One of the reasons I will never be a great on the fly translator, a skill so often and consistently required here to merely survive seminar, is that I don’t process Japanese into English well. I easily grasp the meaning and can explain around the plot, but the literal translation always eludes me, leading to terrible classes where I sound like an idiot. For example, just this morning, we were reading a text where one word in the Chinese meant 台所, but all that came to mind in the English was “probably rectangular room with cooking” which, in my talking out loud to the class somehow came out as “hallway” and lead to the professor saying for about the millionth time that seminar, “No, it’s not a hallway. It’s a…?” which, naturally, makes me panic for the millionth time and I just sit there thinking to myself, “FOOD FOOD FOOD?” until C. is like, “Uh, kitchen?”
I’m embarrassed for myself that I can’t speak English, but I don’t really understand why I can’t seem to grasp the transition between languages. I know that it’s really not a good idea to think in one language when speaking another, and so I’ve always tried to avoid it, but in a program so heavily geared toward off the cuff translation, it’s ended up working against me. I’m not saying it’s impossible. People are obviously good at simultaneous language translation! But translation has never really been my talent, a secondary interest at most that’s only flagged as I continue to suck at it every week for the last year and a half.
Nothing really to comment about, but I wish I could just get better at it. I’ve gotten better at reading, better at understanding, but translation just continues to lag on behind. End of the semester blahs!
