I just got to frame 1012 何 in RTK1 today, I found that this was one of those rare kanji that are so common that I recognized it on sight, and automatically scribbled "なに" next to it.

Then I looked at the keyword - "what".

"Isn't that quite different from なに," I thought. But after some reflection, I realized that this is indeed an accurate translation.

So as I've been going through Heisig, I'm starting to notice a problem with myself - or is it a problem? But anyway, what I'm finding is that I don't context switch very well.

In my mind, English and Japanese seem to exist in two separate universes. I pretty much reboot my brain to switch between them, and little or no equivalence exists in my mind between them. When a colleague asked me to explain to him what a little instruction booklet said (it was in easy Japanese), I found myself absorbed in the Japanese and struggling to surface to that I could answer him in English instead of Japanese. A similar thing happens in the other direction.

I wonder how those simultaneous translators do it, hearing in one language and outputting in another??

Years of training.

@Mushi
happens to me all the time. I can understand/explain in jp.But in english it's another story. It takes time,usual fluency in the language your translating too and your native one. Takes a long while to translate with ease.

Womacks23 Wrote:Years of training.

I agree

@Mushi
I had the same problem a while ago with English and Portuguese. It took ~2 years to get over it. Now I can context switch it naturally.

I can do it with Spanish without almost any training. I started to hear Spanish occasionally this year, and last Saturday I translated subtitles on-the-fly for my friend who could not understand them.
It is more ore less the same with French. The little I can understand I can translate very quickly.

With Japanese I'm starting to be able to do it. At first I could not translate at all. It was way too painful. Then I could give a general translation. Now my translations are more precise and I can do them more or less quickly.
I think this ability started to get stronger when I got back to watching Japanese stuff with English subs (old movies and series are just a pain to download without subs).

Practice?

Interesting, I never have a problem switching back and forth between Japanese and English, or translating something in a basic manner. I can even think with Japanese and English in the same sentence (what ever word comes to mind first, or if I don't know the Japanese word). Don't worry, I do have control over whether I think in Japanglish or English or Japanese.

I wonder if trouble switching between languages comes from avoiding English when studying Japanese? I mean, I still watch anime with English subs, don't shy away from translations of things I have trouble understanding, still use English definitions for vocab learning... as a result, I feel I don't have trouble switching/translating, but I don't need any English to understand Japanese (I can read monolingual definitions, but I just don't bother most of the time).

Mushi Wrote:II wonder how those simultaneous translators do it, hearing in one language and outputting in another??

To be precise, translators work with written texts. People who work with oral texts are called interpreters. They are both extremely different processes. The interpretation can be simultaneous or consecutive. In Japanese it's usually consecutive, because of the structure of sentences having the verb at the end.

If you want to read a bit more about interpreting, you can check Language interpretation at Wikipedia.

Sebastian Wrote:If you want to read a bit more about interpreting, you can check Language interpretation at Wikipedia.

Thank you - interesting the nuances in those terms. I imagine I may someday be able to translate decently, but I can't imagine I'd ever be able to do consecutive or simultaneous interpretation.