It's no laughing matter

Consider the following situation: A Chinese friend convinces you to address his motoring club and spin yarns about your wild adventures driving abroad. You have some great stories, and great pictures to go with them. "Don't worry about the language," your friend says. "I'll translate."

As you delve into a tale of a water buffalo charging your car, the audience bursts out laughing. You can't help but be a little confused - you hadn't meant to be funny.

Turns out, at some point during the story your friend told the club: "John is very wild about this buffalo and offered it a drink of water. But the buffalo did not return his love and became angry."

Sometimes words, phrases and figures of speech just don't translate well. The water buffalo tale resulted in a few laughs - no harm done. But mixed messages during business negotiations or an international conference could be a disaster.

An interpreter's job is a stressful one, and few people can do it professionally, says Cao Jianxin, a professor of translation and interpretation at Nanjing University, who has translated over 25 books from Chinese to English. An interpreter for the United Nations, for example, works in just 20-minute intervals because of the high-stress nature of the job, he says.

Though successful cross-cultural communications depends largely on a good interpreter, you - the speaker - can help make an interpreter's life easier.

According to David Liu Xiaohua, general secretary of the Guangzhou Translators Association (GTA), the key to using an interpreter effectively is to understand that you are working in a partnership.

"Together, you are delivering the message, so you both have to watch each other," he says.

Preparation should start about two weeks before a presentation. The speaker should provide the interpreter with a copy of the speech, if available, as well as definitions for technical terms and business jargon.

It's also important to meet face-to-face with the interpreter before presentation day, in order to get a sense of their working style.

Patricia Fripp, a US-based executive speech coach with years of experience giving presentations in China, says speakers must remember that the actual presentation should take up just half of the available time, while interpretation takes up the other half.

Throughout the entire process, the speaker and interpreter should be watching each other for cues of when to speak, and when to rest.

She also recommends a pre-speech practice session. If possible, the entire presentation should be given in English, preferably with a practice audience present.

During the presentation, the speaker should say no more than two or three sentences at a time, about one minute or less, to avoid overloading the interpreter.

"This will help translate the meaning correctly," Liu says.

Common mistakes speakers make include talking too quickly, not speaking clearly enough or being too verbose.

In other words, the fewer words the better - and speak slowly.

"It is better to have clear ideas and say them in short phrases - simplify as much as possible," Liu says.

Because Chinese are generally better accustomed to US and British accents, Liu says speakers with other accents should keep in mind how their interpreter is hearing their words. Accents should be toned down, and simple phrases used as much as possible.

"The biggest help an interpreter provides is to convey the real feeling and emotion of the speaker and what the speaker is saying - to help get the (speaker's) message across," Liu says.

Alan Kemp, a business communications lecturer at Sun Yat-sen University's MBA program with years of experience presenting to local audiences, says foreign speakers need to do their homework.

"Often, [foreign speakers] don't know who their audience is," he says. "They need to think about how much of the presentation the audience is understanding, and to monitor them."

Good strategies for speakers to consider include gauging the audience's English ability, even before the speaker starts, according to Kemp.

But even with the utmost preparation, a few miscues should be expected.

Even professor Cao, with over two decades experience as an interpreter, sometimes makes mistakes. Once, he recalls, a speaker said the word "niche" during a speech. Based on Cao's understanding of the word, a niche was a small hole in the wall made for a statue or other decorative objects. But the speaker, Cao later learned, was referring to a "niche" in the marketplace.

Both translations are correct, but Cao admits he missed the meaning.

"I have to confess, I failed to render it. I had no idea what it meant," he says. "Sometimes, meaning gets lost in translation."

(China Daily 07/13/2007 page20)