Japan - US Business News

The Interpreter's Corner: Mantra, Arnold and Adult Videos

As interpreters we carry dictionaries, stay up to date on current events, understand cultural nuances and know when to “go literal” versus simply staying true to the message.  What else do we need to know?  Here’s something that always trips me up:  Slang.

Like all languages, Japanese is constantly evolving and changing.  New words pop up.  New phrases are used that didn’t exist two months prior.  Next thing you know, the whole country is using words you aren’t familiar with and you feel out of touch.  While not necessarily slang by our definition, one new way the Japanese language evolves is through abbreviations.  Two words are shortened into one.  The first one or two syllables of several words are blended into one and voila there’s a new word.  This one won’t be in the dictionary, either.  It’s new.  It’s an abbreviation.  If you don’t know it, you’re in trouble.  Here are three such examples of words that tripped up an interpreter or two.

 I’m interpreting for a women’s luncheon.  The discussion involves music, art, fashion and current events.  One Japanese woman of about my age says to an American woman sitting at her table,

 「マントラお好きですか？」

 I pause.  What does she mean?  I could interpret this as “Do you like mantra?” but what’s mantra?  Do I say “mantras” instead of “mantra”?  “Do you like mantra?” isn’t grammatically correct in English.  What do I do with this?  Is she referring to just one mantra?  Does she mean “do you enjoy Buddhist mantras?”  We were just talking about music. 

I extend my heartfelt condolences to everyone in the affected areas of Japan due to these earthquakes. I lived in Osaka at the time of the Great Hanshin earthquake (Kobe earthquake) and this just devastates me for what I know people will be going through over the course of the coming days, weeks, and the months and years of recovery.

Yvonne Burton of Japan-US Business News

The Interpreter's Corner: When Interpreters make Mistakes

We’re all human.  We all make mistakes.  How we deal with them and what we do with them defines our professionalism and how we are perceived.  Here are two examples of interpreters making mistakes.  One is about me.  It’s one of my more painful stories.  I’m still embarrassed thinking about it.  I claim it, though. 

It was my mistake.  Mine alone and while I couldn’t undo my words, I fixed it on the spot the best I could.  The other story is about how I watched an interpreter implode over several days after she refused to acknowledge a mistake.  Tell me what you think.  Do these stories resonate?  Do you have stories of your own?  Let’s talk.

 

Picture this.  I’m at dinner with three company executives.  Two are from the US firm hiring me.  One is their Japanese counterpart.  They are discussing what to do about their European business. 

The dinner was going smoothly.  Wine was ordered, appetizers arrived and the three men are chatting away with me repeating their words back and forth.  At one point, one of the two American executives says, “Shall we fire Dieter?”

Dieter is German.  He is one of the few executives remaining with the firm after the American company bought out the Germans.  He is not well liked.  I sense a difficult conversation coming up.

Here was my mistake.  To this day I don’t know why I said this.  I took “shall we fire Dieter?” and repeated, “Do you think we should keep Dieter?”

Stab.  Stupid.  Shame.  Dumb.  Sloppy.  Embarrassing.  Ouch.  Pain.  Repeat.

The Japanese consultant answers, “Yes, ” in English.

Wait!  Crap.  No! 

I realized right away this needed fixing.  The question was “should we fire” and the executives assumed I asked that question the way it was asked.  I didn’t, of course.  I turned it around and asked whether or not he should be kept.  The answer to “keep” was “yes” but the executives thought the answer to “fire” was “yes.”  Crap, crap, crap.

I stopped the conversation right away.  I explained to the Americans what I had done, and then to the Japanese.  I apologized profusely.  They all looked at me with a funny expression, partly of doubt and partly of confusion.  I was mortified.  My trustworthiness was at stake.  I needed to replace any doubt they had and quickly reestablish myself as an interpreter that could be trusted to repeat the words accurately.  I asked the Japanese to explain why Dieter should be kept.  He went on for several minutes listing his reasons.  This, I repeated verbatim.  The Americans seemed satisfied with this answer and I lived to tell the story.  I have never, to this day, made that kind of a mistake again.

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Amya Miller lives near Boston, Massachusetts and is the President and CEO of Lupine and Co., which offers Japanese interpretation, liaison services, business etiquette training, consultation on successful negotiation techniques and problem solving. 

Amya also founded the Gaijin Group; a group for gaijins all over the world.  She was born and raised in Japan and spent time in Tokyo and Hokkaido.  She has worked as an Interpreter and behind-the-scenes liaison in Japan-US business for 20 years.  You can reach Amya at amya@lupineandco.com and find out more about at http://www.lupineandco.com/ and http://www.gaijingroup.com/.

The Interpreter's Corner: Interpreting - It’s more than just words

Not everyone is likeable.  Sadly, this is a fact.  Certainly life is more fun and flows smoother when we are able to work with those whose company we enjoy.  It helps if they’re nice.  Add competence to that and you’ve hit gold.  How does this concept affect interpreters?  Let me give you an example.

On a particular day several years ago, I find myself working with a sociopath.  The guy is cruel.  I hate him.  I really do.  This is a job I’m doing purely for money and I tell my husband I’m blowing this cash when all is said and done.  I need to reward myself for surviving this man.  I try to make seeing him again bearable (I had worked with him before) by betting one of my American clients $20 the first words out of the sociopath’s mouth would be “you got fat.”  I won.  Did I mention how much I hate him?

The thing is, he likes me.  I know how to walk the line between taking his crap and pushing back.  He pushes my buttons deliberately to see how I will react.  Over time, I have learned how to play his game.  If he uses foul language in Japanese I repeat it in English.  He knows these words in English, of course.  I know he’s testing me.  He wants to hear me use these words.  I know he’s watching.  I now don’t miss a beat.  You want to curse?  Fine.  Go ahead.  I can dish it out with the best of them. 

For this assignment, he’s traveling with several of his subordinates.  They have interpreters, too.  At one point, we’re all in a van going from Point A to Point B when he happens to mention a Japanese marathon runner.  This is the year of the Sydney Olympics.  I had been keeping up with the news.  Sort of.  I read the coverage of the Olympics the night before online, and read the news coverage from Japanese sites.  I knew to keep up with the Japanese athletes, just in case the subject came up.  When it did on this particular drive, I had the answer to the question the sociopath asked in an attempt to stump everyone around him.  This one marathon runner’s shoes were made out of some sort of rice husk material.  I had read an article about this.  He asks the question about the shoes and without missing a beat, I answer.  They all look at me.  The sociopath is impressed.  I can tell.  I am so incredibly proud of myself.  All I want to do, really, is yell “HA!” but of course, I don’t. 

The Interpreter's Corner: Interpreter’s Dilemma

I prefer the word augmentation to retraction.  What am I referring to?  Two weeks ago I discussed the importance of using a dictionary to look up a word, even if the consequences of doing so are embarrassing.  I stand by that.  I do.  There is, however, a “but” that follows this professional expectation.  Sometimes the word you’re looking for is simply not in the dictionary.

“Not so!” you say.
“Definitely so,” I reply.

Let’s review.  There is no way any dictionary can contain every word out there.  Even the most advanced electronic dictionaries have limitations.  Case in point.  Let me introduce you to an example.

This is a story that happened to a friend.  I’ll call her Juliette.  Juliette is interpreting for an American teenage celebrity.  Let’s call this celebrity Marie.   Marie is pretty, perky, loud, and popular.  She’s the latest “it” girl.  Juliette is called in to interpret for Marie in an interview.   Marie is starring next to the latest “it” guy in a show.  Let’s call this man Claude.  He’s cute, cool, dashing and smashing.  Marie is asked in the interview what she thinks of Claude, to which she replies,  “OMG!  He is soooooo cool!”

Let’s pause here a minute.  I looked up OMG in my electronic dictionary.  Nothing.  Let me be clear.  I know what it means.  (For those of you who might not be familiar with this phrase, it stands for “oh my God.”)  It’s used as short hand in text messages but also now in speech.  Young people these days honestly say “OMG” instead of “oh my God.”  I kid you not.  (No pun intended.)  So, Marie said “OMG” and it’s not in the dictionary.  It’s important we establish these two points because this is where my not-quite-a-retraction comes in.

The Interpreter's Corner: Public Humiliation

All clients are important.  All meetings are important.  This is not to say all meetings are equal in their importance.  Discussing the best way to put together an air condition does not hold the same social/political implications as a bilateral meeting.  This story is about the latter.

It’s Monday morning at 8:35.  Both parties are sitting in a large room in downtown Tokyo.  The Japanese have greeted and welcomed their American counterparts.  After a few words are spoken about the importance of this meeting, the host says the Director of the department, his superior, will come in for a few minutes and extend his welcome as well.  On cue, a man enters the room, sits at the head table and facing everyone says the following:

“Good morning.  My name is (insert name here).  I’m the Director of the (insert department name here) and I have been in this position for two years.  Welcome.”

I repeat his words.  Verbatim.  I did not omit, change, or embellish anything.  I used his words in the exact order they were spoken.  That’s my job.

Suddenly, he looks over at me, and next thing I know I’m the target of serious public humiliation.

The Interpreter's Corner: “Who’s ‘Grand Julie’?”

Picture this.  You’re working as a team.  The person you’re working with is younger and less experienced than you, but as far as your client is concerned, your senior.  It has to do with titles.  His trumps yours.  Remember this.  It’s important.

Now, picture this.  You and your teammate (let’s call him George) have been asked to interpret at court.  There’s a witness.  She’s coming into testify.  She’s scared.  She doesn’t want to do this.  Unfamiliar with how the U.S. judicial system works, she feels alone.  The two interpreters, yourself included, have been told you are to be neutral, third party personnel.  You aren’t to engage her in conversation.  There is to be no chitchat.  You are to repeat what she says and is said to her and then leave.  Simple.  Right?  Not when George, the one senior to you makes a mistake.

Before I go into what the mistake was, I will go straight to the moral of the story.  There are two, actually.  One is, if you don’t know a word, don’t fake it.  As far as I’m concerned, Romanizing it is pretty close to faking it, unless the word is known and used in Japanese as a Romanized word.

What do I mean by “Romanized”?  Think Roma-ji.  Cake is ケーキ.  Chocolate is チョコレート.  Now think of words that cannot and should not be Romanized.  I doubt any interpreter would use the word ハット for 帽子.  Nor would an interpreter say クロック for 時計.  You get my point.

If an interpreter does not know the word for clock and used クロック in its place, I would say the interpreter is “faking” it.  Don’t do this.  You don’t know a word?  Look it up. 

The Interpreter's Corner: Your Worst Nightmare, a drunk Mr. S: Part 3

The last story about Mr. S. is the most serious and problematic.  Complaining about too much lobster and using rude gestures in a passive-aggressive way is annoying, yes.  Sexual harassment is an entirely different story.  Add alcohol to the mix and this was an explosive situation.  Here’s what happened.

I knew Mr. S. really liked his liquor and got drunk every time he was taken out.  What I did not realize until too late was the fact he probably had a serious alcohol problem.  I have heard of those who cannot process and break down alcohol in their bodies and thus show symptoms of drunkenness or mild alcohol poisoning even after one or two sips.  This was certainly the case for Mr. S.

We are out to dinner with a large group of executives at Mr. S’s new favorite steak restaurant.  Drinks are ordered and poured, appetizers have come and been consumed and the steaks arrive.  The lone female executive in the group ordered a “petit fillet”, an 8-ounce steak.  Mr. S. looks at her plate and says,

“It’s good you ordered the small steak.  Otherwise you’d get fat and then you won’t get promoted.  No one will want to sleep with you if you’re fat, you know.” 

I just about fell off my chair.  I didn’t repeat this, of course, except for the “…you ordered a small steak” part.  I wiped my mouth with my napkin, placed it on the table, stood up and excused myself and walked over to the bar to cool off.  After a few minutes Mr. S. came over.  I glared at him, pointed my finger at his chest and said,

“Don’t ever say that again.”
“Say what?”
“Say what you just said.”
“What did I say?”

I thought he was kidding.  I thought he was deliberately trying to make me angry.  Then it dawned on me.  Did he really not remember?  I asked.

The Interpreter's Corner: Your Worst Nightmare, Mr. S (What do you say when….): Part 2

In an attempt to teach and instill good manners in me, my parents read me two books (repeatedly) as a child.  One was What Do You Say Dear, by Maurice Sendak and the other was Manners Make People Nice To Know.  The latter, a much older book contained drawings of well-behaved children showed the perks that came with being good.  Evidently the manners I was taught through these books stuck.  I always knew to thank my host who paid for expensive lunches and dinners.  I was polite.  I smiled a lot.  My parents would be proud.

Mr. S., our temperamental Japanese consultant from last week was evidently not read such books.  I realize etiquette differs from country to country.  I respect this.  Differences aside, I firmly believe manners and etiquette are crucial in business success whether the issue at hand is knowing local customs when dining out or being mindful of certain gestures.  It was the latter; a certain gesture Mr. S. used frequently that got him in hot water.

It started innocently enough.  When pointing to a line on a balance sheet, Mr. S. extended his long middle finger to point out a number.  Eyebrows shot up among the Americans and they looked at me quizzically.  I knew what they were thinking.  The collective question on everyone’s mind was, “is this guy flipping us off?” 

Happy Holidays from Japan-US Business News and all the best in 2011!