Varied quality of professional interpretation service arouses concern in HK and the authority has set up some reporting mechanism to deal with poor performing interpreters. But I did meet a few good ones here too.

hevangel:
謝謝提點，我的英文可能差得廿年來所有老師都懶得批評。

脂肪：
一般情況都係盡力而為，聽得幾多譯幾多。其實我一開始係保持正常讀speech速度，見到佢咁樣已經慢左落黎。老實講，到外面做傳譯邊個會遷就你丫，預到咩情況都係自己執生。

Thanks for sharing your wonderful story. While it is small stuff to you. It turned out to be big stuff for her. Too bad she took it badly. I echo Gwen’s view, just let her have your apology, no point taking it back. In fact, I often apologize for things that are not my fault to make people feel better. And with my poor memories, I often forget how others have mistreated me. My better half sometimes have to remind and warn me of others’ not so “kind” intentions (based on their past words and actions).

Speaking about simultaneous translation, I have seen many so-called “professional” doing horrible translation jobs in HK and China. Sometimes I wonder where the good ones are all hiding?

You see, I have an acquaintance in Toronto that is active in the Chinese democratic movement and does simultaneous translation on occasion as a volunteer. He was so good that I was amazed by his ability. And you know, he was a computer system analyst for years and now a full time documentarian and had never received any formal translation training as far as I know. Amazing. I guess some people are simply talented.

Kempton

wonderjimmy:
所以我不覺得自己錯在哪裏，又不是我拉她一組的。你說我小人之心也好，我事後總覺得她是耍可憐博同情。

Wordy:
原來醉翁之意不在酒。我沒試過以演講和Q&A的方式做傳譯練習，也沒遇上這類有趣的題目。

筆譯跟傳譯要求大有分別，初次接觸後者很有新鮮感，也覺得那種挑戰前所未有，須口、耳、記憶並用，還要分秒必爭。好玩，但壓力不輕。心理素質方面你應該比我好。

gwen:
我當時的確很氣，好友也替我不值。回望過來，這當然是小事一樁。都說這段關係有著先天缺憾，大家性情為人不相近，做不成好友也是應該的。

haricot:
It is language ability that plays a big part in translation, whereas a background has not much to do with that. I would love to learn about your experience.