Mandarin Mashup July 20, 2012
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- The language instinct - China Daily
Chinese to English interpreters are bridging the linguistic divide and ensuring clarity of meaning. Zhang Yuchen reports from Beijing.
If you live in China, you're likely to have encountered any number of expats who speak reasonable Mandarin Chinese. You may even know some who, to all intents and purposes, are fluent in the language.
However, there's one group you may not have noticed unless you've attended a high-profile conference or major event: Soberly dressed and almost invisible behind the speakers or in a corner of a conference room, they are the professional interpreters who provide simultaneous interpretation from Chinese into English - or possibly a variety of languages - and back again.
This small group seldom makes an impression on the audience, but their work is invaluable in bridging linguistic and cultural divides. They are highly trained and in great demand.
Andrew C. Dawrant is a professional Chinese-English interpreter with more than 15 years experience at international level. The Canadian has been an active member of the International Association of Conference Interpreters since 1999. Provided to China Daily
One of these "invisible people" is Andrew C. Dawrant, who has won wide renown in his chosen field. The Canadian national has provided his skills to CEOs, Nobel Prize winners and politicians, the high point being his work at former US president George W. Bush's speech at Tsinghua University when he visited China in 2002.
Dawrant is a conference interpreter, although that title doesn't really explain the depth of his brief. He provides simultaneous interpretation - not translation, a term used mainly for work on printed documents - at conferences, media briefings, corporate events and even in international courts.
"It is called conference interpretation because of the history of the profession," said Dawrant, referring to the early days of the profession at the end of the 19th century, when large international conferences first came into being. Nowadays, the interpreter's skill is widely used by organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union, and at meetings between heads of state and intergovernmental bodies. However, in general, most interpreters now work in the private sector for multinational companies and similar organizations.
One of the major skills is mastery of pronunciation. When Dawrant speaks in Mandarin, many of those listening would be hard pushed to believe he is not a native speaker. As such, he is one of a small group whose language skills are good enough to move flawlessly between Mandarin and English and qualify as a conference interpreter.
"I think there is a huge gap between what interpretation schools can deliver and what can really succeed in the demanding Chinese market. Every year I meet only a small number of students who are good enough to make it," he said.
Demanding market
The International Association of Conference Interpreters, known officially by its French acronym AIIC, was founded in 1953 and is the only global association of international interpreters. The association encompasses 3,000 professionals in more than 250 cities and 90 countries who are bound by a strict code of ethics and professional standards. Applicants are judged by their peers, who sponsor their entry to ensure that standards remain high.
AIIC currently has roughly 110 interpreters across the globe specializing in Chinese as a working language. A dozen years ago - when Dawrant joined the association as a freelance - the number was only about 20.
Tom Peart, an official interpreter for the Delegation of the European Union to China, who also manages the interpreters' budget, said that two years ago he spent 319 days in Beijing working for the EU. Some of the meetings required the use of two or three interpreters, so he hired a number of freelances to help with these high-level meetings.
"China is one of the world's fastest growing markets for international conferences and high-profile international events," said Martine Bonadona, president of Calliope Interpreters, a leading global network of professional interpreters that has just announced its official entry into China.
At present, 10 foreign interpreters are fully active on the Chinese mainland, but the six freelances among them are usually hired for multinational events, according to Peart.
"We don't discriminate in terms of nationality," he said. "It is simply about ability and experience. We have hired freelance interpreters from the United States, Canada and the EU region, but we also have some excellent native Chinese interpreters."
In many Western countries, the traditional direction of interpretation is from a foreign language into the mother tongue, according to Wang Enmian, chair of the Center for Translation Studies at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, when interviewed by the Translators Association of China.
"If you compare Chinese, Arabic, Japanese and Korean with European languages such as French, Spanish, English, Italian and German, it is really unfair to say that foreign interpreters are more skillful than native interpreters," said Dawrant.
That's because in the major European languages it is very easy for interpreter training schools to recruit students who are bilingual or very close to being bilingual. There is a huge pool of candidates from which these schools can choose: Many have grown up speaking two languages, have lived in foreign countries for extended periods of time, or have parents who speak different languages. That's a common situation in Europe, according to the experts.
However, the situation in China is totally different, as it is in South Korea, Japan and other Asian countries. It is very difficult to find people who are truly bilingual, native sounding and articulate.
"Interpretation from Chinese, Japanese and Korean is mostly conducted by native speakers, who have learned an international language such as English at school. These are not languages they have grown up with.
"It's often because Chinese foreign-language graduates rarely have the opportunity to live and study overseas," said Daniel Glon, an AIIC member who lives in China and interprets from English, Spanish and German into French. Glon decided to move to China after working at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 and is currently learning Mandarin.
- Korach says district will not be ready to implement Mandarin immersion until 2014 - Portland Tribune
School board pushes back, asks for room to work on program
West Linn schools are taking a step toward giving students at three elementary schools basic proficiency in Mandarin Chinese, but because of limited resources, Lake Oswego Superintendent Bill Korach is suggesting that a Mandarin immersion program in Lake Oswego remain on the back burner for now.
West Linn schools will have two native-speaking Mandarin teachers instruct students once a week through its new world language program, which aims to bring a basic foreign language proficiency to all of its students by the time they reach middle school. Classroom teachers will introduce the language through music, poems, chants, books and digital materials. In grades 2-5, the classroom teachers will also use Rosetta Stone curriculum to learn the language together with the students.
Three of its schools will have Spanish as the target language, and one of those schools will also host a Spanish immersion program, which will provide instruction mostly in Spanish.
Korach explained to the Lake Oswego School Board last week that his administrative staff just doesn't have the bandwidth to work on a Mandarin program next year. This would delay any implementation of a Mandarin immersion program until 2014.
The school district would instead focus on structuring a K-5 Spanish immersion program, which is moving forward this year with first- and second-grade classes for the first time.
Lake Oswego School Board member Linda Brown asked if the agenda-setting document could still be written to say the more general term of "immersion" rather than limiting it to Spanish only.
"This list is already possibly beyond what we are capable of," Korach said. "I propose doing Mandarin in the following year. I just want you to be real realistic about what this is going to take."
The school district will also face changes to core standards and teacher evaluations being handed down from the state as a part of the No Child Left Behind waiver process. This will take up much of the administrators' time, Korach said.
"I think it's important that we look seriously at adding it, (but) the timing is wrong. . . . We need the time to do it and focus on that," he said.
Board member Bob Barman pushed for a change in the number of administrative staff, so that more time can be spent on Mandarin. "You have cut yourself over time to the bone and it affects the classroom ... when you can't add curriculum, when you can't add programs because we don't have the staff," he said.
The school board has deferred both Mandarin and Spanish programs in the past because of either lack of resources or interest.
Last year it declined carrying its Spanish immersion kindergarteners into first grade, while its Mandarin pre-K program has never been offered past kindergarten because of low enrollment.
Language immersion parent advocate Sarah Howell has said in the past that the lack of interest in Mandarin was simply the result of parents wanting a full K-5 program before they commit to the school district's offerings.
Earlier this year, the school board committed to a K-5 immersion program and had intended to have administrative staff study its options further during the 2012-2013 school year.
This spring, Korach had suggested holding on starting a Mandarin immersion program for the 2012 year, but the board seemed surprised that the staff was looking at a 2014 implementation for Mandarin.
"I am not in any way suggesting that going for a Mandarin program is off the table, but it is more complex and has more challenges. Spanish language we can address and do it well," Korach told the board in January.
Mayor Jack Hoffman lent his support to the language immersion program by introducing Meiru Liu, director of the Confucius Institute at Portland State University, at that January meeting.
The Mandarin teachers coming to West Linn were secured with the help of the Confucius Institute.
Hoffman, whose wife Agnes works at PSU as a vice provost in Enrollment Management & Student Affairs, took a trip with his wife to China in December where he was able to observe the effect of the Confucius Institute. The Confucius Institute has 350 programs in 100 countries with more than 500 classrooms.
Through a partnership with the Confucius Institute and the Chinese government, K-12 schools are eligible for financial support as well as support in finding Mandarin teachers. The Confucius Institute provides graduate-level training at PSU through a matching grant and helps Chinese teachers to apply for their Chinese language endorsement at the secondary level with the state of Oregon.
The institute has also helped to establish 13 Chinese secondary classrooms in Oregon since it started in 2007, even helping to provide textbooks and materials to start a Chinese language library.
At the meeting, school board members expressed an interest in learning more about the Confucius Institute as it looks at the option of adding Mandarin immersion in the future.
Lake Oswego did apply for help from the institute with hiring a high school teacher last year, but the district ended up finding its own. Administrators have also visited Woodstock Elementary School in Southeast Portland, which is the state's only public Mandarin immersion elementary school.
But administrators have stated that it will be challenging to find highly qualified elementary teachers, who have defined requirements regulated by the state, who also can teach in Mandarin.
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