, but Spanish in
16:14
Japanese to me sounds so similar, people wouldn't think
16:18
that. But if I say Casa in Japanese
16:20
and Casa in Spanish, I mean it's a different meaning, but it's
16:24
the same sound. Pronunciation wise, it's
16:27
similar. Yeah.
16:29
And the first immigrants to Japan were Portuguese.
16:33
So there's words like pan, which is bread, and that have seeped
16:38
into the Japanese vernacular. I think that's zoo bone as well,
16:42
right? Yes, Zebon.
16:44
Yeah, yes. Which means Pats, Brian.
16:48
OK, used to mean pants, but now it's an old word and now people
16:51
say pants, but pants used to mean underwear and it's very
16:54
complicated. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
16:55
And if it's in the pandemic, they're optional anyways, right?
16:58
Like I can. Tell you about team.
17:02
I want to talk about the techniques when interpreting.
17:08
Brian and I do French and English, seldom Spanish, but
17:13
it's out there. But the word order is the same.
17:18
So we can basically start a sentence and with whatever way
17:22
it goes, we can just follow our way through.
17:25
But what about Japanese? Do you need a buffer?
17:28
Do you just jump right in? How do you deal with the
17:31
subject? There's so many things here so
17:34
burning you with questions. Here, no, that's OK.
17:36
Japanese has an SOV order, so the verb comes at the very end
17:40
of the sentence, regardless of how long the preamble is.
17:43
It can be time, place, person, all this information with
17:49
clauses. And then there's a verb which
17:51
means you don't have past, present, affirmative, negative,
17:57
any of that until you hear the verb.
18:00
And this is where decalage is important.
18:03
You need to keep a very long. You need to be able to have a
18:09
very long year voice span, but you also need anticipation.
18:15
And So what I teach my students is I will play like 3 or 4 words
18:21
of a speech and say, OK, can we make a meaningful chunk out of
18:25
this? Can we put a verb here and then
18:29
keep going until we can hear the verb?
18:32
So I teach chunky and I teach anticipation in order that they
18:37
can deal without having that verb.
18:40
It's there's a lot of formulaic language in what we are used to
18:46
dealing with in the conference setting.
18:48
So if the person stands up and they say good morning, ladies
18:51
and gentlemen, today I'm going to, you know that they're
18:55
probably going to talk about, discuss, introduce something in
19:00
that vein. Like they're not going to stand
19:03
up and say today I'm going to completely disagree with
19:06
everything my last, the last speaker said.
19:09
It's, it's very uncommon. So I teach my students to
19:12
anticipate based on common sentence patterns and to chunk
19:19
to make shorter sentences where. Would you call it like the what
19:23
you call chunk? When I was at university we
19:26
called it the Salem, the salami technique, but it would be like
19:29
the salami technique plus verb. Yes.
19:33
So I'm teaching them to add a verb so that they can get that
19:37
shorter sentence and. Is that a common technique or
19:41
did you come up with it? When I've been listening to my
19:44
booth partners, I think everyone does it inherently, but they
19:49
don't know that they're doing it.
19:52
So question as a non Japanese speaker, you say it's SOV the,
19:57
the, the sentence structure. Um, do Japanese people who are
20:03
listening, do they not know what the sentence is going to be
20:05
until they hear the verb? Like, is it like, basically, I
20:09
don't understand, understand. And then the verb comes here
20:11
like, oh, OK, that's what they're talking about.
20:14
Many cases, one The reality is in most impromptu discourse, we
20:20
speak in much shorter sentences. We're not going on and on and on
20:24
and on. And then there's a verb.
20:26
So. So in day-to-day conversation,
20:31
it's not an issue, but I think that when a Japanese speaker is
20:34
listening to that on and on and on in a formal setting, they
20:38
have a good idea of what verb is coming.
20:41
And I teach them to use that instinct to go ahead and apply
20:46
the verb. And then if honestly, it doesn't
20:52
steer me wrong very often, is that probably the question
20:56
people listening to this are going to ask, How often are you
20:58
wrong when you anticipate that verb?
21:00
And not very often if, if this is the scope of meaning, maybe
21:06
the person wanted to be more on this side and I was more in the
21:09
middle when I guessed their verb.
21:11
But it's it's usually pretty accurate.
21:15
And if it's not you're you're doing your salami techniques.
21:19
So in the next section you can make it more clear.
21:22
You have the space to clarify the nuance in the next sentence.
21:28
And how do you judge for um Cagle?
21:33
Or in other words, like more formal Japanese.
21:36
So that's very interesting. Japanese has very a very
21:39
hierarchical structure to their society and so you address
21:44
people in different ways. Whereas the English I'm hearing
21:47
has 0 formality. Like I, I've sometimes gone into
21:52
a meeting where a president of a company isn't addressed by their
21:56
first name, which is a huge taboo in culturally by the
22:01
Americans who are speaking and they don't know it.
22:04
So that is an area especially in like those one-on-one
22:08
consecutive meetings where I have a good sense of the
22:14
hierarchy in the meeting. And I will apply the Cagle going
22:18
into. So I'll apply the formal
22:20
language on to the English that I'm hearing so that it's
22:24
respectful to the person who's receiving it.
22:26
Is that like, kind of like saying the sign at the end of
22:29
the name? Like, like I hear that a lot in
22:31
like for example, for car manufacturers, Japanese car
22:34
manufacturers, whenever they introduce the executive team or
22:38
whatever, it's always with the sign at the end.
22:40
It's similar, but it's not as simple as just applying thing to
22:45
the end of the name. There's also different verbs
22:47
that you use depending on the height of the person, the rank
22:53
of the person. Yeah, yeah.
22:56
I don't know about you, but I always just keep the sound in
22:59
French. Would you do that?
23:03
What do you mean? Like if someone is called I'm
23:07
not sure. Like they could say typical
23:08
Japanese name and then they add san at the end.
23:11
So let's say in English they introduce them as Yamamoto San.
23:14
Yeah. Yeah, are you going to keep the
23:16
sun in French? I have been but I don't know if
23:20
that's the right thing to do or not.
23:23
I've Well, yeah. Well, it's, I mean, let's say
23:30
Yamamoto Son. Ohg Yamamoto this.
23:33
This ohe. Hello.
23:34
This is Yamamoto Son coming to the stage to talk.
23:37
Yeah. I mean, it depends if someone
23:39
had said it. I guess so, yeah, I guess so.
23:44
It's for the listeners. Umm, yeah, yeah.
23:47
I I never thought about it in that way.
23:48
I was actually wondering a bit in the beginning, yeah.
23:52
The biggest the biggest problem is that there's no gender in
23:58
There's no gendered language in Japanese for the most part, and
24:01
so Yamamoto San could be female or male.
24:04
And to be honest, I tend to assume that they are male
24:12
because there's a tendency to use female first names, and I've
24:16
been wrong before, OK. So what do you mean?
24:20
I said Mr. Yamamoto, assuming that it was going to be a male
24:24
given the situation, the type of company, and it was actually a
24:28
female Yamamoto San. Sounds OK, so.
24:33
Misled my audience. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:35
Well, and then you catch up at the next sentence and.
24:39
There's also no plural in Japanese, so you can have, you
24:43
know, paper or papers and we have no ideas.
24:46
The interpreter you just kind of have to make some guesses.
24:50
A certain number of papers. Yeah, a certain number between 1
24:54
and 100. And another knows that.
24:58
Well, that makes it sound awfully secretive.
25:00
Yeah. Do you find sometimes in
25:04
Japanese they would speak a lot but say very little just because
25:11
of the formality of the language?
25:14
Because of that reason, Personally, I think I would find
25:19
going from Japanese to English or French simpler just because
25:25
of that, because sometimes they would go on with a bunch of
25:28
sounds that you know they're they're just there for formality
25:32
rather than meaning. Do you have the same idea?
25:37
It's almost harder for me because I know that those sounds
25:45
are taking up a lot of air and mean absolutely nothing to the
25:50
English speakers that are listening to them.
25:52
So I, I hate to create non meaning barring yeah output, but
26:01
that's what's being said. And there's also a lot of
26:04
repetition. For example, we can have a
26:06
discussion and then the moderator will say, OK, just to
26:11
confirm, this is everything that we just talked about.
26:15
We literally finished the discussion and now I'm going to
26:17
say everything all over again. Ah.
26:21
I feel like we do that some at some and some extent in French.
26:25
Like I, I feel like we like to hear each other speak a lot.
26:31
Yeah, I don't. Know no, but but the example,
26:34
but just to put you put the idea in in your mind.
26:36
Brian if for like if I say and he got though was I missed my if
26:42
I said Makoto was I must, you know, like think basically I
26:45
could say thank you very much, but it it it but in Japanese it
26:50
just sounds a lot longer. Yeah.
26:55
Right, right. And I could say, don't worry,
26:57
you got tacos. I must which will also be thank
26:59
you very much. So how would you translate?
27:01
How would you interpret that higher level in English when you
27:07
do your interpretation? I'd like to express my sincere
27:10
gratitude is more formal than OK.
27:13
Thank you very. Much.
27:14
OK. I'd like to express my sincere
27:17
gratitude. OK, Yeah.
27:18
So there are ways to become to be a lot more polite in English
27:21
too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes
27:24
sense because yeah, like one of the big things too is if if
27:26
someone isn't interpreting everything, then they think that
27:29
there's a problem with the interpretation.
27:31
So yeah, that. Yeah, that's where I was
27:33
heading. Yeah, yeah.
27:34
The reality of Japanese to English is that Japanese takes
27:38
more syllables to say the to convey the same meaning, which
27:42
is what Elaine is referring to. If you let's take hello for an
27:48
example, Konichiwa about 5 syllables, whereas hello or hi,
27:54
even greetings is only two, which is a rather formal hello.
27:59
So we're always going to be working a bit slower and maybe
28:07
with a little bit of filler when we're going from Japanese to
28:12
English, because it takes so much more time to say the same
28:15
thing. It's a it's a bit like a dubbing
28:20
for a movie. You don't want the lips to move
28:22
without having any sound. Right.
28:25
Now, how do you go the other way where you're doing in in
28:29
Japanese, you do the verb at the end.
28:31
But then what happens when you're listening to Japanese and
28:33
the verb comes in the end and then but you have to interpret
28:36
into English and the verb has to come much sooner.
28:39
How does How does that work? Well, that's what I was talking
28:42
about before. With anticipation, you
28:44
anticipate the verb you chunk, so that the verb you need here
28:49
is not necessarily the verb that applies to the whole sentence.
28:52
And. Sometimes you make mistakes,
28:56
that's part of the learning process, but you fix those in
28:59
the next section. OK.
29:02
Now I have another question in terms of like your, like your
29:05
client base, do you have some clients in the United States and
29:08
some clients in Japan and and so how do you deal with the time
29:13
change because it's a huge time change, right difference between
29:16
both? I don't do a lot of RSI
29:19
assignments on Japanese time. I'm on the East Coast in the US.
29:24
If it's my morning, then it's Japan's evening, and if it's my
29:29
evening it's Japan's morning. So I do some 2 to 4 hour events
29:33
that way. But there are times where I'll
29:37
work overnight just because I'm really interested in an event
29:40
and I can do an RSI. And then there are also
29:42
sometimes when I go to Japan to work events.
29:46
OK. And when you said that you don't
29:48
do many RSI, is it a matter of choice or is it because Japan
29:54
still does a lot of on-site events or accompanying groups or
29:58
things like that? Japan does a lot of, hmm,
30:08
smaller web conferences. So like a Zoom meeting, two
30:12
hours between two parties. That's very common.
30:16
And then having a Japanese language channel for a
30:23
international event is also very common.
30:26
But to have your interpreting the remotely provided for an
30:31
event in Japan is not that common.
30:34
I don't. They just didn't quite get it
30:36
during COVID and now it's over so they don't need to.
30:41
And if you have to travel to Japan, is it like the client is
30:44
requesting you to travel to Japan like they'll pay for
30:46
everything or? There are times where that is
30:51
the case. The number of interpreters is
30:54
declining, unfortunately, as people retire and new people
30:57
don't jump at the opportunity to become an interpreter.
31:01
Yeah, it's, I attribute it to the AI boom.
31:06
Everyone thinks that our jobs are going away and that there's
31:10
no future in this career. And they're not.
31:13
Boldly disagree. Yeah, we're on the, we're on the
31:18
same bandwagon on that, but. But because of that, there
31:22
aren't enough people getting to mastery of either language that
31:27
would even consider going into an interpreting program.
31:31
But what about, what about, let's say, interpretation in the
31:36
justice system or in hospitals where?
31:41
Well, I do have an experience actually with an interpreter in
31:44
Japan, and it was kind of a strange 1 I had surgery in Japan
31:50
seven years ago now because I had an unfortunate accident in
31:53
Kyoto. I needed knee surgery.
31:55
I mean, I tore A ligament and my Japanese just good enough to get
32:01
by and they wanted me to go to the hospital the day before to
32:05
do a bunch of health checks. And at the last meeting that
32:09
they, they scheduled, it was with an anaesthetic Dr. And then
32:16
they provided an interpreter to my surprise, without telling me,
32:21
but it was on an iPad. So I was there, the nurses were
32:27
there, the the anesthetic doctor called it, it was there.
32:32
And then there was an iPad, and then there was an interpreter,
32:36
and then she was supposed to do consecutive interpretation, but
32:41
she couldn't understand any of my questions in English.
32:43
So basically I just switched to Japanese and I said I'm sorry,
32:46
that's it, that's the way it is. And I just basically all did all
32:48
by myself. They were very kind to try to
32:50
provide it, but for the interpreter specially it was a
32:53
terrible experience I'm sure. Wow, that is tough.
32:58
Yeah. So there is a a need for that.
33:03
Actually there's. I read an article recently about
33:08
the a huge shortage of legal interpreters for court cases for
33:14
working with police. And they need not not just
33:17
English, because many of the foreigners have other that are
33:21
residing in Japan have other native languages.
33:23
And so they need more people who can converse between Japanese
33:28
and say I don't want to marginalized group language B.
33:35
And there's a lot of countries that are a lot closer than an
33:38
English speaking country to Japan.
33:40
So yeah, there would be a lot more immigrants from those
33:43
countries too, right? And they just don't have the
33:45
resources but. Some just relay.
33:49
Sorry, but the relay must be more common then.
33:53
Um, hmm. Nobody thought.
34:00
About it, good question, I I don't know if anyone thinks
34:03
about. Was.
34:04
Discovered a new market. Let's say Malaysian to English,
34:07
English to Japanese. If you're not a trained
34:10
conference interpreter, have you ever heard of Relay?
34:13
Like, do you know how to set that up?
34:15
Would you think of that? So it's a different world, but I
34:20
I would imagine there's some of that that happens.
34:23
It's an unexplored market and. Yeah.
34:25
So are you guys, Brian? Unfortunately, community
34:30
interpreting is often volunteer if not low paid in Japan.
34:37
Well, that's located in Canada too, for unfortunate community,
34:41
yeah. Do you know anything about
34:44
access to justice and language in Japan?
34:48
That's a very good question. If you don't know.
34:52
We can just I don't, I don't have enough information to
34:56
provide a comprehensive answer, but I know that interpreters are
35:01
provided in court cases. OK, at least there's that.
35:06
Yeah, I, I'm sure that, I mean, I'm sure that in Japan in the
35:09
next few years, language needs are gonna boom in Japan because
35:14
Japan maybe it's a surprise to a lot of people, but Japan is
35:19
starting to open up to the world in terms of immigration because
35:23
so many people are either moving there or more tourism or all
35:27
kinds of situations right now, right, Right.
35:30
And then need workers and they're bringing some people
35:32
from abroad. So I'm sure that there will be a
35:35
lot of need for language services.
35:37
And I think that is Japan on the same boat as Canada in terms of
35:41
the aging population where we need, they need a a young
35:43
workforce. That's exactly right.
35:46
They have much worse history of manufacturing of lots of
35:51
beautiful artisan techniques and no one to carry them on, no one
35:56
to do the manual labour, do the learning.
36:00
And so they're trying out all kinds of programs because
36:04
they're population is aging and shrinking.
36:09
Yeah, Japan is losing about a million people a year basically
36:13
on average and they were at their peak at 127 million and
36:19
just a rough estimates would be like 85,000,000 by 2050 or
36:23
something like that. So they're gonna lose a 10s of
36:25
millions of people. Unless they do something today,
36:28
yeah, which will require immigration, which will require
36:31
interpreters. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
36:35
Which which would require Atlanta Open a company that does
36:38
Malaysian to English and then English to Japanese.
36:41
You know, everything is falling into place here.
36:45
I'm basically checking for the future right now.
36:50
I'm preparing my return, of course.
36:53
Yeah. Wow.
36:55
That is, that is really, really interesting.
36:57
And you must have had sometimes some very awkward situations,
37:02
you know, or surprising situations, you know, like for
37:05
different. Let me, let me put it this way.
37:08
Sometimes when we're interpreting, there are some
37:12
cultural differences and they're accentuated with Japanese
37:17
culture because Japanese culture and let's say North American,
37:22
let's say, or North American culture is can be, can there can
37:26
be a divide. And when people are meeting,
37:30
let's say at a company or you're doing a tour or something and
37:35
Americans, let's say tend to be very casual and Japanese tend to
37:38
be a bit more reserved not to. And I'm guessing that the
37:45
interpreter must sometimes act as a mediator for cultures as
37:49
well. There must be that aspect for
37:51
you guys. There are definitely times where
37:53
that happens, but I feel like over my career, so the last 15
37:58
years, it's changed a lot because of globalization,
38:02
because we are increasingly connected with each other on
38:07
Zoom, on social media. And when say a 60 year old man
38:16
10 years ago came to the US for the first time, he had a lot of
38:21
culture shock. Where is that say, well, not
38:24
that same 60 year old man? Because now that man is 70 and
38:28
he's retired. And then a 60 year old man today
38:31
comes to Japan. He's apologies to the US.
38:34
He has more of a familiarity. He knows more of what to expect.
38:39
And so while there are huge cultural faux pas that my
38:45
American clients are constantly making and I I try to only bring
38:53
them up if I've been asked or if it's impeding communication.
39:00
It was it be like more like English speaking people towards
39:04
Japanese speaking in person or the other way around?
39:08
Is there one that's more prevalent than the other?
39:09
That's a good question. So the English speaking clients
39:15
are more likely to commit cultural faux pas.
39:18
The Japanese clients are more likely to speak in a vague way
39:23
or use ah, a communication pattern that doesn't fit what
39:31
the English speakers are used to.
39:32
So even if it's delivered in English, it sounds noncommittal,
39:38
or it sounds like a decision has reached when it really hasn't
39:44
been. Yeah, I feel that for my for my
39:48
years in Japan, I always felt that Japanese people never say
39:52
no, although they say no. Right.
39:55
There, there won't be an explicit no, yes or no.
39:58
It'll be and the the no in Japan is more like maybe.
40:02
So if if Japanese people say maybe, it means no.
40:05
Or we'll look into. That yeah, we'll look.
40:07
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we'll definitely consider
40:09
that. We'll, we'll get back to you,
40:11
yeah. So so.
40:13
I'll I'll call you next week. There are times.
40:16
I'll call you. I'll call.
40:17
You, there are times when I will pull my client aside and say,
40:20
hey, just so you know, that's not what that means.
40:23
We're not really looking into that.
40:25
And but most of the time it's very hard.
40:31
You have to let people communicate the way they want
40:33
to. Your Japanese client could have
40:35
had a reason for being vague. They want to leave the door open
40:39
to make some decision later, or they need to build consensus
40:43
when they go back to their parent company and then they'll
40:46
figure it all out and they'll come up with a solution.
40:50
But hmm, you can never take over the communication.
40:56
Yeah, cause it could be somebody who doesn't have the authority
40:58
to say yes or no. So if they're just being vague,
41:01
maybe they're just, you know, waiting to speak to the person
41:03
who does have that ability. Right.
41:06
Yeah. Now I have a question, this is
41:10
just in my head as an assumption, but I just wanted to
41:12
confirm. If you're, uh, interpreting the
41:14
United States, it's usually people who come from Japan.
41:17
And if you're interpreting Japan, is it strictly people
41:21
claiming from the US or is it other English speaking countries
41:24
as well? Oh, lots of other English
41:26
speaking countries. So the interesting thing about
41:31
working in the US as a non as in a English B Japanese interpreter
41:38
is that I was constantly working into my B language because the
41:44
majority of what I did was a bunch of Americans are having a
41:47
meeting and the Japanese want to hear what's going on.
41:51
But in Japan it was almost the opposite.
41:54
Like there was a, there were a lot of large events where I had
41:58
no idea what name, what country the English speakers were from.
42:05
Or there would be ones where I was working for the Indian
42:11
embassy from Japanese to English or the Australian Commerce, What
42:19
are those? Chamber of Commerce or something
42:21
like that. And so it'd it'd be nice if they
42:25
could get an Australian English native, but you can't always
42:29
pick and choose what interpreter you can get for any given event.
42:33
Yeah, absolutely. I have a question.
42:36
I heard that Japanese people don't often do 30 minutes in the
42:41
booth. They switch, they do much
42:44
shorter turns. Is that true?
42:46
15 minutes is standard. 15. Yeah, wow.
42:51
And we often have three or sometimes 4 interpreters going
42:56
through the booth. Oh, OK, so you have a team of
43:00
four for for a full day? The most I've had is 4 and it
43:04
was a highly technical conference, so I was on for 15
43:08
minutes and then I went off and I was back on 45 minutes later
43:14
because there were so many partners to go through.
43:17
And we've been doing this all wrong, Ella.
43:19
Yeah, yeah. I, I, I'm one of my friends who,
43:27
who's also who also speak Japanese, started, uh, recently
43:30
doing interpretation between English and Japanese.
43:33
And he told me one time his booth partner wanted to do, I
43:39
think it was a 10 minute after dinner and he was kind of
43:43
surprised. I was like 10.
43:44
That's quite short. Might have been a new
43:47
interpreter. OK.
43:49
I've never had anyone ask for 10, but 15 is standard.
43:52
OK, OK, well for us it's 30 minutes because you know you
43:57
want to give your booth partner some time to get some coffee, to
44:00
go to the restroom, to make 3 phone calls and answer for
44:03
emails. So that's how long that takes
44:06
got. It exactly to the minute.
44:08
No, that's that's interesting because the UN research that
44:15
people often refer to to suggest that we should take turns and
44:21
that set all of their restrictions.
44:23
I thought it was after 20 minutes you start to lose
44:27
concentration and make mistakes. Yeah.
44:30
But yeah, I think you're right. I mean, I've had a really tough
44:34
time actually trying to find a lot of this research that is
44:38
that people keep referring to. I'm like I keep on.
44:41
Looking I will send it to you. Awesome, thank you.
44:43
That's what I was getting too. I'm like.
44:46
I know exactly where it is. Not saying I'll get back to you.
44:50
So I know you will. I know exactly which book I read
44:54
it in. This is being recorded, but the,
44:59
but The thing is, I think that of course, I don't know.
45:04
I mean, I, I'd like to read the research because it must depend
45:07
on the level of technicality. There are, let's say I'm doing
45:11
some conversation for some, OK, I'm not saying it's easy, but
45:16
let's say a union meeting versus let's say a medical conference.
45:21
Of course the medical conference, we might want to do
45:23
20 minutes. But if it's a meeting and people
45:26
are just basically chatting about certain things, that's why
45:29
I said then it there's nothing technical about it besides
45:32
besides a few acronyms. 20 minutes would be, you know, no,
45:38
but at least no one that I know in this market would want to do
45:42
a 20 minute. I don't know if like as a
45:47
business owner, I think you'll be very difficult for me to find
45:50
a team of two that would be willing to do like a full day
45:52
and say engineering or something like that.
45:55
Like that would be, I think like, yeah, 3, three people in a
45:59
booth, 20 minutes each. That would be pretty good for
46:02
especially like, yeah, the very specific engineering, medical,
46:06
legal. Yeah.
46:08
There's a. There's some fields where you're
46:09
just like. You need that extra little break
46:12
so you could do a good job. Because The thing is, it's not
46:16
about only about the 20. Like if you do interpreting for
46:19
20 minutes and let's say the last 10 minutes, you're more
46:24
likely to make certain mistakes that you would not have done in
46:26
the 1st 5 minutes. I think that sometimes in the
46:30
1st 5 minutes you may make more mistakes because you're actually
46:33
not warmed up. And if your break is not long
46:36
enough, you might feel actually quite tired when you come back.
46:39
So you kind of also need to like, I appreciate the 30 or one
46:44
hour break. Personally, if I, if let's say
46:47
we're 3 interpreters for a whole day, I get a one hour break plus
46:51
the breaks that are already in the in the in the conference.
46:54
So I think that I'm actually performing better than not only
46:59
if the interpreting is shorter, but actually if the break is
47:02
longer. That should have an impact.
47:06
I find it a lot better too. And we're 32 because there's
47:09
always like an extra person in the booth and then one person
47:12
can actually go on a on a physical breaker and leave if
47:16
they have to, right. Like I find that when, when
47:19
there's three of us, it's such a better working atmosphere in
47:23
general. Now, whether clients want to pay
47:25
for three interpreters or not or 4 interpreters, that's the
47:28
difference the date altogether. But but yeah, no, I think that
47:33
it like, yeah, I would love to if you could send me that
47:35
material. That would be, of course.
47:37
Thank you. I would I would be very
47:39
interested to do some experiments and see if you know
47:44
a 15 minute session is chosen for Japanese and English because
47:49
the languages are so different and maybe concentration is
47:52
higher. I would suspect that.
47:54
Hmm, because you guys were likening it to German, right?
47:58
Like where the verb comes last, but maybe a little even more
48:01
difficult. It's more than just the verb,
48:04
it's just the way it's I. I would even say that the way
48:13
thoughts are built is different you culturally when it comes to
48:20
the level of language. And the level of language is way
48:22
beyond what we have in French with let's say the polite form.
48:25
It's literally a different sounding word depending on the
48:31
ranking of the person you're talking to.
48:34
So it makes it at a certain level a very even a different
48:38
sounding language in no way you know, because of that.
48:42
And I think that all of that is very heavy and when it comes to
48:46
mental load, so that's why I would say after let's say 3
48:51
interpreters, 15 minutes each, you get 1/2 an hour break for 15
48:55
minutes of work. That seems logical.
48:57
If it's only two interpreters, 15 minutes each, you don't
49:00
really get a break, and I understand why.
49:04
Then you would have a 15 minute turns.
49:09
Hmm. With that problem with that, go
49:12
with that. Sound logical?
49:14
It does, but I would have to see some sort of, you know,
49:19
research, test research to to prove it out.
49:22
But it does make sense. Now, how do people find you?
49:26
Like is there a Japanese association of interpreters and
49:29
translators? There is.
49:31
So I'm a member and a former board director for the Japan
49:37
Association of Translators, which is a mix of translation
49:40
and interpreting and then kind of like the ATA or FIT.
49:45
And then there's the Japan Association of Conference
49:49
Interpreters, which is only, I don't know, maybe 10 years old.
49:53
It's a pretty new organization. And they also have a
49:57
certification system similar to IQ where you get recommended by
50:01
people you've been in the booth with and you so they have
50:05
certified and non certified members.
50:07
And then gosh, where do people find me?
50:12
I don't it's a lot of. Recommendations.
50:14
Podcast on this podcast. Yes.
50:16
Is it a lot of word to mouth like with colleagues?
50:18
Yeah, it's a lot of, hey, I can't take this job, can you?
50:22
The Grins Academy that I've mentioned already on this show,
50:26
but I'm going to mention it again, is a huge network because
50:30
it's all aspiring interpreters or people who want to keep their
50:33
skills up and are professionals. It's a big mix of people and we
50:37
share lots of work with each other.
50:39
So let's say I I I get I start studying Japanese again and I
50:45
sharpen my skills as an experienced interpreter.
50:49
French and English, could I attend?
50:51
A great grin grin. You said grins.
50:53
Grins Academy Grins Academy in order to kick start my career as
51:01
a Japanese English interpreter. Yes.
51:03
And actually we have a practice group for Japanese French as
51:06
well. So it's a great opportunity,
51:12
especially with Middlebury's going away.
51:17
Have you heard that, that they're just continuing their
51:21
program? So I think that's gonna make the
51:25
need for interpreting online schools, interpreting practice
51:29
groups, alternative training all the more necessary.
51:35
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, that's you're losing
51:38
like a big think tank basically of interpretation, yeah.
51:42
And especially when the number when the I was reading The
51:45
Economist a few days ago and they say that surprisingly, the
51:52
need for interpreters has risen by 7% last year.
51:59
What we haven't decided to write AI yet?
52:03
No, actually AI is actually creating more work.
52:07
Maybe because it can't do the job and people think it can, I
52:09
don't know. I took a picture at a conference
52:13
recently. I no confidential information
52:17
but it's just of a loading circle on a video that someone
52:21
was trying to show just loading and I'm like This is why I still
52:26
have. This is one of the reasons why I
52:27
still have a job. Yeah, I know.
52:30
I I don't trust my GPS to get me from point A to point B so.
52:34
Well if I have some Roku gin then that I'm having that wheel
52:37
though after after a little while.
52:38
Now, so I witnessed that. Going back to your question,
52:42
Grins is a great place. There's also EJ Expert.
52:44
They have an online training program where she the, I don't
52:51
know, teacher, owner, operator is based out of California, so
52:56
she has a lot of ties in Silicon Valley.
52:58
She also has her own agency, as well as being an interpreter
53:01
yourself. So they have a great school,
53:03
great practice groups. And then if you wanted to go to
53:06
Japan, you would have lots of options like Simul Academy,
53:10
which is one of the biggest interpreting schools with their
53:13
own agency attached, because everyone wants to create your
53:16
own interpreters and then farm them out to people who need
53:20
them. And then I assess.
53:23
And yeah, if you just look at interpreting schools in
53:28
Japanese, there's a lot of places that are still teaching
53:32
and still have very active, thriving programs.
53:35
But overall, the numbers are just dropping like it's
53:42
unfortunate. Well, I maybe means more work
53:46
for us. It does, but I I would.
53:49
Opportunities it's but it's the same thing everywhere right now
53:53
I mean they say like young people today have a lot more
53:57
work opportunities than we did in our I mean we did I mean I'm
54:01
47 now so after. My day.
54:04
Back in my back in my day, I there was not a lot of work.
54:08
Unemployment in Canada is at 12% and and interest rates were at
54:12
20. But true.
54:16
But then, then what happened? I mean, now kids nowadays have a
54:22
lot of opportunities. You wanna be a pilot?
54:23
Oh, there's a shortage of pilots.
54:25
You wanna be a plumber? There's a shortage of plumbers.
54:27
There's a shortage of everything right now.
54:29
So. The trades.
54:32
Yeah, I guess there's not enough people in the world.
54:40
All right, Elaine says. We need to go make more people
54:42
got. It.
54:43
Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.
54:45
More people, less robots. Alright, so thank you so much
54:52
Allison for coming to this podcast because honestly, I was
54:59
looking for a long time for someone who would come to talk
55:02
to us about the Japanese market. And a lot of the Japanese people
55:06
that are reached out to were they were either really shy or I
55:11
don't know, not so on to the idea.
55:16
To any Japanese out there listening, I'll be in Tokyo in
55:21
January. I'll be there for a month and
55:24
I'd like to meet some interpreters when I'm out there.
55:28
I'm sending the word already, so and we'll keep in touch Allison
55:34
and. I'll hook you up.
55:36
No. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
55:37
Thank you. I'm not going to Tokyo, but if
55:39
anybody wants to talk to me, I'm here too, so.
55:42
Why don't you call Brian? I know you already did extended
55:46
the invite, I'm thinking. About Toronto to You know, Tokyo
55:49
is a direct. Flight.
55:50
Oh yeah, that's not bad. Yeah, there.
55:52
You just watched 3 movies or two of Christopher Nolan ones and
55:56
then you're OK. Yeah, exactly.
55:59
So true. All right, everyone.
56:04
So thank you so much everyone. Like share, subscribe please.
56:10
It really helps us out and we'll meet each other again, alright?
56:14
Thank you so much, Allison guys.