Messages from Big Island, Hawaii, in Japanese and English
I kept flying to US mainland almost every month about this 7 years to support my boss’s communication with leaders in Washington DC and other places as an interpreter.
He has met with all kinds of amazing people. Those include opinion leaders in the US, US congressmen, senators, former Presidential candidates, white house officials, officials of executive branches, and so many others. Each time, I had some rough ideas what they would talk. However, it has been almost impossible to grasp what really happens in a real conversation. Conversation is alive. Each time 2 intelligent people or more meet from different fields, the conversation will be exciting. It sometimes goes deeper or it develops to various directions. This work has been really raising me up in communication skills, English abilities as well as Japanese abilities since my boss’s Japanese vocabulary is huge. Now, under this pandemic situation, we are all grounded and need to communicate remotely. Interpreting on the phone is way more difficult and needs intensive focus, since we cannot see each other’s face. I really have to focus whether the person at the another end agrees with or not by hearing their voice tones or way of expressing. I have been told that interpreting work is a spiritual work as well as the intellectual one. (to be continued) Comments are closed.
|
Author
An Interpreter for JCU Archives
April 2021
|