Speaker: Hiromi Green, Distinguished Speaker (DS)
Session Title: Practical Skills Development Workshop for Japanese to/from English Interpreters
Review Author: Allyson Sigman
Did you ever feel like you wanted to learn about simultaneous or consecutive interpreting technique but didn’t have time? Well, in this whirlwind session, Hiromi-sensei presented not only notetaking theory but also simultaneous techniques!
She started with the Rozan Principles, which are fundamental in any interpreting program. These principles center around using symbols to note the idea, not the words. Hiromi-sensei said that having over 100 symbols is ideal. She noted that most people prefer to take notes in their A (native) language, but kanji can make it easier for noting in Japanese even if that is not your A language.
From there, she showed us how to note proper names by using initials if we are familiar with the person or using a title (like “the prime minister”) if we couldn’t hear/note the name. Some other techniques include dropping the vowels or writing just the first and last letter.
Next, she mentioned that notetaking does not come easily and takes a lot of practice. In Europe, interpreters are expected to be able to take notes and recreate a speech as long as 6 minutes. However, the standard in Japan is 2-3 minutes.
After attendees practiced notetaking and compared our notes with Hiromi-sensei’s, we moved on to simultaneous. She presented two main techniques: Chunking and KISS. When a speaker is beginning a long sentence, the interpreter must break it into smaller ones to get something out to the listeners. The goal is to produce SV sentences as fast as possible. However, while doing this, it is critical to cultivate split attention: focusing both on processing what you hear and on the structure of the message you are conveying. This ties into KISS, which stands for Keep it Short and Simple. Do not try to be overly complex or use long, run on sentences. Make short, meaningful sentences out of what you hear.
The session wrapped up with a focus on meaning over words, which is key for everyone in interpretation today.
Edited by: audra lincoln
Leave a Reply