# Simultaneous interpreting difficulties



## natasha2000

Hello to everybody!

Recently, I have heard that it is impossible to make simultaneous interpretation between asiatic languages, such as Japanese, Korean or Chinese, and for example, English or Spanish, due to phonetic differences.

I am wondering if this is true. I don't know ANYTHING about any of these languages, and this claim seems to me incredible, but I would like to know what you have to say, as native speakers or learners of these languages...

Cheers and happy New Year!

Moderation Note:
In view of some interesting contributions that would be hard-pressed to find home elsewhere, I redefine the topic of the thread as difficulties accrued in simultaneous interpreting between any languages.  Posters are asked to indicate between which languages their contributions are concerned.


----------



## Flaminius

I know I can simultaneously interpret between Japanese and English.  Any questions?


----------



## natasha2000

Flaminius said:


> I know I can simultaneously interpret between Japanese and English. Any questions?


 

That's what I thought.... 

I really do not know why this person told me this...

He left me like this ....

So, do you experience any particular problem when interpreting between these two languages? Are their structures too different?


----------



## Flaminius

Yes, structural difference can be a problem.  English tends to place vital information for understanding the utterance at the beginning of the sentence whereas Japanese does the opposite.

E.g.,
En: *I don't think that British Prime Minister is coming to the party.*
Ja: *英国の首相がパーティーに来るとは思いません。*

For an exceptionally short sentence like above, making the sentence stand on its head is not an issue.  But interpretors are not always graced with such a happy sentence.   In interpreting longer sentences, I translate meaningful chunks in the order as I hear them and connect them with special conjunctions and fillers.  The output does not sound very good Japanese but comes out as an understandable message.  When I interpret from Japanese to English, sometimes I make a guess on the conclusion of a sentence and begin the English output with it.


----------



## natasha2000

Flaminius said:


> Yes, structural difference can be a problem. English tends to place vital information for understanding the utterance at the beginning of the sentence whereas Japanese does the opposite.
> 
> E.g.,
> En: *I don't think that British Prime Minister is coming to the party.*
> Ja: *英国の首相がパーティーに来るとは思いません。*
> 
> For an exceptionally short sentence like above, making the sentence stand on its head is not an issue. But interpretors are not always graced with such a happy sentence. In interpreting longer sentences, I translate meaningful chunks in the order as I hear them and connect them with special conjunctions and fillers. The output does not sound very good Japanese but comes out as an understandable message. When I interpret from Japanese to English, sometimes I make a guess on the conclusion of a sentence and begin the English output with it.


 
Thank you very much for your answer. I don't see Japanese letters, but it is not so important. The color code speaks for itself.. 

Would I be very wrong if I said that the similar problem can be experienced with German, since in German they tend to put the main verb at the end of the sentence?


----------



## jester.

natasha2000 said:


> Would I be very wrong if I said that the similar problem can be experienced with German, since in German they tend to put the main verb at the end of the sentence?



Well, we only do that in subordinate clauses, but those don't tend to be very rare. So, I'd say yes.

Here's a "colour-coded" example for you:

*I think that Flaminius's colour code example shows the poblem very well, even though some people cannot see the letters because of their internet browser.

Ich glaube, dass Flaminius' Farbcodebeispiel das Problem sehr gut darstellt, obwohl manche Leute die Buchstaben wegen ihrem Internetbrowser nicht sehen können.*


----------



## Setwale_Charm

Flaminius said:


> Yes, structural difference can be a problem. English tends to place vital information for understanding the utterance at the beginning of the sentence whereas Japanese does the opposite.


 
Isn`t it the same with German? Who was that who said that waiting for a German verb is an ultimate thrill? 

A simultaneous interpreter, I guess?


----------



## natasha2000

Thank you, Jeseter.
Yes, something similar, although, according to the color code, I would say that German, in relation to English, displaces only the verb , but Japanese displaces and mixes almost all the words in the sentence... 

*I don't think that British Prime Minister is coming to the party.*
Ja: *英国の首相が__________ パーティー __に ___来る __とは _思い __ません_。*

*British Prime Minister is* *the party* *to* *coming* *that* *think* *don't* *I*.

It's almost upside down!  

I admire you, Flaminius. I really do. Simultaneous interpreting is dificult enough for itself, even when we talk about languages with similar structure. I, myself, am not able to do it. My brain is too slow, I guess .


----------



## jester.

Natasha, would you mind to give us a coloured example of Serbian?


----------



## natasha2000

jester. said:


> Natasha, would you mind to give us a coloured example of Serbian?


 
Not at all!


*I don't think that British Prime Minister is coming to the party.*

*Ne verujem* *da* *će* *Britanski Premijer* *doći* *na* *zabavu*.

*I* is ommited, since in Serbian there's no need for it.

As you can see, the order is almost the same.


----------



## al-sirbi

*Sorry for using Serbian only ...
*

Izvinjavam se na upadu, ali mislim da ce te i ovo zanimati...
Sa *turskim *je slicno stanje.

Britanya Başbakanı'*nın *partiye geleceği*ne* inanmıyorum.

Pokusaj objasnjenja : 

Britanski Premijer'*nastavak za genitiv* koji stupa u genitivnu vezu sa geleceği / njegov dolazak - u buducem vremenu / pa se na ovo kaci *ne* /nastavak za dativ kojeg zahteva glagol inanmak - verovati. 
Tu izmedju se uplice i ovo  parti+ye -  zabava+nastavak za dativ.

Iliti : 
Britanskog Premijera na zabavu u njegovo dolazenje ne verujem. 

Zvuci idiotski, ali verujem da je tako nekako i u japanskom. 







natasha2000 said:


> Not at all!
> 
> 
> *I don't think that British Prime Minister is coming to the party.*
> 
> *Ne verujem* *da* *će* *Britanski Premijer* *doći* *na* *zabavu*.
> 
> *I* is ommited, since in Serbian there's no need for it.
> 
> As you can see, the order is almost the same.



Moderation Note:
In view of some interesting contributions that would be hard-pressed to find home elsewhere, I redefine the topic of the thread as difficulties accrued in simultaneous interpreting between any languages. Posters are asked to indicate between which languages their contributions are concerned.


----------



## jazyk

I like the colors game. I'll join in the fun.

In Portuguese:

*I don't think that British Prime Minister is coming to the party.
(Eu) **não * *acho **que *[o] *Primeiro **Ministro* *Britânico **virá/venha **à  **festa.


*The  order is quite similar . What probably stands out is that English, as any good ol' Germanic languages, tends to place adjectives before nouns, whereas we, as any good ol' Romance language, tend to place them after nouns.


à means to the, by the way. It's the contraction of the preposition a plus the feminine singular article a.


----------



## linguist786

For Urdu, it is really not difficult for me to translate into English. The two languages are quite different in things like word order and grammar, but I just intuitively know how to translate a sentence and where to start. It just comes naturally - probably because I've been brought up with it since I was very young. 

One thing to note though, is that Urdu has "levels" too. You might pick up a book which has very "high class" words in it - this Urdu is beautiful in my opinion. You have to have a very good grasp of the language if you want to understand it. Urdu is a very vast language, like Arabic. The Urdu that I'm talking about is the normal everyday spoken Urdu. In our mosques here in England for example, I could translate the bayaanaat (speeches, lectures) from Urdu into English that take place without any problem.

I think even if two languages are very different in whatever way, it is not necessarily difficult to translate. If both languages are natural to you, then it shouldn't be too hard.


----------



## jaxineau

I think it is harder to translate or interpret English to Chinese or vice versa because of the tenses and the sentence structure. There are many ways to place each component of a sentence in Chinese and that we do not conjugate our verbs.

*I don't think that British Prime Minister is coming to the party.*

我不覺得英國首相會來這個派對
_or_
我不認為英國首相將會來這個派對 
(= I no think Britain Prime Minister will come this party.)


In Chinese, we don't use the definite article, instead we use the demonstrative pronoun.
There is no _that_ either.

覺得 and 認為 both mean to think. However, 認為 is more factual and 覺得 is more emotional.
不 denotes that the sentence is a negative.
來 is the verb to come, when in future tense, we add 將 or 會 or both to denote that.


----------



## Jayjay

I guess I should be thankful to Providence that Danish and English word order is so similar! I have no more complaints about fast speakers!
Translating Danish to DSL (Danish Sign Language) is a whole other story, though - then you've got to wait and listen and try and make sense out of it. xxx


----------



## tvdxer

How about Spanish?

I _think_ this is right.  I'm not exactly sure though, so any corrections are welcome.

*I don't think that the British Prime Minister is coming to the party.*

*No creo que vaya el primer ministro británico a la fiesta.*

I think you could also say "No creo que el primer ministro brita'nico vaya a la fiesta."


----------



## DrWatson

Let's try in Finnish:

English:*I don't think that British Prime Minister is coming to the party.
*Finnish: (*Minä*)* luulen, että Britannian pääministeri ei tule juhliin.

*Few notes: 
- The pronoun "I" can be omitted (and usually is)
- In this particular case, the verb in the main clause has to be positive, while the verb in the dependent clause is negated. I don't exactly know the reason, I just know it would sound stupid and be grammatically incorrect if the main clause here was negated.
- There are no definite/indefinite articles in Finnish

Well, Finnish word order is quite similar to English. One problem in simultaneous interpreting from English to Finnish can be the English "passive sentence + by + agent" construction. There's no real equivalent in Finnish for that, so the sentence should be translated in active voice. However, some translators use a construction that's neither recommended nor grammatically correct. The structure has most likely been loaned from Germanic languages. E.g:

*The car was driven by my father.*
Correct: *Isäni ajoi autoa. *(translation would be same if the English sentence were "*My father drove the car.*")
Anglicised: *Autoa ajettiin isäni toimesta.*


----------



## Mutichou

tvdxer said:


> *I don't think that the British Prime Minister is coming to the party.*
> 
> *No creo que vaya el primer ministro británico a la fiesta.*
> 
> I think you could also say "No creo que el primer ministro brita'nico vaya a la fiesta."


The order in French is very similar to the order in Spanish:
*Je ne pense pas que le premier ministre britannique vienne à la fête.*


----------



## Flaminius

Moderation Note:
I see that the thread is getting off-topic with a lot of colour-coded examples having no reference to simultaneous interpreting.  Colour code is a fun game but please be reminded that it is just one way of illustrating different grammatical structures that make your interpreting difficult.

Is there any other factor that gives interpretors a hard time?  What about cultural different and absence of corresponding vocabulary, for example?

Keep your posts coming.  

Flaminius the modo


----------



## Lugubert

linguist786 said:


> For Urdu, it is really not difficult for me to translate into English. The two languages are quite different in things like word order and grammar, but I just intuitively know how to translate a sentence and where to start.


You must be unique. German can be hard enough for interpreters, but for Urdu (and Hindi), the complaint "Now get me the verbs, finally!" must be occuring for most every sentence. I'm so happy that I'm a translator and not an interpreter.

Anyway, it's surely not a case of phonetic differences. Difficulties arise on very different levels. For example, Chinese and Semitic languages don't use verb tenses to indicate when and how things happen. Chinese will use exactly the same verb form for things that happened yesterday, today or in the future. Other means (adding 'yesterday', 'later' etc.) give clues. When reading the Bible in Hebrew, you can't tell if an action is described as being fulfilled when the sentence was written, or if it has happened, or is supposed to surely occur in some distant future.

Chinese doesn't specify for example singular or plural if not absolutely necessary. It's like English grandfathers. Into Swedish, we have to specify maternal or paternal grandpa. And don't even get me started on the mental stress when converting Hindi or Chinese numerals to European languages. My Chinese professor insists on having all data in writing prior to any interpreting jobs, to at least minimize the risk of being orders of magnitude wrong.


----------



## Bienvenidos

English:*I don't think that British Prime Minister is coming to the party.**

*Persian/Farsi: *Feker nâkenem **ke**satrâzem ** ez **inglisa** tha pârti mimâni ** bya'ya.


Farsi is a SUBJECT-OBJECT-VERB language.
*


----------



## Tresley

I did simultaneous interpreting at university and on my very first lesson the lecturer told us that only 1% of language students could perfect the art.
We began our course by repeating what a BBC newsreader was saying in English, with us repeating in English (i.e. no translating - just repeating at the same time). The 'repeated' dialogues were taped and only half the class could do it! Playing the tapes back was funny.

The next lesson, we were given short speeches in French, spoken slowly, to simultaneously translate into English. Again, everyone's tapes were played back, and only a quarter of the interpretations were fully intelligible.

In subsequent lessons the speakers got progressively faster and faster. We eventually went top speed and this is where I fell by the wayside! Heated discussions, rapid fire speech and arguments to me were impossible! This, coupled with the word order and phrases that were difficult to translate accurately, made me flounder! 

Our lecturer always stressed to us the importance of exact translations, not paraphrases and with NO misinterpretation, stating that this could cause international incidents! With that weight on my shoulders, I decided that simultaneous interpretation was not for me and I only do consecutive interpretation. In so doing I can ask the speaker to clarify ambiguous words, express exactly what is intended etc before translating.

I admire simultaneous translators tremendously and understand why simultaneous translators at the United Nations, European Union etc only interpret for 20-30 minutes at a time. It's like patting your head with one hand and rubbing your stomach with the other. Only certain people can do this!

Consecutive interpretation has its drawbacks too. You have to make notes and remember more sentences before you speak in the other language.....but that's another story! I hold my hand up - to shut them up whilst I translate!

I hope this helps you to understand what simultaneous interpretation is all about!


----------



## karuna

I heard that simultaneous interpreters experience stress in their jobs that is equal only to that of air traffic controllers at busy airports. Must be really hard to be a simultaneous interpreter between two very different languages.


----------



## tanzhang

In Tagalog:

 English:*I don't think that British Prime Ministe**r is coming to the party
*Tagalog:* 'Di yata **pupunta ang **British Praym Minister sa parti
**(I don't think coming the British Prime Minister to the party.)*
Or * 'Di yata **pupunta **sa parti **ang **British Praym Minister 
(I don't think coming to the party the British Prime Minister.)
**
*


----------



## JanWillem

English*: I *do*n't think that the British Prime Minister is coming to the party.
*Dutch*: Ik* *denk niet dat de Britse premier naar het feest komt.*
The word order is similar to German, with the verb 'coming' at the very end, and the "I think not" instead of "I do not think" construction.
(My guess of the German, I'm not native)
German*: Ich denke nicht, dass der Britische Premier zu dem Fest kommt.
*I split "zum" to "zu dem" because they're grammatically different words.


----------



## Henryk

> I split "zum" to "zu dem" because they're grammatically different words.


"zu dem" *has to be* "zum" ("zum" is just a contraction). It's not a grammatical mistake but a stylistic. In an essay, you'd get a point deducted for that. Apart from this, it's okay.


----------



## robbie_SWE

This looks like fun, so I will give you guys the translations in Romanian and in Swedish:

Romanian: 
*I don't think that the British Prime Minister is coming to the party.*
*(Eu) nu cred că vine primministrul/premierul britanic la petrecere.*

Swedish: 

*I don't think that the British Prime Minister is coming to the party.*
*Jag* *tror inte att den Brittiske premiärministern kommer till festen.*

 robbie


----------



## JanWillem

Henryk said:


> "zu dem" *has to be* "zum" ("zum" is just a contraction). It's not a grammatical mistake but a stylistic. In an essay, you'd get a point deducted for that. Apart from this, it's okay.


Yes, but because zum contains the preposition "zu" and the article "dem", I split it up so I could give it different colours, even though it is never used this way in written or spoken language. But thanks for the check.


----------



## Spectre scolaire

Flaminius said:
			
		

> E.g.,
> En: *I **don't **think **that **British Prime Minister is **coming**to**the party**.*
> Ja: *英国の首相が**パーティー**に**来る**とは**思い**ません**。*


Turkish - with a more detailed analysis than _al-sarbi_:

İngiltere başbakanın partiye geleceğini zannetmiyorum.

“England head minister’s party-to come-will-[+poss.pron+acc.] think-not-I.”

The possessıve pronoun is a part of the nexus “minister’s coming” (lit.: minister[+gen.] coming-his). There is no relative pronoun in Turkish – at least not in the conventional meaning of the term.

Longer utterances can get pretty “complicated” – from an English point of view. 



			
				natasha2000 said:
			
		

> *British Prime Minister is**the party**to**coming**that**think**don't* *I*. It's almost upside down!


Well, it _is_ upside down in both languages – again, from _our_ point of view! I like to think of Turkish as a sort of “upside down Latin” with all its nominal constructions. Japanese and Turkish have very much of the same sentence structure so I guess there will be similar simultaneous translation problems. 

When listening to professionals who translate from Turkish to English or vice versa, it is fascinating to see what sort of strategies they continuously come up with. 



			
				Tresley said:
			
		

> I admire simultaneous translators tremendously and understand why simultaneous translators at the United Nations, European Union etc only interpret for 20-30 minutes at a time.


I entirely agree! I have been doing a lot of simultaneous translation myself, _but __I am not a professional_, and I have “only” done this kind of exercise between languages which exhibit _grosso modo_ the same structure. It is never easy - whichever languages you are talking about. 

Doing simultaneous translation in court, f.ex., you may be hired for a day and can’t just say after half an hour that you are tired and would like somebody else to take over. European Union has a horde of translators. Being a spectator equipped with two headphones, it is interesting to follow debates in such forums, zapping between different languages. Working in court, you are zipped up as long as it takes.




			
				al-sarbi said:
			
		

> Britanya Başbakanı'*nın *





			
				al-sarbi said:
			
		

> partiye geleceği*ne* inanmıyorum


If I may just finish where I started – with Turkish. Here we have geleceğin*e* instead ofgeleceğin*i* (above) - because the verb chosen by _al-sarbi_, inan=, “believe”, governs the dative, whereas zannet=, "think", governs the accusative.
 
_Britanya_ is probably more correct, but _İngiltere_ is more common. All these details that have to be thought of in a split of a second...


----------



## Chazzwozzer

Spectre scolaire said:


> İngiltere başbakanın*ın *partiye geleceğini zannetmiyorum.


Or, if you also say "zannetmiyor" and avoid *-ın*, then it means *"England doesn't think the PM is coming to the party."*


----------



## Spectre scolaire

Thank you, _Chazzwozzer_, there was an *ın *missing here! Kind of silly because I was elaborating on _al-sarbi_ who wrote it correctly!

If I may just tell those who don’t see how my writing of it turned out wrong, here is a new version:

İngiltere başbakanının partiye geleceğini zannetmiyorum.

“England head-minister[+poss.pron.+gen.] party-to come[+future+poss.pron.+acc.] think-not-I.” (or the last part, strictly speaking: “opinion-make-not-I”, but then you enter into the Arabic component of the Turkish verb _zan_ + et=).

In fact, my analysis of the first part (“minister’s”) is not coherent with the second. England + “head-minister” is as much a compound word in Turkish, a so-called _izafet construction_ (requiring a possessive pronoun), as the nexus “minister’s future-coming”. If you don’t write _İngiltere_, the sentence will be correct – without the extra *ın*. 

Phew, I hope I got it right now!


----------



## Cepkah

Bienvenidos said:


> English:*I don't think that British  Prime Minister  is coming  to the party. **
> *



(turkish) Türkçe*: Britanya* *Başbakanı'nın** partiye** geleceğini** sanmıyorum*.

(gagauz turkish) Gagauzça: *Sanmêrım* *gelecêni* *yortuya* *Britaniya* *Başbakanı'yın*.


----------



## cirrus

I take it I'm not the only person who has forgotten what language I was speaking in?  I was interpreting in a negotiation over a potential business deal.  I wanted to end the conversation because it was obvious the person we were dealing with was a bit of a twit.  Unfortunately I said something to this in fairly broad Colombian Spanish when talking to the monolingual English speaker.  He looked blank, the twit's secretary burst out laughing and I realised that I had blown the whole thing!  

Thank God I've never had to translate in war situations!


----------



## daoxunchang

An important difficulty posed for English-Chinese translation is from the difference in the sentence structures of these two languages. In translating from English to Chinese, one has often to break down those complex sentences and to rearrange them in natural Chinese oder. It's a great problem which interpretators must face.


----------

