Language barriers
Next: There are two other items in my Work Journal ; one hand, the continuation of the last entry in the unfinished article on Shanghai in 1923, on the other hand, a small meeting of the talk about the movement of the 4th May, I was recently heard in the Confucius Institute.
But a funny incident that happened to me today in interpretation. I will help for about a year of a Japanese family with various medical courses, especially during visits by therapists for the daughter of the family, with which it some problems. Today resulted in approximately the following conversation:
Japanese: [...] どう したら いい の か と 聞きました
Nora. [Interpretation] And then I asked my daughter what we could do to solve the problem .
therapist: Did she say "we," said or did "you"?
Nora: She has used no personal pronoun, the sentence had no subject.
Therapist: What do you mean? A sentence must have a subject yet.
Nora: Not in Japan. Most of the time is avoided, to address the specific comparison with a personal pronoun. If anything, say the name or position. But mostly it is allowed to go away.
Therapist: That's impossible!
Nora: Well ...
therapist: Something like that, too, but! An important point is that is actually in those conversations that speaks directly to the child because it is so clear that it is directly affected by the problem itself and can actively deal with it. What do we do now? You can not do anything! Is unbelievable! [...]
I try the Japanese so well all the time to teach, but they do not hear it!
