Why don't you often see mixed-race people doing simultaneous interpretation?

The boss is German, and the child is a Chinese-German mixed-race girl in primary school. Little Lori has no obstacles to communicate in Chinese and German. Once her parents were chatting, she sat next to me and suddenly asked me, "Do you want to know what they are talking about?" As soon as I said yes, she began to translate. The speed and fluency are amazing. I think I can reach the level of a professional interpreter with a little training. So I thought of a problem. Because of the language environment of the family, mixed-race children began to contact and use at least two languages earlier. Does it prove that their talent in interpretation is higher than ordinary people? If so, why is the field of simultaneous interpretation not occupied by a large number of mixed-race people?

Anonymous user

The half-breed from Zhihu said a few more words.

I am a mixed-race Chinese and Russian. I was born in China. I studied English in kindergarten, and now I live in America. I can switch between Chinese, Russian and English at will. Actually, my parents never taught me Russian at all. I was just listening. Now my husband and I both work in English, and sometimes English and sometimes Chinese when we go home. We watch several football games every week, with Russian explanations. My husband doesn't know Russian, and he only watches Russian TV because he can't stand Chinese and English explanations. He thinks that Chinese explanation is useless for brain damage, while English explanation is often biased. The commentary of mainstream British TV stations is not biased towards our home team. He wants to keep his ears clean, and he would rather not understand them than listen to those remarks that mock his home team. It happens that I can understand Russian, but I don't usually translate it to him (we are all high-level fans, and our familiarity with games and players is not much worse than that of commentators, and we often can understand what happened without explanation). I will share it with him in English or Chinese when I hear an interesting explanation. Answer the guesses put forward by the subject one by one. If you have any questions, please comment and I will update my answers.

1) Does the complicated language environment (Little Loli is teaching English in addition to Chinese and German) weaken her deep understanding of language and writing? Many ABC students can speak Chinese, but their literary attainments are not good, and their understanding of China traditional culture is relatively weak? Is this a truth?

A: There is this reason. Mixed-race or immigrant teenagers often only have a little deeper understanding of one culture, and it is more likely that they have no in-depth understanding of both. When I was young, I learned Chinese according to the enlightenment of Chinese studies. I can write metrical poems, brush and read a dream of red mansions, but I am only regarded as "good literary accomplishment" on the level of literary aesthetics. Good literary accomplishment does not guarantee that I can understand the core of China culture. For example, I have always asked, "Will China people accept an apology?" I'm puzzled by this question. Someone told me that China people don't accept apologies, so they can only offend people at first, and it's no use apologizing after offending people. I was told that people in China attach great importance to apologizing. Even if they offend people seriously, as long as they sincerely apologize and give enough face, they can be forgiven and even become good friends ... I am completely at a loss.

Me and my young friends who come from China and work in the American science and technology industry don't have to think about these problems. Although we basically communicate in Chinese, our way of thinking is American, or "citizens of the world", rather than typical China. If we apologize or accept an apology, we will follow the American way. There are also some words in English that need pondering. For example, some people say that your proposal is well written, whether it is perfunctory or sincere praise, sometimes it is difficult to ponder even in the context. However, it is easy to judge what is "polyphony" in western languages. I often wonder whether a sentence in Chinese is interpreted as "I asked you to do this" or "I didn't ask you to do this, just say it", or "He said it, but he didn't really refuse, just want you to keep pushing it to him". I'm still wondering, how to translate?

Another very important problem is that the stock of connotation is completely different. For example, if something has political connotation, typical China people will understand it. Although I have no problem with Chinese, I didn't take China's political class at school and didn't think about it.

2) Other capacity restrictions. Outside the language, the ability of comprehensive listening, instantaneous memory and even taking notes (although it can be obtained through training) is not outstanding, so the advantage of mixed-race interpreters is not outstanding on the comprehensive level?

A: In the aspects you mentioned, mixed-race children have no advantages, at least no disadvantages, but the language advantage is overwhelming. Even if the professional translators trained in China are old birds, after all, English is not their mother tongue, and listening to English is still more difficult than listening to Chinese (the topic is translation major. Think about it yourself, can you or your translation teacher listen to English as freely as listening to Chinese? ), because it is still a "foreign language" after all. For hybrids, they don't listen to a foreign language, both of them are mother tongues, and they all sound the same, without friction. Their simultaneous interpretation is not a process of "listening and translating", but expressing meaning in another language. Because both of them are native speakers, there is actually a time difference in explanation.

The reason why the mixed-race Loli's young simultaneous interpretation is accurate and fluent is that she is not wasting her brain on "listening to translation", but on free translation (interpretation). As long as paraphrase doesn't have too many additional requirements for expression, how hard can it be to just ask for a new word? Of course, their paraphrases are often casual and of low quality, but with a little professional training, they can save their brains in listening to translation and concentrate on taking notes. On the whole, translation ability still has an overwhelming advantage over local translation.