Post Interpreting practice session audio recordings here

[Moki]

I've decided to post recordings of my own interpreting practice sessions, to stay motivated and get feedback. I also invite anyone else who is interested in giving interpretation a try or working on maintaining/improving interpretation skills to post here as a place to get practice and track progress overtime. Lately I have been focusing on Japanese to Chinese simultaneous interpretation so for this session I selected a Japanese lecture on an aspect of the automotive industry. For reference the link to the original presentation audio can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PJcR1nnWv4

 

Japanese-Chinese simul 1a.mp3 Japanese-Chinese simul 2a.mp3

[Larry Language Lover]

Wow, RESPECT!   Two extremely difficult languages.   What is your native language?

[Moki]

50 minutes ago, Larry Language Lover said:

Wow, RESPECT!   Two extremely difficult languages.   What is your native language?

 

Thanks, my native language is English. Both languages did require a lot of effort to learn and still do to maintain a certain level of proficiency

[Moki]

The segments I posted above are from last night. Here is the beginning of a presentation I attempted tonight. The original audio can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAn9tT8dXm4

Japanese-chinese simul 3.mp3

[Larry Language Lover]

How many years did you study each language to be able to work with both at that high a level?

[Moki]

It took me about 4-5 years for each language to get to a level where I felt comfortable interpreting in a professional setting , with about 2-3 years of overlap. 

[Jan Finster]

On 2/17/2020 at 5:27 AM, Moki said:

I've decided to post recordings of my own interpreting practice sessions, to stay motivated and get feedback. ..... Lately I have been focusing on Japanese to Chinese simultaneous interpretation so for this session I selected a Japanese lecture on an aspect of the automotive industry.

 

16 hours ago, Moki said:

It took me about 4-5 years for each language to get to a level where I felt comfortable interpreting in a professional setting , with about 2-3 years of overlap

 

OK, I will pretend I have never read this. Otherwise, I might as well shoot myself.....  

 

Seriously, good job!

 

Did you live in Japan and/or China and are you familiar with the automotive industry from your bachground?

[Moki]

Here is last nights practice session. The opening part of a speech on China's economy and US china relations. The presentation is done in Japanese by a native Chinese speaker who works as an analyst at Marubeni Research Institute. Heres the link to the original  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esq4d3veka8  

 

 

Japanese Chinese SImul 4.mp3

[Moki]

10 hours ago, Jan Finster said:

Did you live in Japan and/or China and are you familiar with the automotive industry from your bachground?

 

 

Thanks  I have spent at least a year in both countries and both started shortly after the point when I had reached an advanced level in each language. I have a general understanding of certain aspects of the automotive industry. 

[Moki]

Tonights clip is a direct continuation of the previous one, with slight overlap. 

Japanese Chinese Simul 6.mp3

[Tomsima]

Sorry hadnt replied yet, great to see a thread like this here - I will have to get my pad back out and have a practice again, giving me some motivation! Your quality, turn of phrase and calmness is quite amazing, congratulations on getting to such a high level. I can't even comprehend how you are doing this between two languages neither of which are your mother tongue...world class really, must have taken years and years of incredibly hard work to get to where you are now, amazing job, very envious!

 

 

[Moki]

Thank you very much for the encouragement. It's great to have the perspective of someone else who has been through interpreting training. I really enjoyed reading your blog series on the T&I program that you did at Bath. 

 

Being so busy over the past few years has made it difficult for me to devote enough time to practicing. I used to always feel like if I am going to practice something, I need to do the entire speech over and over until I have it down perfect. Back when I was a student this sometimes worked, but that attitude still always put unnecessary pressure on me. It has gotten so overwhelming now that over the past year or so I have hardly practiced at all. Now I've realized that the important thing is just to do something everyday even if its just a little bit and far from perfect. 

 

I started this topic to get myself motivated again, but I was also hoping that this can be a place where anyone can post samples of their practice sessions and get comments while learn from one another. It may take a while before others who are interested in interpreting notice this thread, but hopefully at some point more people will come across it and participate, regardless of native language, years of study, work status etc. So for sure if you decide to get back to practicing, definitely join in! Even if it's just every once and a while it would be great to have someone else contributing to the thread.

 

My personal goal, as long as the forums are ok with it, is to post something on average every day for the rest of the year and then see how much of a difference it makes a year later. Performance will vary depending on the day and topic, but overtime hopefully I'll be able to see improvement. I may shorten the length of the samples and also plan to start posting J-C and C-J sessions. Once I make this a habit, hopefully I can add in some consec practice sessions too. 

[imron]

10 minutes ago, Moki said:

Now I've realized that the important thing is just to do something everyday even if its just a little bit and far from perfect. 

?

[Moki]

From now on I will be including how many times I attempted each section, to keep better record of what I was able to do on the first or second try vs after many attempts and keep myself from spending too much time on any one thing. Some practice sessions from today. The files may be out of order. 

 

Chinese Japanese- 1 attempt.  Wang qishan world economic forum speech . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3STGtzdrYj8

 

Into Chinese- first half 7 attempts, second half 2 attempts. Psychiatric Therapy Symposium   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTEdGHah4OE

 

Into Chinese- 3 attempts   Defense Symposium Keynote speech recording 1

 

Into Chinese- 1 attempt   Defense Symposium Keynote speech recording 2  Same as above.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAcMb0eQYYM

 

 

 

Japanese Chinese 9.mp3Japanese Chinese ８.mp3Japanese Chinese Simul 7a.mp3Chinese Japanese 1.mp3

[Moki]

Today I just did a quick segment from the first video in this thread, from about the 20 min mark. 2 attempts.  

Japanese Chinese 10.mp3

[roddy]

On 2/21/2020 at 4:11 AM, Moki said:

My personal goal, as long as the forums are ok with it

Absolutely, and I'll echo what was said about how impressive this is - not just two non-native languages, but two tough ones. 

 

If anyone's having trouble with the embedded mp3 player - be patient, it looks like it loads the entire file in the background before it starts playing, so it seems unresponsive. 

[Moki]

On 2/24/2020 at 9:52 PM, roddy said:

Absolutely

Thank you, glad to hear you are ok with it. I'll try to keep this up as long as I can, hopefully at least until the end of the year. 

 

File 11 - 7 attempts, begins at the 3:34 mark,  Paris Agreement Long Term Growth Strategy Outline  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySNymYc_q6Y

 

File 12 - first attempt,  starts from 9:32 . same link as above 

Japanese Chinese 11.mp3 Japanese Chinese Simul 12.mp3

[Moki]

Japanese Chinese 13.mp3

 

7 attempts, starts from the beginning of the video: How to deal with the risks of climate change https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XAXIEnVI6U

[Moki]

Japanese Chinese 14.mp3

This presenter speaks very quickly and reads a lot directly from his notes, so it takes a few tries to get most of the content. But its challenging/good practice so I'll probably just keep going with short segments of this one for now. 

 

8 attempts, starts from the cool biz warm biz slide at 4:20: How to deal with the risks of climate change https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XAXIEnVI6U

[Moki]

Japanese Chinese Simul 15.mp3Chinese Japanese Consec 1.mp3 

 

File 15,  8 attempts,  from 5:40  ,  How to deal with the risks of climate change https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XAXIEnVI6U

File 1 ,  3 attempts.    the first minute, 为真实的世界设计  http://www.ccjt.tv/talk/view/202