{"id":982,"date":"2021-12-15T02:58:52","date_gmt":"2021-12-15T02:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/?p=982"},"modified":"2021-12-15T02:58:52","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T02:58:52","slug":"match-up-the-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/match-up-the-match\/","title":{"rendered":"Match up the Match"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remote Interpreting for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games<\/em><\/h4>\n

By: Rony Gao\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Edited by: Fang Sheng<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From the Editor: As the 2020 Summer Olympics concluded in Tokyo in 2021, and the 2022 Winter Olympics is fast approaching in Beijing, CLD member Rony Gao looks back on his experience as a remote interpreter for this world event.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Rony Gao is an experienced conference interpreter, ATA-certified translator, communications consultant and educator based in Toronto, Canada.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On July 20th, 2021, three days before the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games, five hours drive to the North of Tokyo at Miyagi Stadium, a pre-match press conference for women\u2019s football was underway. This was for the Group F match set to take place the next day between China and Brazil. Behind the scenes, two interpreters\u00a0\u2014 one Chinese and one Portuguese \u2014 were getting ready online to provide consecutive interpretation for the coaches and players.<\/p>\n

That Chinese interpreter was me. Personally, being the voice of the Chinese women\u2019s football team at the most important sporting event in the world was a huge honor\u00a0and a dream come true, because I grew up playing and watching football\u2014no, not American football, but football, the sport that is commonly known as \u201csoccer\u201d only here in North America, not anywhere else. When receiving training for the Olympics interpretation assignment, we were told that there is no such thing as \u201csoccer\u201d in the Olympics lingo. \u201cAlways call it football,\u201d the IOC chief interpreter stressed. \u201cIf you say soccer, a lot of people will be miffed.\u201d That was when I began to appreciate how much nuance can go into the choice of a single word in the context of soccer \u2014 I mean, football.<\/p>\n

Here are a few examples of football terminologies that, when interpreted between Chinese and English, may require some careful judgement on the part of the interpreter.<\/p>\n

    \n
  • \u5f97\u5206 can be either getting a point<\/em> or scoring a goal<\/em>, two confusingly similar concepts that actually mean very different things:\n
      \n
    • \u8fd9\u573a\u6bd4\u8d5b\u6253\u5e73\uff0c\u6211\u4eec\u5f97\u5230\u4e86\u4e00\u5206\u3002With this draw, we got one point (on the group standing table).<\/li>\n
    • \u6362\u4eba\u662f\u4e3a\u4e86\u52a0\u5f3a\u8fdb\u653b\uff0c\u4e89\u53d6\u7834\u95e8\u5f97\u5206\u3002The substitution was meant to level up our offence, hoping to score a goal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
    • \u4e2d\u573a may be either midfield<\/em> or half-time<\/em>, depending on whether it refers to time or space. In fact, the two may even appear in the same sentence:\n
        \n
      • \u6240\u4ee5\u4e2d\u573a\u4f11\u606f\u7684\u65f6\u5019\uff0c\u6211\u4eec\u5bf9\u4e2d\u573a\u7684\u4eba\u5458\u505a\u4e86\u8c03\u6574\u3002So we made some changes to our midfield lineup during half-time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
      • You may think that \u70b9\u7403, the shot taken from 12 yards (11 meters) is a straight-forward one, but the English translation should be either penalty kick<\/em> or penalty shootout<\/em>, depending on the context:\n
          \n
        • \u51ed\u501f\u4e0a\u534a\u573a\u7684\u4e00\u7c92\u70b9\u7403\uff0c\u5df4\u897f\u961f1:0\u5c0f\u80dc\u3002Brazil secured a 1-0 (\u201cone-nill\u201d) victory with a penalty kick in the first half.<\/li>\n
        • 120\u5206\u949f\u6218\u5e73\uff0c\u53cc\u65b9\u901a\u8fc7\u70b9\u7403\u5927\u6218\u624d\u51b3\u51fa\u80dc\u8d1f\u3002Following a draw after 120 minutes, the match had to be decided by penalty shootout.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

          If you don\u2019t know football inside out, interpreting for a football press conference can feel like walking in a landmine field trying to steer clear of all the traps. For example, someone unfamiliar with the rules may have to learn that \u52a0\u65f6 (overtime) and \u8865\u65f6 (stoppage time) are two different things.<\/p>\n

          In the end, my experience of interpreting for the Olympic Games this past summer was both exhilarating and humbling. The take-away is that, just as football is more about what you do outside of the 90 minutes, effective interpreting largely depends on the preparation that is done before kickoff. Doing your homework off the pitch is the best way to make sure that every shot will be on target\u2014whether the shot is made with the ball or words.<\/p>\n

           <\/p>\n

           <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          Remote Interpreting for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games By: Rony Gao\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Edited by: Fang Sheng   From the Editor: As the 2020 Summer Olympics concluded in Tokyo in 2021, and the 2022 Winter Olympics […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-interpretation","7":"entry"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=982"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":988,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982\/revisions\/988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}