Three Basic Skills of Interpretation-Iron Mouth, Rubber Belly and Scud

At first glance, some students may find this title funny. What does this mean? Isn't the basic skill of interpretation just listening, thinking and speaking? How do you call it "iron mouth rubber belly Scud"? Hehe, in fact, the students are right. The basic skills of interpretation are listening, thinking and speaking. The basic skills I want to talk about here are mainly from the perspective of professional interpretation, and also my own experience and experience in interpreting and simultaneous interpretation for more than 20 years. Let me explain what these three basic skills mean respectively.

The first is the "iron mouth". Everyone should understand what this means. Listening is the basis of interpretation, and it is the key to process the information on the basis of understanding what the speaker says, which is what we usually call "thinking". Then, after understanding and thinking clearly, translating the speaker's meaning into the target language is the last and most important step. Maybe some students will say: Now that you understand, you should remember. You should understand, it's very simple, and there's nothing to say. It's not that simple. It often happens when we interpret, that is, we understand and remember, but we just can't say it. Sometimes this situation is not caused by the translator's own level, but by various reasons. There are several reasons for this:

First, the understanding of the target language is not enough. For example, in English translation, sometimes we can clearly understand what foreigners say, but we just can't find a suitable expression when translating into Chinese. Another situation is that every English word is the most common, but we don't know how to express it in Chinese. For example: the world fears time, and the pyramid of time fears. Translated into Chinese, it means that time can change the world, but not the pyramid. (Only the pyramid is eternal), I asked my classmates this sentence in class, which I hardly knew.

Second, the speaker let slip. As long as you open your mouth, you will inevitably make a slip of the tongue. There are two kinds of slips of the tongue. One is obvious. For example, a leader has made a mistake in describing "a mayor" as "a governor". For example, the capital of China is "Shanghai" and other common sense mistakes. When we encounter these slips of the tongue, we usually realize that it is a slip of the tongue immediately, and then we will correct it in translation to avoid jokes. However, there is another kind of slip of the tongue that is deeply hidden. For example, "it's an honor to meet you" and "it's a great pressure to meet you" are a word difference, but the meaning is just the opposite. If you don't pay attention to translation, you will have a big problem.

Third, excessive fatigue. As everyone who has done interpretation knows, in fact, interpretation is very hard, with a high concentration for a long time, constant switching between two languages and constant talking. Especially simultaneous interpretation, I can't speak it for half an hour. Even though I was awake and could understand what the speaker said, my mouth just couldn't open, reaching the limit of my body.

Of course, there are many other reasons, so I won't mention them one by one. In a word, it is not easy to build an iron mouth, which requires constant experience accumulation.

Let's talk about this "rubber belly" first. When I was giving a class to my classmates and talking about banquets, my classmates all smiled and asked me, "Teacher Tao, you must have tasted a lot of delicious food when you attended so many government-sponsored banquets?" It is normal for students to have this idea, but my colleagues who have worked as banquet interpreters will definitely feel the same way: where do you have time to eat? ! As soon as the dishes here are served, the waiter explains the name, how to cook, taste characteristics and so on. At this time, the leader is tasting this dish with the foreign guests, but the foreign guests don't understand it. We have to be translators, and we don't even have time to eat when translating. Finally, when the leaders and foreign guests finished tasting this dish and we were about to eat it, the leaders there said, "What's your impression of Beijing this time?" How do you feel about climbing the Great Wall today? Are you used to life? "(the occasion of eating is generally not very formal, and the atmosphere is relatively relaxed, so there are more topics. The foreign guests couldn't understand the leader's speech. You can't say "wait a minute, I'll have a bite first". You have to put down your chopsticks and start translating at once. Then the foreign guests speak and have to translate. A few words later, the next dish came up, and a new round of translation began. Basically, you can't eat a few bites after a meal. I told the students: "I have seen the state banquet in the Great Hall of the People many times, but I just didn't have a chance to eat it. I don't want to eat it. I really don't have time to eat. " The student asked, "What should I do? Aren't you hungry without eating? " I replied, "I'm hungry. I can't help it, so I have to endure it." When the party is over and we go back to the hotel to eat instant noodles, we will already have a pair of rubber bellies, haha. "Having said that, it was too much for a long time, so we had more stomach problems as interpreters.

The last item is called "Scud". This is the general quality that an interpreter should have as an accompanying translator. What we are most afraid of as translators is to accompany the leaders to visit abroad. Many students say that going abroad is beautiful and fun. Foreign leaders are fun, and our translation will suffer. After getting off the plane, the leader asked, "Xiao Tao, where is my luggage?" "Please rest assured, I promise that the luggage will appear in front of the leader in 10 minutes." Then I spread my legs to get the luggage of the leader (the leader has a lot of luggage abroad). If you change planes, it will be even more troublesome. Those bags will kill you. As I mentioned earlier, one of the occupational diseases in our translation is stomach trouble. In fact, we also have an occupational disease-scapulohumeral periarthritis, which was brought up by luggage belt. In a foreign country, leaders don't understand foreign languages, and they have to translate everything, even buying toothpaste. If they don't have a pair of "flying legs", they may not be qualified for this job.

The above is my experience in interpretation and simultaneous interpretation for more than 20 years, hoping to inspire young people who are interested in interpretation.