Bikram Yoga for Translators
Translators like me, tend to sit in front of their computer screen, staring at it and typing away for hours every day. Whether we are working from home or at clients’ office, we are more likely to suffer from shoulder stiffness and back pain, compared with our interpreter colleagues, who are out and about, having […]
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Phone Interpreting: Problem Solving Approach
On-demand phone interpreting has been on the rise due to its ability to bridge communication on the spot. Traditional, when an onsite interpreter is engaged for a police interview, or a criminal proceeding, accuracy is paramount as it will help the police and the court, people who don’t understand the language, to evaluate the credibility […]
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Not Just an Interpreter
When I was studying interpreting in RMIT, I was told that converting information from one language to the other is my job. I am not to advocate and taking a neutral position is the safest bet. A recent assignment for the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources changed my view on my role. It was […]
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Ethical Price Reduction & Heroic Effort
An elderly Chinese couple from Hong Kong issued proceedings in Melbourne Country Court against their accountant daughter for failure to return the money held on trust. The elder couple were in their 60s and they migrated to Australia a few years ago to live with their daughter and son-in-law. They remitted their life savings to the daughter’s home loan […]
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Accurate Translation of Phone Intercept Shortened Drug Trial
A container of floor tiles from Hong Kong arrived at Fremantle, with heroin concealed inside. Police followed the truck from the port to a warehouse in Perth and subsequently 4 Chinese was arrested. Telephone intercepts became key evidence in the police’s case to prove that the accused had knowledge of what was inside. Our multilingual Chinese legal interpreter was […]
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Seamless Handover in Lengthy Proceeding
This case involved a claim by a China-based plaintiff of misused company funds against an Australian director. Our Chinese court translator Dongmei assisted with the pre-trial translation of a large folder of journal accounts of expenses and agreements written in Chinese. The case lasted for two years and failed to settle. One month before the trial commencement, […]
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30 Day Murder Trial at Victoria Supreme Court
The client was a female Vietnamese Chinese refugee with 3 years of primary school education and a gambling addiction. She was charged with murder of another Vietnamese woman who did not speak Cantonese, who wanted her money lent to the accused back. The accused chose a Cantonese speaking interpreter instead of a Vietnamese interpreter, hoping […]
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Why Learning a Second Language?
I work as a Chinese interpreter in Melbourne speaking English, Mandarin, Cantonese as well as a southern Chinese dialect called Teo Chiew. Whenever people are impressed by the number of languages and dialects I speak, I tell them learning a language is probably the last thing on my list if I have been left to my own accord. I […]
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Assisting Job Seekers with Industry Specific Bilingual Vocabularies
I have been interpreting for many Chinese job seekers in their employment consultant interviews over the last 13 years. As a fly on the wall, I have witnessed the frustration of many newly arrived or established migrants struggling to find work in the industries they worked in their own countries, due to language barriers. For […]
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Know Thyself: Are You an Auditory or Visual Learner
We human beings are not born equal, some are good at making things with their hands, while others are quicker in picking up a new language. I have come to appreciate this much more after the birth of my daughter two years ago. So that is why we have the division of labor in our […]
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