To be or not to be a Chinese Translator

[brucehuang]

@ angeia

 

The CI tuition is 100,000 RMB ( Missing a zero, haha)

[brucehuang]

@ DanWang

 

The reasons of why I said it's a double edge sword are complicated. I don't even know where to begin.

 

For example, if you look "white" then you're "OBVIOUSLY" a American or British. But if you don't that's where the dilemma starts. For example, if you're "white" and you are from America and somehow you don't know Shakespeare, they'll go like "Oh, Americans are just stupid", but if you're Asian American, especially like if you speak Chinese and you're like Chinese American like me, and I do the same thing, they'll go like this "This guy is just a Fake American, he is Chinese (traitor), of course REAL Americans know this stuff!."  To a degree where it becomes annoying and it bothers the shit out of me.

 

Like sometimes you are treated like "one of us" in a good way, and sometimes you're treated like "one of us" in a bad way, and sometimes you're treated like "one of them" in a good way and sometimes you're treated as "one of them" in a bad way.

you get it? I know it sounds complicated.

[DanWang]

@Brucehuang

 

I feel the same lol. Most Chinese students, whether studying abroad in U.S. or China, tend to think Americans are just inexcusable dummies that are just...just...傻逼！！And for people like us, I find students in both U.S. and China really inconsistent on how they judge us, which is pretty much what you said. I think that is where the identity confusion comes from—you are simply not whole enough, not pure enough, not all-american or all-chinese enough. 

 

I used to receive a lot of "you are Chinese traitor" type of shit but I don't hear that so often anymore, maybe its because so many people are leaving china now for foreign places or its just because of the people that I interact with. But for the most part, this is what Chinese Chinese say to us "middlemen" or ABCs who have not abandoned their Chineseness in shame: " be more American or Chinese, it's bad to be in the middle; Wow! she is entirely Americanized!!! look at how she behaves in front of Americans!!! ; how do you know 囪㹐 (random 2 syllable character combo) ?!?! (followed by a round of applause) ; WTF, I thought they do ____ in U.S., I guess you are not an authentic American then, cuz you don't do ____; I thought you are entirely culturally American, but you got ____ (random info about america) wrong, YES!!! it proves me right that you are not REAL REAL american, I knew I was right, HAHAHA. 

 

Just to list a few examples. 

 

Sometimes I wanna laugh out loud when people say I "should" be more American or more Chinese instead of being in the middle. The reason being that I don't know how I can be more American—am I supposed to be a rich capitalist in a suit yelling bids with white colleagues in wall street to be considered more American? a blonde german-blood redneck farmer in kansas to be considered more American? be a supposedly "stupid american" to be american?

 

Lol, the issue is that once you reveal your chinese part or american part, they implicitly assume that you are not american or chinese enough depending on which side you reveal. They don't get what "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" means in this context. To them identity is a zero sum game, you are either that or you are not that. 

 

But to be pragmatic and fair, I don't think we are in the middle because we are always learning the ways of both sides and so eventually we get to a point where we are equally american with other americans and equally chinese with other chinese. You gotta understand that chinese chinese are not experiencing as much things that are making them more chinese because they are already chinese chinese! same for americans too, but we are different, cuz we are always catching up to each side whether we want to or not. We are always learning both sides because it is our fate. So eventually both Chinese and American sides of us mature cuz there are only so many fundamental things and perspectives you need to have to be considered to be that side. I hope you still follow my logic here. But yea, this can become a huge advantage in the end. 

 

Last year, my parents asked if I want to study Arabic in Egypt for a few years...

 

NO, I do not want a tripartite soul.

 

p.s. oops. excuse my little rant here. 

[brucehuang]

@ DanWang

 

I feel like writing a even longer rant. Haha, you might just be like me. I've been searching for years for someone like myself, like a semi-second generation, or a FOBANANA.

[roddy]

Could I ask that you start a new discussion for that please, and that we keep this on the topic of interpretation careers and courses. Any more off-topic posts will likely get deleted, and I'll tidy up those already here at some point. Maybe. If I get around to it. 

[brucehuang]

@ roddy

 

Sure, but I'm not sure if this is totally unrelated to translation though, I mean, it's cultural experience after all.

[陳德聰]

Question!

Do any of these programs focus on translation of a more artistic nature? I was reading an article by a guy who did translation for Mo Yan and it reminded me how necessary it is for translators to be more than just proficient but also skilled at actually manipulating their language.

[gato]

I doubt it. The ideal translator would be good at the source language and great at the target language, but such translators are rare indeed. Translation school, however, is not set up to turn anyone into a great writer.

There are many books sold in China with atrocious translation from English. Alice Munro's books (the Nobel Literature Prize winner this year) sold here have atrocious Chinese translations. It's shameful.

[roddy]

陳德聰, would you be looking for literary translation? There are courses - Google quickly throws up University of East Anglia, Columbia, NYU, Edinburgh, though I didn't check for whether or not they can do Chinese. But if you're looking for interpretation courses with a focus on the arts, I'm not sure. I suspect you'd be better off taking the best interpretation course you can get on to and then immersing yourself in the field you're interested in. 

[Lu]

 

There are many books sold in China with atrocious translation from English.

I suspect this is to a very large extent because translators are paid badly, rushed to an insane extent and not treated all that well.

 

A Dutch series of children's books (not picture books, books consisting mostly of text) has been translated into Chinese last year. The translator was given three months to finish the entire series of 12 books.

 

A Taiwanese friend who's trying to get into the literary translation business shared his experience. He has now finally been asked to translate a book, non-fiction. The publisher will pay him badly, I forgot the exact amount, but it came down to very minimal wages even if he would manage to translate at a very high speed. His work will not be proofread or edited. The publisher will check a sample, and if too many mistakes are found, the translator will have to recheck the entire book. He will remain responsible for any and all mistakes in the book, and this didn't seem to exclude mistakes that may occur in the original.

 

Bruce Humes in his blog sometimes writes about translation to the Chinese. Translators basically never have time to think about what they're doing and why, what choices the author may have made, what creative solutions there might be for translation problems. Literary translation is not something that makes you rich in the Netherlands either, and plenty of bad translations are published here, but in comparison I think I'm living in the land of milk and honey really.

 

With such treatment, who'll be crazy enough to become a literary translator, let alone a good one?

[陳德聰]

@roddy I was definitely wondering specifically about the programs that are offered in China, though I suppose deep down I already knew the answer.

One of my translator profs actually suggested the opposite approach, to immerse yourself in the field first and then go be an interpreter/translator, though I suppose both probably work.

[gato]

Literary translation is not something that makes you rich in the Netherlands either, and plenty of bad translations are published here, but in comparison I think I'm living in the land of milk and honey really.

 

With such treatment, who'll be crazy enough to become a literary translator, let alone a good one?

 

Howard Goldblatt, the famous translator of Chinese fiction said in an interview in 2009 that most of the books he translate very few copies.  1000-2000 copies would have a good number for a Mo Yan book back in 2009.  It's no wonder that Goldblatt and Julia Lovell's (another prominent translator) full-time jobs are as a college professors. 

 

http://www.dfdaily.com/html/150/2009/4/5/424029.shtml

像莫言的《生死疲劳》卖得好吗？

　　葛浩文：要是能够卖一千、两千本算是好的。

[Lu]

 

Howard Goldblatt, the famous translator of Chinese fiction said in an interview in 2009 that most of the books he translate very few copies.  1000-2000 copies would have a good number for a Mo Yan book back in 2009.  It's no wonder that Goldblatt and Julia Lovell's (another prominent translator) full-time jobs are as a college professors.

1000-2000 seems rather low, considering how big the English-language market is. The standard in the Netherlands is 4000 copies for the first print, a recent Dutch translation of a Chinese book sold about 1000 copies in the first month or so.

 

But yeah, here also, most literary translators I know have other jobs as well.

[banjo67xxx]

This is an extremely interesting topic. My 4 year old son has been doing some interpreting for me (when he wants to) for a year already. If he wants to be a professional interpreter when he grows up, then it sounds like I should start playing games with him now to train his mind for simultaneous interpretation. I've tried simultaneous interpretation of French to English, but I simply cant concentrate on listening to the next sentence whilst speaking at the same time.

 

My French isn't good quite good enough to even do consecutive interpretation English -> French, but that can come with practice. However, my main focus right now is on learning Mandarin. Its a bit embarrassing that I've been married for 7 years and still only know about 20 sentences.

[yueni]

I've got to say, it's super exciting to find other native English C-E translators & interpreters here! I'm pretty stoked about it. =)

 

I thought I'd butt into this discussion for a little bit even though some of the things I want to reference were written months ago, and the program I'm going to talk about is an American program. First off, I am a MIIS graduate from the Chinese TI program. I am a native English speaker, but also had 8+ years of Chinese language education prior to entering MIIS. I had an HSK 9 (back in the day before they changed the HSK test). To give you a little perspective about my Chinese language abilities prior to entering MIIS, my HSK scores at the time put me at a borderline with an HSK 10, and that was a more difficult HSK test than the present system. Now, I am a working translator and interpreter in the US. I work full-time in-house for a company doing medical interpreting and also freelance as a technical translator.

 

First off, to deal with the whole language thing, to succeed in an MTI program (any MTI program), your language skills have to far surpass an HSK 6 by a lot. When I entered my program, I was literally one of 3 native English speakers out of 40+ students. 1 of the other native English speakers quit after 3 weeks. The second native English speaker was raised in Taiwan and spoke fluent Mandarin--his mother was Taiwanese. I had the worst Chinese level of the whole class. Everybody else were either from Mainland or Taiwan. After the first week of classes, my professors pulled me aside and told me that they were worried that my Chinese language skills were not up to par, and I might consider dropping out of the program. My only other option was to study my ass off. I studied my ass off. I literally ate, breathed, slept Chinese all day every day. It was insane. And that was in the first semester, which is the easiest semester of the program, because all the professors are being lenient with you so that you can get acclimated to the program. After the first semester, the kid gloves are off, and you have to work even harder. So, basically, if you can get an HSK 6? Good job, but your Chinese skills are still terrible if you want to be a truly professional working interpreter.

 

The students in the Chinese program (and the Japanese and Korean programs) are study robots. They do study from 8am to 11pm without fail. (Seriously though, 8am is a little late, don't you think? I feel like I had classmates starting their studying at 7am...) This doesn't change, even if this is happening in the US, so really, deciding to go to MIIS will not change that. Even if you decide to go to a European university, this will not change either. (source: other interpreters I know who got their degrees in the UK). If you truly want to go to MIIS (or really any other reputable university) for a TI degree in an East Asian language, you are going to have to get used to the pressure cooker study ways of your classmates.

 

@angeia, you also complain that at SISU, there is no textbook and no homework. There are no textbooks and there's very little homework at MIIS as well. Classes at MIIS are structured very similarly to classes at SISU (from what you have described in your posts). Basically, you walk into class and prepare to be torn down to pieces every day. You have to have thick skin. You have to go in there and be prepared to be embarrassed. If you can't 厚着脸皮去翻, then don't bother. I have a French interpreter friend at... I think at ISIT (I always mix up ISIT and ESIT, sorry), and he's always critiqued by his professors and his classmates on a daily basis. That is part and parcel of the degree. You need to throwaway your ego, and really think hard about what you are getting critiqued on. Sure, some of the criticisms will be nitpicky, but there's a lot of it that is also quite relevant and useful for you to grow as an interpreter.

 

As for the homework bit, there is no homework, because the only homework you can do for an interpreting-focused degree is to practice-practice-practice. At MIIS, the full degree (not advanced entry) is 4 semesters or two years long. It always starts in the fall and graduation is always in the spring. Suggested weekly practice hours per semester: semester 1--10 hours/week; semester 2--12-14 hours/week; semester 3--14-16 hours/week; semester 4--16-20 hours/week. Actual weekly practice hours: semesters 1-4--20+ hours/week... Get yourself a digital recorder (even a smartphone will work), and be prepared to listen to yourself butcher not just your B language, but also your A language as you work to improve your interpreting. I can't count the days where I would listen to myself interpreting into English, and conclude that my English language skills were lacking. It is a truly humbling experience, especially when you hear your native Chinese classmate the next table over interpreting the exact same passage, and doing a far better job than you just did... in her non-native language. =__=;;;

 

I noticed also that @angeia, you complained that Chinese professors don't care for their students. I will say that my professors were really awesome, but you really do have to take the initiative as a native English speaker, because you are going to need a lot more support from them than your native Chinese speaking classmates. That's simply the nature of the game in this field, I'm afraid. 95% of all working interpreters with a Chinese-English combination are native Chinese speakers. The percentage for Japanese is a little more even, I think, but the Japanese translators & interpreters I know tell me that the percentages still skew towards native Japanese speakers. When I was in the program, I had weekly meetings with most, if not all, my professors during the first semester so that I could track my progress. This was something that I had to take the initiative to do, and to be honest, there were some weeks where there was a lot of backsliding. I did feel as a native English speaker, that the into English classes were a little easier than the into-Chinese classes, but again, that's simply natural because of how skewed the ratio is for native speakers. It's only natural that your native-Chinese classmates will need more help going into their B language.

 

You guys have all stated that the MIIS degree is expensive. It is. It really, really, really is. Even with scholarships and all that. In my opinion, that is the biggest con about the MIIS degree. However, the one mitigating factor I have for that con is the connections you get simply by going to MIIS, as it is a world-renowned school in the TI field. MIIS alum are pretty much everywhere in this field, and in a field where connections are everything (more so than most fields, I think), the connections and opportunities I have gotten via the MIIS network has been incredible. I have interned at an IO in Europe because of that. I have researched jobs by emailing MIIS alum who have previously worked at the institutions/companies I was interested in working in, and most alum that I have contacted have been super generous with their time by speaking with me about their experiences. I will not say that finding work in this field when you just start is easy. It is not. However, you will get a leg up by having two important factors on your side: 1. a MIIS degree & network (seriously, the cachet this school carries has opened more doors than I ever realised) 2. being a native English speaker.

 

I have gotten jobs over other more qualified (in my opinion) interpreters/translators simply because of my language combo. Chinese will be our weak point. That's simply the name of the game, and that's simply something that you're going to have to live with, but you really need to leverage your English language abilities, and if you do so, you can get and do work that the other 95% of translators & interpreters out there can't.

 

I hope that this information was helpful at least in you guys deciding whether you want to go to MIIS or not. I'll do my best to keep up with this thread and answer any questions y'all might have (if you do have any).

[yueni]

I forget who mentioned this, I think it was @brucehuang. BFSU is basically a training ground for MFA interpreters. That is absolutely 100% correct. One of my classmates also had an MTI from BFSU in CI, and his English was very much Chinese-ified. I spoke with him about TI degrees in China at length, and he stated that BFSU is a really good school, but you practically have to be in the CPC to get in the TI program.  All the students who studied at Beijing universities pretty much told me that BLCU had a shitty TI program, especially since most of the professors aren't professional interpreters. It is a good school to learn languages, and that is the primary focus of the school, but if you really want to do translation or interpreting, your efforts are best turned elsewhere. The courses at BLCU are more structured than other places because the professors are not working interpreters. (As a side note, @angeia, the reason your classes don't have fixed times is probably because your professors were all working interpreters and they were probably planning each week's class schedule around their interpreting schedules. You should have seen the Chinese department at MIIS the week Hu Jintao made a state visit to the US. All our interpreting classes were cancelled for the week because the professors were all in DC interpreting!) 

 

In Beijing, there is another school: Beijing International Studies University (BISU) 北京第二外国语言学院 （北二外）(http://www.bisu.edu.cn/), and that school apparently has a much better CI program than BFSU. There were quite a few exchange students at MIIS in the Chinese program during my year from 北二外 (I think they have an MOU with MIIS), and some of them told me that 北二外 had the better interpreting program, but 北外 had the better translation program. I don't know if it was just school pride or what, but that's what they told me. Since they were all 北二外 students, you're going to have to take that with a grain of salt, I imagine! 广外 had a few advanced entry students as well. When I was at school, there weren't any students from 上外. I can't say much about those programs, but there was an advanced entry student from  广外 in the year above me, and she was insanely good, so I don't know if it was just her, or if 广外 really does have a good program. I don't know anything about Taiwanese programs, so I can't comment there.

 

As for the CI bit, all CI courses are tough. Even after taking 3 semesters of CI courses, I don't feel ready as an interpreter to do CI professionally. (Granted, I'm also a little out of practice for simultaneous right now as my job is mostly consecutive.) I spoke with one of my professors about CI after I'd graduated and she told me basically that expecting somebody to do simul after a year of training is really a tall order, and it really depends on each person as to how well they take to it. Some people simply don't have the skill or what have you to do it, even after lots of practice. There have been some students who were terrible at consecutive, but stick them in a booth with a headset, and suddenly they were geniuses. There have been other students who were amazing consecutive interpreters, but have them sit in a booth, and only rubbish comes out of their mouths. Some people pick up the skill after 3 months, some people practice for 3 years and are still left wanting. Her advice for any and all aspiring conference interpreters: practice a lot, practice every day, no excuses.

 

Regarding MTI recognition in the US, if you want to be a professional translator and/or interpreter in the US... good luck with that. It is a profession where you are literally invisible... if you do a good job. If you do a crappy job, you will be crucified. Translators and interpreters are more recognised in Europe where there are more languages and most people speak 2 or more languages. In the US where most people are monolinguals, everybody assumes that all it takes to be an interpreter is to speak two languages. We obviously know how misguided that is. True, most bilinguals can interpret easy stuff like "how much is this?" or "where's the toilet?", but get to more complicated sentences, and good luck! There are a lot of translation certificates in the US... for Spanish and other European languages, especially for medical or legal interpreting. To be honest, if you want to do community interpreting in the US (specifically medical and/or legal), I'd save your money and take a course at a community college or something. For Chinese, there are a lot of translation programs, but for interpreting, there are only two in the entirety of North and South America. Yes, you read that right in the entirety of Canada/USA/Latin America, there are only two masters level programs for Chinese-English interpreting. The first one is obviously MIIS. The second one is a new program that started in 2013 iirc by the University of Maryland. From what I know, (and I will add the caveat that this is all third-hand information) their professors are all working interpreters. The university is located near DC, so location-wise, I'd say it is far superior to MIIS for having access to regions that heavily utilize interpreters. I don't know much about the program, however.

 

@angeia, about finding Chinese speeches for practice. This was seriously the toughest part for me. All my professors acknowledged that finding good Chinese speeches was a pain in the rear. English speeches are more readily available by far. When I practiced in pairs with my classmates, sometimes we'd find transcripts online (which are way easier to find than videos or just audio), and take turns reading the speech to the other person. I interpreted a lot of speeches by 龙应台, 马云 and 郎咸平 for practice. You could also probably search for 胡锦涛、习近平、温家宝 etc on Youkou or Tudou or something. If you go on the MFA website, look for their 演讲 tab, and you'll find an archive of every important speech on Chinese policy ever given. They are mostly just transcripts, but you might be able to find video or audio of some of them, especially if it's being given by a more important Chinese leader. Sometimes, we'd get Chinese friends to record these transcripts for us, just so we could have a readily available Chinese text for practice. I used to have an awesome archive of Chinese speeches downloaded on my hard drive... and then it crashed last year and I lost everything. >__<

 

And to add about passing MIIS' advanced entry test. The beginning language aptitude test to get into MIIS to begin with is already difficult enough. If you have no extensive prior experience as a professional interpreter, or if you are not one of the better students in a graduate-level interpreting program, don't expect to pass the advanced entry test. It is tough, tough, tough.

[simplet]

Hey yueni, thanks for all the great info. All the students that told you BLCU was bad, did they mean for english or that the school in general is bad? As far as I know the school specializes in french; they actually only have 2 programs : either english 笔译 or french 口译, so I wouldn't be surprised if the english program wasn't the best preparation to get into MIIS or the like. But if the entire school has a bad reputation that might be more worrying.

 

It sounds like a lot of you are only working in two languages, is that common at the Monterrey institute? When I checked the schools in france they wanted at least a B and a C. Do they let you add a third or a fourth language?

[brucehuang]

@ yueni

How would I find in-house positions in the US? The US market is a little small for C-E and E-C...

[yueni]

@simplet I don't know anything about the BLCU TI program personally. My classmates and I all focus on CE translation & interpreting, as that's our language combo, so I couldn't tell you if their evaluation of the BLCU program was only based on the English, or if it included the French TI program. You might try looking for interpreters with that language combo to tell you what they know of that program.

 

@brucehuang The short answer to that question is connections, ability, and luck. There are very, very few in-house interpreting positions in the US for our language combo. We'd probably do better if we had Spanish. Most interpreters (all languages) are freelancers. Of the newer interpreters I know who are working in-house in the US, most of them are working as project managers for translation companies or in the translation divisions of larger companies. I only know three new Chinese language interpreters (graduated within the last 2-3 years) working as in-house interpreters in the US. One works for a major Chinese financial institution in NYC, but he'd already had an MTI from BFSU and also had 3 years of CI experience in Beijing prior to attending MIIS, so he really doesn't quite count a "new interpreter". The second is a medical interpreter at a major hospital in the Bay area. She got that position via an internship she did there the summer after she graduated. I am the third, and I found my position through another classmate who had already returned to China. She'd apparently freelanced for my current company previously, and they were looking for an available Chinese interpreter. She contacted me, I applied, and work there now. A few others who worked in the US as interpreters before their visas ran out worked primarily in the medical field, the court system, or through interpreting agencies.

[yueni]

As for number of working languages at MIIS, here's the deal. There are two degree tracks for interpreting: TI (equal focus on translation & interpreting; simul is an elective), and CI (focus on interpreting, simul is compulsory; translation is an elective). For the European languages (Spanish, French, German), students who want to do the CI track are strongly encouraged to have a third language, especially if their target is working in Europe. For the East Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean), a third language is not required. This simply has to do with the interpreting market.

 

In Europe people with 3, 4, 5+ languages are a dime a dozen. These interpreters primarily work in 1 direction: from their B & C languages into their A language. For East Asian languages, finding professional interpreters with language skills at a good enough level to be a conference interpreter is very difficult, and finding interpreters with an English A and a good enough Chinese B is, for all intents and purposes, impossible. So for the East Asian languages, we are required to work in both directions, that is to say, we have to interpret simultaneously both into Chinese and into English. I do not believe that is the case in places like ESIT and ISIT where students have 3 languages. (This is according to my French interpreter friend at one of those schools. He works from English and Chinese into French, and told me that he shudders to think that he might ever be required to work from French into Chinese!)

 

At MIIS, there are a few students who had three working languages, but they were either doing the CI degree or the Translation (no interpreting) degree. Most of them were European students. For interpreting, the students with three or more working languages doing CI when I was there had the following language combinations: German (A)-English-Spanish; Hungarian (A)-German-English; Italian (A)-Russian-English (I think she also had French, but don't quote me on that); and Russian (A)-English (A)-Chinese. There was a girl who was doing Russian (A)-English-Chinese as well, but she switched tracks and got a Translation degree instead. I think a couple of the Russian students also had French, but they chose to focus on two languages only.

 

In general, for most native English speakers (and really for most people who grew up in a monolingual environment), the stringent language requirements to be a professional interpreter comes as a huge shock, and a lot of students I know who were planning on having a third language quickly drop the idea after the first month. In this instance, I think the European students tend to be better prepared language-wise, just due to the language environment they are brought up in.