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Even Obama's interpreter has big prob in Chinese tone
Hey, if you understand Chinese, you would find what a big prob Obama's interpreter from the US has in matering proper Chinese tone!
This following link is the press conference of Obama and Hu Jintao! http://video.sina.com.cn/news/c/v/2009-11-17/165348253.shtml
The Chinese have big prob in all Indo-European languages, too. They are too difficult for them grammatically
Why do they translate in the opposite direction that you would expect? Shouldn't the English interpreter go from Chinese to English, and the Chinese one from English to Chinese?
When he said '开始' I think his tones were wrong. But hey, he speaks bloody good Chinese, let's face it.
>>Cock Tue Nov 17, 2009 9:19 pm GMT
Why do they translate in the opposite direction that you would expect? Shouldn't the English interpreter go from Chinese to English, and the Chinese one from English to Chinese? << A very good question! I wondered about the same thing! Maybe both sides are just worried about their heads' words being misunderstood or cooked by the other side's interpreter if these interpreters just translate into their native tongue respectively? >>Caspian Tue Nov 17, 2009 9:57 pm GMT When he said '开始' I think his tones were wrong. But hey, he speaks bloody good Chinese, let's face it. << He has so much improvement to de desired in his Chinese! This US interpreter has obavious trouble in producing the right tones with such words as 他们, 讨论, 国家, 努力, 和, 部分, 变化, 制止, 对抗, 挑衅, 不, 南亚, 符合, which are very commonly-used words in Chinese. His output is also not quite fluent, and output such as 北朝鲜的可核查的消除核武器方面的这些努力 defies comprehension to Chinese ears! His use of 尊敬 in the context of 美国尊敬中国的主权和领土完整 is grossly mispalced! Many Internet users of China said they were all amused by the bizarre flavor of this US interpreter's Chinese!
Having worked as a Spanish translator here is my two cents:
If one were to look closely, he would find that in mainland China prepare everything in advance for their translators, with polished English translations. The Soviet Union used to do that too, to make sure that nobody deviates from the party line. So they do not translate, they simply read texts because their bosses are also reading from texts. Most other countries especially Democracies like America depend on on -the -spot translations. It is expected that leaders will speak off the cuff, or if using prepared remarks, to only use them as a guide. Add the problems of poor acoustics, pushing and shoving, and you will see why translations never are as good as originals, unless, of course, the translator is simply reading from a text, as happens in China. Probably for such occasions, each country wants to have its own translator so that the meaning can get across. Pronounciation and grammar are of secondary importance. My Singapore friends say that in China there are all types of accents, It would be interesting to review the tones used by Hu and others to see how good they are at Peking Mandarin?
How bad was it, really? We need top interpreters for heads of state. It's less important for casual interpreting. Did someone shove the interpreter into doing this at the last moment? I've been in that situation. Not comfortable.
I think all languages that have tones are difficult to be taught and learned. Still, it doesn't mean if you have in your mother tongue tones that you will be able to learn them in some other language with the pitch accent.
All in all, this guy speaks very very very well!
The Chinese interpreter had problems with his pitch and accent, even though he was just reading a prepared text while the American guy was really interpreting.
And so what if one had a Taiwanese accent and the other had a British accent? They both did well, under the circumstances, let us not rush to conclusions.
Shuimo writes that the US translator had problems "in matering proper Chinese tone!"
The Chinese interpreter also had problems in "mastering American pitch" Sounds like they both did fine, even though the Chinese guy was reading a prepared text while the US guy had nothing but a notepad and had to take notes as the President spoke. Overall, this site seems a bit biased and appears to overemphasize difficulties of native English speakers in other languages while downplaying the constant grammatical errors, bad accents, spelling mistakes, etc. of non-native English speakers. And why does this site ask for a French word for a color? What about those who do not know French? Why not ask for the German word?
It takes all of 20 seconds to look up the word - and a lot of people learn French. You're right, it could be in German - but don't you think people would find it problematic writing the ß?
It hasn't really stopped people from spamming anyway. Even spammers have enough brain cells to find out what the French word for 'white' is - after they find out what French is, of course. Don't learn to run before you can walk, and all that - in fact, they probably get their mothers to do it for them. This site doesn't appear to be very democratic, so there's not really much point in making a serious suggestion as they tend to get ignored - but I would consider having several anti-spam questions that the site juggles between for each person, so that it makes it harder to send several spam-filled messages at once, one after the other. It wouldn't make that much of a difference though.
There is no reason to ever use Caucasians since there are plenty of Chinese Americans who understand the language and culture much better than any foreigner. The fact that a white guy was used just shows how racist America is. In China, we do not have this problem and even teach Tibetans, Uighurs and other minorities in their own languages and created scripts for those who did not have written languages yet.
China has stood up on the world stage and will never brook interference in its internal affairs. Complex topics like Obama and President Hu Jintao were discussing should only be handled by competent interpreters from our Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And for those monolingual Americans, we should remind them that English is a very simple language and our officials are better educated and often speak better English than the average Joe 6 pack.
SonofYanHuang: "The fact that a white guy was used just shows how racist America is."
Good point. America is so racist that it had to elect a black president, with a middle name Hussein. So racist that it had to send Chinese Americans such as Gary Locke (secretary of commerce) and Steven Chu (secretary of energy) to China to deal with commerce and energy issues. Now, let us look at the story of 娄婧 Lou Jing: http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E5%A8%84%E5%A9%A7 Hmm... China surely is such a racial heaven... that people are laughed at for simply being black, and their mother becomes also an object of ridicule. Makes you wonder... 网友“dunkez”：她妈也不容易，本来以为搞上黑人就能出国了。结果除了多了一个小黑鬼看来真没沾便宜啊。不过他妈已经可以出去炫耀，看我生了个外国种啊！ 网友“宝日龙梅你强暴朕”：原来脑残是可以遗传的，她娘贪慕虚荣被黑人玩弄还生了娃。这个当女儿的也有脸出来丢人现眼，真不是什么体面人家。 网友“痴痴嘎嘎”：虽然骂的是她妈，但是明显因为黑人的身份带给了娄静很多歧视，如果娄静是白种人的混血，娄静不会受到如此多的歧视，因为白人的地位原因和混血出来的孩子确实漂亮，很多女人不骂娄静是因为基于道德的原因和同情心。 |