Workshop on Interpretation at HK SKH Lady MacLehose Centre

The PSA was invited to deliver a 2-hour workshop on Interpretation at Lady MacLehose Centre on Saturday, August 30, 2008. Hafiz, Rizwan and Tariq carried out the workshop. The participants came from different backgrounds, which included Pakistanis, Indians and Nepalese.

The unit-in-charge, Ms Wong Fuk Nga, Nora, presented a souvenir to the PSA before the workshop started. After that Hafiz introduced himself and the PSA to the participants. The workshop was divided into two parts: general guidelines on interpretation and basics of cultural-specific interpretation. Rizwan talked about the first part, while Hafiz took charge of the second part.

Rizwan started the workshop with a contextualized game where some of the participants were asked to say something in their own language and other participants had to translate that into English. Having participants from various backgrounds made it challenging, but it was fun as they struggled to understand the message and then transmit that into English. After that Rizwan elaborated on active listening skills in interpretation and highlighted the significance of subject knowledge. Then, he concluded his talk with some useful tips about interpretation.

Hafiz started his talk by posing a question to the participants about the difference between translation and interpretation. He informed the trainee interpreters that even though most of the time they will be doing interpretation work, sometimes they will also need to translate certain documents. So, he stressed that both of these skills are important and they are interdependent and improvement in one area can lead to progression in other area.

Next, he gave some real-life examples of socio-cultural and socio-linguist matters involved in interpretation at hospitals. After that, he invited the novice interpreters to translate some contextualized imperative sentences into their native language. Lastly, he supplied some information about useful material that may come handy during interpretation/translation and also gave some useful websites where the members can increase the subject knowledge in both languages.

The participants showed keen interest throughout the workshop and speak of positively about the workshop during an informal exchange at the end of the class. They also requested contact information from PSA trainers and Hafiz and Rizwan were delighted to leave their contact means. The participants were also encouraged to call them if they need any help in matters of education or interpretation.