A client visited us this week confused about China’s requirements for her consulting and potentially a large contract to deliver services in China. It turns out that communications had been hampered by poor translation. She had been relying on a PhD student in her field but, as we often see, such ‘translators’ are not trained translators and often have a poor understanding of English grammar, sentence structure, and other vocabulary not in their gamut, not to mention no interpreter training. A quick phone call with our professional Mandarin Interpreter resolved the uncertainty and now our client can move forward with confidence and will use our qualified Mandarin Interpreters from now on.
An ABC report (listen to the radio here) by China correspondent Bill Birtles focusing on the work of Mandarin Interpreters shed light on just how complex and important the interpreting role is. A Chinese leader would never meet with foreigners without a good interpreter by their side. The profession of interpreters in China is highly regarded – some of them achieve ‘cult’ status with their beautiful rendering of idioms, lovely accents, and accurate translations.
Here in Australia, however, interpreters are largely invisible and not always accorded the recognition for their training and experience. In fact the idea that ‘any bilingual speaker’ can be an interpreter is still widely held and a big trap for the unwary.
Our Managing Director, Charles Qin, who features in the story, said “With so much nuance and cultural context involved, it is more important than ever that Australian interpreters can speak for their leaders to ensure their carefully crafted messages are not lost in translation.”
It is not just leaders who need good interpreters, you can benefit from Mandarin interpreters at this level too – it isn’t as expensive as you’d imagine and in fact hiring trained and qualified interpreters will save you a lot of time, hassle and mistakes by getting it right in the first place. The Chinese will certainly appreciate you having a good interpreter and they will always have one on their side.
For more information or to discuss how interpreters can assist, contact our team on 1300 792 446 or (61 3) 8602 6300