One of my interpreting assignments two decades ago was at a school, rather than the usual medical appointment.
It turned out to be for the father of two girls who were fostered out to a couple until they became of legal age.
His wife had died of cancer not long after giving birth to their third child, a boy, who was being legally adopted by a British couple.
The school had to report regularly to their students’ parents what and how their children had been doing thus far. As the father didn’t know any English, an interpreter was called in.
The agency that booked me for medical appointments never had the time (or the inclination) to tell me more about them, apart from when and where. The “when” was almost always the next day at 10am.
So it was that I turned up at a school in Southend in Essex, not knowing what to expect. (I never knew what to expect with the medical appointments, anyway. For my first couple of assignments, I used to diligently ask the agency to give me some inkling of the details, e.g., what kind of illness, so that I could do some prepping of the medical terms, but they never responded, so I gave up after that.)
The school’s side was represented by two members of staff for each of the reports: the form teacher of each of the girls, plus the head mistress.
I started interpreting in Mandarin, which was the default language I’d registered at the agency (with Cantonese being the emergency language if the patient couldn’t understand any Mandarin at all), but found the father looking very vague, just uttering an occasional and vague “Mmm”.
I commented on this to the school staff, but they said there wasn’t anything they could do about it, that we were to carry on as they needed to get the report conveyed (it’s part of their list of duties to the family of their students).
(In hindsight, after having interpreted for the man on a number of occasions, I think they’d had experience of the father not always being intellectually engaged with school reports and other proceedings, so they could only go through the motions and tick the boxes on their side.)
At one point, they decided to take a tea break.
It was during the break that I made a breakthrough which was to help me for all my future appointments involving this man.
For some reason, I decided to write down on the sheet of paper I was making notes on, “我是新加坡人”, which is “I’m Singaporean”. The father grabbed my pen and wrote, “我是香港人”, which is “I’m a Hong Konger.”
It turned out that he was deaf but wouldn’t wear his hearing aid because it was uncomfortable, hence his vague “Mmm” responses to my interpreting before the tea break.
After the break, the interpreting went smoothly with him having time to read my written translations. He was even responding to questions put by the school side, writing down his answers.
Thereafter, every time the school or the social services (who were looking after the three children’s cases) had a staff meeting about them, which required the father to be present so that he’d know what they were doing to or about his children, I would be specially singled out to the agency for doing the interpreting.
I’ve since taught this strategy to my students, especially those who have difficulty with listening (because of the tones / accent / speed): write it down for both parties to read, even if it takes time; better than being in a complete fog.
I now have a couple of students who can’t read the Chinese script, never mind write it, so I’ll have to go and think of a new strategy. Maybe dictate to AI for translating into the written form…
(Southend, Essex, mid-2000s)
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