今日は、前回書いた日本語レッスンのお話の、続きを。
Today I'm writing the sequel of my last post, about my teaching.
ここ数年、私5つほど、違うお仕事を色々とかけもってやってきていたのですが(専業主婦という肩書の下、らしからぬ生活を送っている)。
特に最近、いくつかやらせていただいたのが、ビジネス会議における同時通訳。
明日、明後日も朝5時起きで会議なのです・・・。(日本時間とかヨーロッパ時間とか、基本我々英語圏に合わない時間帯での設定が多いため、深夜早朝に駆り出されるのが多少難)
I have been having 5 different jobs these last few years. (My title says 'stay at home mom' - but my life totally isn't like it)
Lately, a few business meetings have been letting me work there as an interpreter - In fact, I have two meetings this week, one tomorrow and the other one is Wednesday! I gotta get up early, my alarm would go off at 5am... (because they need me during THEIR work hour, not ours. So I usually do this service either super early in the morning or really late at night)
さて、カナダへ越してきて20年弱になった私。
通訳なんて、お手の物!!と思われている方が多いかもしれません・・・。
が、それはそれは、全くの誤解でございます。
というか、長くいればいるほど、通訳は下手になる・・・と言っても過言じゃないかも。。。
ここでの生活が長くなればその分やはり、生活していくうちに学ぶ言葉やフレーズがどんどん増えてくるわけですよね。日本で英語を勉強していた時は、目で見て、手で書いて覚えていた英単語が、徐々に耳で聞いたり、何度もまねて口にすることで覚えていくようにと、変わります。
そして、そうやって覚えた単語は、シチュエーションや雰囲気とともに記憶されていくわけです。スペルなんて完全無視(笑)
そうすると、日本語訳なしに頭に入っていく情報がほとんどになって、そうして覚えた英語というのは、頭の中で日本語と結びついていないことが多いのです。
つまり、英語を英語として理解し、記憶してしまうので、そこに日本語を挟む必要がなくなるということ。いわゆる英語脳、というものかも。
でもこれ、逆に言えば、日本語と結びつけるひと手間がそこには存在しない=日本語を引き出そうとするときに、あれ??なんだっけ??と、戸惑ってしまうことになるのです。。。
It's been just about 20yrs since I moved here from Japan.
Some of you may think that 'Azusa must be able to translate English to Japanese with no problem!'
- No, no, no. That is a total misunderstanding!! I could almost say, the longer I stay here, the worse my translation job would become.
The logistic is this - The longer we stay in North America, the more words and phrases we learn through our life...
When we learn English in Japan (and probably anywhere else where they teach English as their second language), we always READ first (either on a blackboard at school or on printed versions such as textbooks, papers, dictionaries, etc)
We always write the words down so many times, until we finally remember (again, write then see the writing, so we definitely use our eyes over and over here)
Then there is a big shift in our learning - which I described above as 'learn through our life' when our ears and brains get used to the language. We HEAR the words and phrases and SAY them ALOUD to use, this would be the new learning method after a while. We remember the new word with the situation of the usage. Spelling? Who cares.
As we start learning English this way, we totally skip the part where we connect English to Japanese. In short, this way we understand English as English and memorize without Japanese at all there. Simply there is no need to put Japanese in-between anymore. So-called 'Engish Brain' possibly.
On the other hand though, when we NEED TO translate English to Japanese, this big English brain could totally cause a problem. A rather big problem = We can not get the right Japanese word to translate. Why? Because there is no interpret part when we learned the words!!
という変なジレンマを抱える日本人は、実は少なくないのじゃないかと私は思います。
しかし・・・日本語教師として、これはいかん。ほんとに。
というわけで、私。英語を日本語に訳す訓練を始めました!!
英語の記事を選んで、辞書を引きつつ和訳して、Evernoteに残しているってそれだけなんだけど、添削者もいないので全然解決策になってないかもって話もちらほら(笑)
でも、現段階で私が目指すのは、英語を日本語に変換する訓練です。まずはここから。
I believe there must be quite a few Japanese people who get this sort of frustration. (Right??)
However! I AM A JAPANESE TEACHER!!! This can't be allowed. Just, no.
So. I started a new hobby. It's a practice work for my English brain to work harder and build a connection to its Japanese translation.
I just pick an article and type up a translation on Evernote using online dictionaries. I don't have anyone to check them afterwards so this may not be helping much at all, but at this point, I'm just trying to get used to bringing Japanese back in my brain. I just want to put more Japanese trespassing every day!
本日面接に行って(長男妊娠中に働いたカフェが、誰かにやとわれた最後の職なので、実に14年ぶりの面接!!)無事採用されたので、またちょっと忙しくなるかも・・・・ですが、ちゃんと時間を作ってこういう練習を続けていこうと思っています。
まずは意識することが、スタートですから!!
応援よろしく♪
I actually went for an interview today (the last job I had officially, that was when I was pregnant with our oldest!! So it was the fist interview in 14 years lol ) and I got hired (yay) so I may become quite busy again. I definitely want to keep doing this though. Thinking of it at least, can be a good start for me.
Wish me luck!