High Level Interpreter @ Gaming Tournament

[道艺]

Not sure if anyone else here follows League of Legends, much, but I decided to watch the Chinese broadcast of the last match (an NA vs EU group stage match of the video game tournament).

Just as I was about to turn it off, they pulled in one of the winning players to do a post-game interview. The interviewer was speaking in Chinese at a million miles an hour, and oddly enough there was no interpreter. All of a sudden, without even taking a breath, she hopped over to English to ask him a question. While she did have a noticeable 'grew up in China learning English from 外教' typical accent, her speed, fluency, and even native phrasing was top notch.

 

Anyone else catch it?

 

Not sure if the vod has come out yet, but if it does, I'll try to link it. (Edit: see link below)

 

**Edit**
Found it here

 

Edited October 3, 2020 at 02:20 PM by 道艺黄帝
Added link

[Dawei3]

Thanks for posting this.  It made me smile that she gave the compulsory compliment 哈哈 on his Chinese when he said 你好.

 

Her fluency is so good, my sense is there is a good chance she lived or studied overseas (or had excellent English teachers).  

 

This is also a good practice video.  Even though she speaks very quickly, her vocabulary is relatively simple.  

[Demonic_Duck]

46 minutes ago, Dawei3 said:

It made me smile that she gave the compulsory compliment 哈哈 on his Chinese when he said 你好.

 

I loved how she said that then immediately turned round and said “就非常简单的一个…简短的一个‘你好’” ?

 

She's extremely talented for sure. I've rewatched the video a few times now and the only thing I could find to nitpick was her handling of the last question — she didn't make the connection between him being back in China and his perceived good luck. But most times on the first watch, I found I couldn't even recall his answers straight after he said them, let alone try to translate them into another language. Possibly being more familiar with e-sports would have helped.

 

46 minutes ago, Dawei3 said:

my sense is there is a good chance she lived or studied overseas (or had excellent English teachers).

 

Could well be, but that's probably not the differentiating factor here. I assume she's also studied Chinese-English interpreting as a bachelor's or master's degree, probably including simultaneous interpretation (which is an even more jaw-dropping talent). I think degrees in this subject tend to be pretty vocationally focused, and students who work hard at them can see some pretty amazing results. But I've also heard it's a tough subject to excel at.

[Moki]

Watching and listening I would say she there to do the interview, not as an interpreter and does not necessarily have a degree in interpretation. More likely that she just understood the responses he gave (and was familiar with the event itself), remembered most of the content and then interpreted it into Chinese, which is her native language. As long as you understand the original message, it is much much easier to interpret it into your native language, especially if you are familiar with or already have a good idea about the content the speaker is talking about. In those situations it can almost feel effortless, as if you are telling people an idea of your own that you are familiar with. There are still certain ideas that are hard to express in your native language that will trip someone up when interpreting like she was, but for must of it as long as she remembered what he said overall, it wouldn't be very difficult to say it in Chinese. Some people who get degree's in interpretation do go on to work in the media and do both interviewing and interpreting work (separately or together) so I guess it is possible.