Professor Minhua Liu co-edited a book that was just published called Aptitude for Interpreting. Here is a description of the book:

“First published as a Special Issue of Interpreting (issue 10:1, 2011) and complemented with two articles published in Interpreting issue 16:1, 2014, this volume provides a
comprehensive view of the challenge of identifying and measuring aptitude for interpreting. Following a broad review of the existing literature, the array of eight empirical papers
captures the multiple dimensions of aptitude, from personality traits and soft skills such as motivation, anxiety and learning styles to aspects of cognitive performance. The
populations studied, with experimental as well as survey research designs, include students and professionals of sign language interpreting as well as spoken-language interpreting, and valuable synergies emerge. While pointing to the need for much further work, the papers brought together in this volume clearly represent the cutting edge of research into aptitude for interpreting, and should prove a milestone on the way toward supplying educators with reliable methods for testing applicants to interpreter training programs.”

Congratulations Professor Liu!

Language Learning Beyond the Classroom is a new book of case studies edited by David Nunan and Jack Richards that focuses on how successful language learners are actively engaging language outside of academic settings. Published by Routledge, this volume touches on five broad topics: Involving the learner in out-of-class learning, Using technology and the internet, Learning through television, Out-of-class projects, and Interacting with native speakers. It includes contributions from MIIS alumni as well as current and former faculty including: Kathi Bailey, Kelly Calvert, Dave Chiesa, Akihiko Sasaki, Jennifer Grode, and Jodee Walters.

The word for “Constitutionally” in Japanese is 憲法上, which takes up half as much space. Japanese is usually a space-efficient language. That doesn’t mean it’s easier when we interpret, though!

Tomoko Yokoshima and Ayaka Kumazawa will be the Japanese interpreters for Fall Forum 2014.

The linguistic distance between Japanese and English sets a extremely high bar for interpreters.

Having developed on islands at the eastern and western ends of Eurasia, Japanese and English are probably two of the least similar languages in the world.

This leads to challenges on multiple levels for interpreters and students of interpretation. These challenges include:

1. On a basic level, it is a huge challenge to be proficient in both Japanese and English.

2. Number conversion is ridiculously difficult.  1 billion becomes 10×100 million in Japanese. What the heck!

3. Sentence structure and order is quite different between the two languages. In fact, simultaneous interpretation between Japanese and English was considered to be impossible 60 years ago when the Tokyo Tribunal was held.

See who’s coming to the Fall Forum here.

Second-year interpreter Liu Chang took fifthplace at the 5th Cross-Strait Consecutive Interpreting Competition which was held on October 19th at Xiamen University in Xiamen, Fujian Province, PRC. Ms. Liu was in competition with 25 talented student interpreters from the major Chinese translation and interpreting programs at universities in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the U.S., and the U.K. There were three categories of consecutive interpreting covered: gist, conference, and dialogue.

Please join us in congratulating Liu Chang on her achievement! For more information, please visit http://www.xiadakouyi.com/dasai-update.htm (site in Chinese).

We sat down with Liu Chang to ask her a few questions about her experience:

Q: How was it? Was it intense?

C: Yes, of course. It was quite different from what we did in class. I was interpreting in front of several hundred students, most of whom were trained to be interpreters. And you know you were judged for every word you said.

Q: Do you find your training here at MIIS helpful to your performance?

C: Of course! Both during the dialogue, which was both into English and Chinese, and the speech, which was into Chinese only. These are the skills that I’ve been practicing at MIIS, so they were quite helpful. After the contest, I had people from the audience, mostly students, approaching me, saying how much they’d enjoyed my performance. That’s quite encouraging!

Being a student at MIIS already gives you a lot of advantages: professional training, star professors/practitioners, and an immersive learning environment, which is critical for any language learner. For example, I saw competitors with great skills but who struggled with their languages, both Chinese and English. So definitely, being a MIIS student is at a great advantage. There were contestants coming to me, asking about my study here and how to apply. It made me feel proud as one of the MIIS mafia. MIIS is highly regarded in Chinese interpreting circles.

Q: Fall forum is coming. Do you feel more comfortable interpreting for a large audience?

C: I was there last year. The format and the scale was similar to the contest that I was in. The challenge is also the same: you are interpreting in front of a bilingual audience. If you get something wrong, you will know it right away because you can hear murmuring coming from the audience. Really, if you can pull if off, you are ready for anything. There are as many professionals watching your performance as you would ever expect to have. That being said, it can also be encouraging. As most of them understand both languages and our profession, you know they appreciate your effort. So fall forum is a great opportunity to show what we’ve got.

Q: Anything you’d like to say to our potential audience?

C: Come and join us! Watch our performance and see how far we have come within just one year.

Congratulations again, Liu Chang! You made us all proud!

Six second-year interpretation students in Spanish program perform the art of interpretation at Fall Forum on one of the most important challenges of our time: Water.

Martina Kinkle, Erin Teske, Alison Woods, Mariano De Anton, Deepti Limaye, & Omkar Kalaskar (from left to right)

Spanish interpreters are constantly challenged:

Taking out the fluff. Formal speeches in Spanish tend to use more flowery language, whereas English is generally more succinct. When interpreting, this can make your job easier, because you can interpret a message using fewer words, or more difficult, since it might take more effort to actually decipher the speaker’s message.

Careful with those false cognates! Spanish and English share many words that are spelled and pronounced similarly, but which have very different meanings. For example, if you say you’re ’embarazada’, it actually means you’re pregnant, not embarrassed. Although this is a very basic example, false cognates can be tricky in more formal discourse as well.

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