Translating

[maxiewawa]

In today's lesson, Natusko sensei mentioned something about her job. I'd like to find out about the regular day of a translator.

Maybe an interview with Natsuko sensei about how a project gets presented to her, what kind of projects she does, what qualifications you need to be a translator, how she got her translating job, any languages besides English/Japanese that she does, if she ever does interpreting...

I think it would be interesting to language lovers (and I'm sure there are a lot of jPod listeners who love languages!).

[markystar]

it's funny you mentioned that.
just the other day we talking about the idea of interviewing people...

you want us to interview her in all japanese?

[maxiewawa]

I don't think all Japanese would be a good idea; I mean we're all learners of Japanese so I don't think we'd all get as much out of it as if it was in English.

And I think English being the lingua franca it would be more appropriate and would have an appeal outside of japanesepod. I am sure that language learners from all over the world being interested in a day in the life of a translator.

Here's an idea: interview her in English, then get her to translate it to us! She could take us through how she does it step by step,

[markystar]

hmmmmm.

i'm not sold on the idea of asking natsuko about her day in english and then making her translate it into japanese.

but i'm interested in doing a series of interviews. and interviewing natsuko about her job would be great. i'm just stuck on how to pull it off and make it fun.

what if we did it like this:
natsuko introduces herself, states her job and company. and then walks us through a typical project.
then we intertwine with an english translation and then go thru vocab and some interesting expressions or grammar?

it would probably come out something like an intermediate lesson.

what do you think?

marky

[maxiewawa]

Sounds interesting!
I'm interested in the whole process that she goes through.. does she just get a piece of paper on her desk which she has to translate? Does she talk to clients to find out more background as to what's going on?
How it's presented isn't so important I think.

[Javizy]

Maybe you could have Peter ask questions in English, and Natsuko answer them in Japanese. That way, we have some bearing on the topic and won't get completely lost.