This course is an introduction to translating and interpreting that provides an overview of the knowledge necessary for the fields of translation and interpretation. Students will study general issues involved in translating and interpreting and building the foundation of knowledge and techniques including rapid reading, analyzing, summarizing and paraphrasing, listening comprehension and shadowing. Taught in Japanese.
This course satisfies MLOs 1, 2, and 4, with a strong focus on MLO 1: Language and Communication. But first I wish to quickly highlight how it satisfies MLOs 2 and 4. MLO 2 is culture and we examined Japanese culture in class through a multitude of ways including but not limited to: how Japan's population reacted to the 3/11 Triple Disaster, reading short Japanese newspaper articles, using a variety of source materials in our exercises including menus and websites and finally, as one of our final projects translating part of a variety show. MLO 4 is research and technology. Though this class had less emphasis on research, we learned of new technological tools to help with our studies such as Rikai-kun and Chuutor as well as exploring the simultaneous interpretation function that Zoom offers.
As for MLO 1, it is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on effective communication in Japanese. As students in this class we were required to speak only in Japanese in the classroom, unless practicing translating or rarely if we were instructed otherwise. This forced our interpersonal communication with fellow students to improve as we had to make ourselves understood. The second part of MLO 1 focuses on the Japanese language itself and its linguistics. By translating Japanese sentences into English quickly through sight translation, we had to examine the syntax of the sentence in Japanese and often rearrange the sentence into a more appropriate syntax for English. A common example of this is many sentences in Japanese end with the verb at the end of the sentence with the subject and the object coming before the verb, rather than in the middle of the sentence between the subject and object, where it is usually found in English. Another example of this is sometimes the subject of a sentence comes all the way at the end of a sentence in Japanese or sometimes dropped altogether. In English it is usually preferable to keep the subject of the sentence close to the beginning and often repeated throughout a conversation. All of this eventually concluded in our final project of subtitling a few minutes of a variety show.
This course satisfies MLOs 1, 2, and 4, with a strong focus on MLO 1: Language and Communication. But first I wish to quickly highlight how it satisfies MLOs 2 and 4. MLO 2 is culture and we examined Japanese culture in class through a multitude of ways including but not limited to: how Japan's population reacted to the 3/11 Triple Disaster, reading short Japanese newspaper articles, using a variety of source materials in our exercises including menus and websites and finally, as one of our final projects translating part of a variety show. MLO 4 is research and technology. Though this class had less emphasis on research, we learned of new technological tools to help with our studies such as Rikai-kun and Chuutor as well as exploring the simultaneous interpretation function that Zoom offers.
As for MLO 1, it is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on effective communication in Japanese. As students in this class we were required to speak only in Japanese in the classroom, unless practicing translating or rarely if we were instructed otherwise. This forced our interpersonal communication with fellow students to improve as we had to make ourselves understood. The second part of MLO 1 focuses on the Japanese language itself and its linguistics. By translating Japanese sentences into English quickly through sight translation, we had to examine the syntax of the sentence in Japanese and often rearrange the sentence into a more appropriate syntax for English. A common example of this is many sentences in Japanese end with the verb at the end of the sentence with the subject and the object coming before the verb, rather than in the middle of the sentence between the subject and object, where it is usually found in English. Another example of this is sometimes the subject of a sentence comes all the way at the end of a sentence in Japanese or sometimes dropped altogether. In English it is usually preferable to keep the subject of the sentence close to the beginning and often repeated throughout a conversation. All of this eventually concluded in our final project of subtitling a few minutes of a variety show.