Translation / Interpretation – My Personal Learning & Sharing

I am a bit sad on 18th Jan 2015 because I did not translate well. As I reflect, I still would like to thank God. I would like to share about my thoughts about my experiences of translating.

A serving avenue especially for those who returned from English-speaking countries
I think the ministry of translation is a serving avenue for those brothers and sisters who have returned from other English-speaking countries, especially for those whose first language is Chinese. Taking myself as an example, I had the opportunity to improve my English when I was in overseas while Chinese is already my first preferred language. The environment actually forced me to listen, to read and to speak in English. Therefore, my English improved while I still hold Mandarin as my first language. For my case, my Mandarin improved too because they were lots of people from China who speak proper Mandarin at my study place. Therefore, we should encourage this group of people to serve in this ministry!

Translation vs Interpretation
Some opine that a better term to describe expressing words in other languages should be "interpret" instead of "translate". It should be called “interpret” because it is quite unlikely to express the meaning of the speaker 100%ly by using another language, if not impossible. Furthermore, the other-language-expresser usually first understands and then only "interprets" from what he/she understands. No matter the term is "translate" or "interpret", the point is it is not easy. To me, it is a definitely a challenge to translate from one language to another.

Pride & Self-Seeking
I am not sure but maybe because of it’s level of difficulty, one becomes proud easily when one has the ability/opportunity to translate. This has been a struggling area of mine. On one hand, I would like to serve Him in this ministry with a right attitude. On the other hand, very easily, I am serving my own ego or trying to show off to others. This usually happens when I am over confident and seeking to rely on myself. My dilemma is that I try to improve my translation skills as I practice but as I improve I become more confident at the same time and therefore tend to rely on myself instead of Him. I can easily be self-seeking and be proud of myself. When this takes place, I am actually displeasing Him even when I am translating correctly.

Failure 
Back to the matter that I am a bit sad on 18th Jan 2015 because I did not translate well at Setia Alam Preaching Point. I said to myself I could have done much better. This kind of feeling started during on that day in the midst of translating. It was like a vicious circle that led me to become less confident and low self-esteem. The volume of my voice also became softer. The focus has shifted to myself because I was self-blaming and afraid of translating the next sentences wrongly. Overall, I did not translate well. Actually, this kind of experience did not happen for the very first time but it happened a number of times already before this.

What was worse was that I also invited my sister to come along to listen to my translation in order to let me know which are the areas that I can further improve. After the translation session, she told me that my concentration was a bit lost. I think it is quite true because I was so into myself.

I remember there was also another time of “failure” where I invited NS to come and listen to my translation. This kind of “failure” didn’t stay within myself only but it actually made known to all the people who were present during that time. All my wrong usage of words, incorrect pronunciations and my “silent moments” were in front of the ears and eyes of everybody. It is certainly not a good feeling to “show” my weaknesses to so many people.

The Beauty of Failure
As I reflect, I still want to thank God that there are times I don’t translate well. The didn’t-translate-well-moments reminded me to be humble because after all I am serving Him and I am not suppose to please myself. It is not hard for me imagining myself being an arrogant person should all the translation sessions in the past were good. Therefore, I would like to describe these situations as “The Beauty of Failure”.

Discipleship / MAWL Model
Teacher JD was the person who approached me to help him to translate for adults’ prayer meeting. He led me into this serving avenue. Due to the difficulty of translating from one language to another, one usually requests help from another ‘senior’ person to be present in order to offer help when needed. Likewise, I requested teacher JD’s to be present to help me as well.

Later on, when I am more confident and “independent” already, I started to invite new people to be present in order to help me and to feedback to me. Then I gave opportunity to myself to be the person who assists and provides feedback while listening to the translation of the invitee. Gradually, one becomes more familiar, comfortable and competent and eventually becomes independent. When this happens, it’s time for me to leave and to encourage one to train others through this process as well. This is the MAWL Process/Model:



(M) Model : I do; you watch
(A) Assist : We do
(W) Watch : You do; I watch
(L) Leave : You do; someone new watches (the process begins again)

It sounded like a long process until I applied it. Taking these four steps literally, I think a person can be trained in doing one time each for all the four processes of MAWL. It is easy because we could start by just inviting somebody to come and observe us whenever we are serving. For now there are two trainers (myself & NS) who are inviting somebody else to observe us when we translate. A discipleship movement of translation ministry has begun!

The 2 Principles of Translation
Besides the amazing discovery above, I also have learned some more “inward” lessons in this ministry – the two principles of translation.

1) I am also a hearer
I am also a listener of the message when I translate. This principle does not only keep me to be attentive to the speaker and more importantly it helps me to relax during translation. If I am a message hearer myself, I do not have many differences with the audience. We are different in terms of our position/location only where I am standing while the others are setting. This reduces the stress and nervousness of a person a lot. Therefore a person can translate more naturally in a stress-free condition.

2) I am also the speaker
The other side of the pendulum is that I am also the speaker when I translate. This is the principle I learned from our brother NS. I would suggest to focus on the first principle first because I view this second principle as the next phase of learning. The attitude of I am also the speaker myself helps me to be more responsible in my selection of words because I am also sharing the message. I cannot simply translate but I must take it very seriously. It is my duty to convey the message clearly in order to ensure the message to be understood correctly by the audience.


Conclusion
I thank God for using me as His vessel to serve Him in his ministry. My prayer is that no matter what the outcome of my translation, may He help me to have the right heart and attitude towards Him and others.