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Jun Omi
12th April 2001, 17:15
Gassho all,

WSKO said they didn't get enough interpreters at Paris taikai/seminar yet; parties, taikai, seminars, promotion tests and everything. Therefore I would like to ask all of you to offer extra help either from you, your
students or your friends. They want French, Spanish, and Italian interpreters in particular (this means either French-Japanese or French-English and so on). However, they are still lack of interpreters even for between English and Japanese.
I believe a language barrier is crucial for mutual understanding in such an international event. I have heard some complaints about language problems in the past SK events. I personally don't want to hear that about Paris taikai.
WSKO said they are quite busy for preparing for Paris now. Let's offer our help to them. Thank you for reading and talk to you soon.

Contact: Jun [omiju2@hotmail.com]
or
Ms.Uebayashi at WSKO
[wskohq@shorinjikempo.or.jp]

Kesshu,
Jun Omi
San Francisco Branch
U.S.A.

PS Needless to say, I have already offered my help as a volunteer.

Anders Pettersson
20th April 2001, 00:06
Gassho.

Hi Omi-san.

Good to hear that you, and a lot of other kenshi, will do this voluntary work and help out at the Taikai. I think I can speak for all other kenshi when saying that we really appreciate it.

Well see you in a couple of days.

Jun Omi
20th April 2001, 16:42
Gassho all,

Thank you for your reply, Anders. However, there was no response to the Headquarters to offer another volunteer yet. What is worse is that, because of the visa issue to France, two interpreters at least just found out they cannot go and enter France. Therefore, let me ask all of you to think about this issue again. You can offer a volunteer at Paris too.

Contact: Ms.Uebayashi (Cell Phone in Paris) 0603790035 from 4/25 to 5/1

Looking forward to seeing you.

Kesshu,
Jun Omi
San Francisco Branch, U.S.A.

Jun Omi
3rd May 2001, 18:02
Gassho all,

Thank you for all of your helps as interpreters at Paris-taikai, especially Saka-brothers (Silicon Valley branch; who worked for brown belts and could not join their Shodan-level seminar at all). In fact, Mr.So, the secretary general of WSKO and Ms.Uebayashi really appreciated our volunteer activities. Mr.Shirahama, the camera staff of the monthly SK magazine, said he will put the picture of all interpreters on the next volume. However, I personally felt needs to improve language enviornments in such an international event.
The only places where I didn't see any language problem were New branch Establishment Seminar and Branch Masters Meeting. At the other parts of the event, I have to say, many kenshis were left behind because of language. I thought we needed better speakers and more interpreters. What did you think, everyone?

Kesshu,
Jun Omi

Anders Pettersson
16th May 2001, 08:20
Hi Omi-san.

I think that we all appreciated your, and all the other interpreters, work during the taikai.

As for myself, being Swedish, I am used to never have translations from Japanese to Swedish (although we for the first time in an international event had a Japanese/Swedish interpreter). More or less everybody in Sweden understand and speak English so it is not a big problem.

As for lack in the translation, it was only during one of the meetings that I went to that had a women who's pronunciation of English was a little difficult for me to understand, apart from that I think it was good enough.

For technical practice I understand most of the Japanese used anyway, so I guess I shouldn't say if all kenshi followed the instructions.

It is interesting to see some teachers do a very good job explaining techniques without saying a single word. I remember when Yamazaki-sensei did this on a previous international taikai (-93?). He got tired of that everything he said had to be translated into five or six languages, so he just stopped talking. :)
Everybody understood it perfectly.


So what do the rest of you think?

Julien
16th May 2001, 08:55
Gassho.

First of all, I'd like to thank the interpreters at paris taikai for the great job and the sacrifices they did in order to help everyone understand each other.

Talking about teaching without saying a word :

During the training sessions, we (1st kyu level kyukenshi) had a english interpreter who did a really great job. I mean he was trying to translate very precisely what the various sensei meant and that was appreciable. But it's true that the translation took much more time than the demonstration of the techniques.
And in the end, I realized that I was just listening to the translation to confirm what I had understood from the demonstration.

Even in my mother language, there are techniques details too difficult to explain, and it's more useful to watch and try to do the same.
I think that's a good way of practicing too :)