[EYE ON ENGLISH (8)] Constant training key to English proficiency

From the Korea Herald:

This is the eighth installment of a series of interviews with experts in English education aimed at offering tips, trends and information related to English learning and teaching in Korea. – Ed.

By Yang Sung-jin

Bae Yu-chung’s career defies quick classification. She is widely known as a stage actress who took various roles for high-profile dramas. She also joins many press conferences or international conferences as a seasoned master of ceremonies, thanks to her masterful use of Korean language that easily outsmarts even professional TV anchors.

Less known is her professional identity as a simultaneous interpreter. Back in 1993, she was the main interpreter for foreign journalists at the press conferences of former President Kim Young-sam. And the number of her services as interpreter stands at some 950, covering a wide range of areas including IT, business, arts and politics.

Bae, who majored in psychology at Yonsei University, sharpened her expertise in interpretation at a graduate school of interpretation and translation. But that was not the end of her academic pursuit. Her desire to become a theatrical actress resulted in another bachelor’s degree in drama at Hanyang University.

Bae, professor at the Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation at Ewha Womans University, said many of her students are struggling with inferiority complexes. As all the students at the graduate school exhibit a fairly high level of English proficiency, they often get disheartened about their relatively poorer performances compared with other classmates.

“Students at interpretation schools, most of whom were called a ‘walking dictionary’ or ‘master of foreign language,’ are going through an unprecedented phase in their lives because, once they begin to take classes, they realize their English competence is not that high,” Bae said in an interview with The Korea Herald.

“That is why I stress the importance of character training,” Bae said. “When you compare your proficiency with your classmates, you are bound to feel frustrated even to the point that you are stuck with a sense of betrayal about yourself.”

Her advice is straightforward: Never fall into the trap of comparison. And composure is not only crucial for students but also for professional conference interpreters, she said. “When we do consecutive interpretation, focus is everything. If you lose your focus even for a couple of seconds, you could lose the overall flow, which means you fail to do your job,” she said.

Those who want to become simultaneous interpreters tend to be perfectionist, a trait that does not help their performance in real conferences or press conferences, Bae said. “What matters most is whether we can mediate communications effectively, not delivering every detail in English or Korean. So I tell my students to try to deliver just 80 percent while getting across the gist to the audiences,” she said.

Bae said interpretation essentially involves a high level of communicative ability as well as extensive background knowledge – both of which are hard to obtain in a short period of time.

“Most of the tasks interpreters do are concerned with highly technical, academic or specialized fields, so if you do not understand the content in question, you never deliver it properly,” she said.

In what becomes an “agonizing experience,” however, many students manage to achieve a dramatic upgrade after struggling hard to improve their English proficiency and broaden background knowledge.

“Of course, you never reach a satisfactory point by studying hard at the graduate school for just two years, but I believe the harsh training certainly gives students a foothold to compete professionally once they go out to the interpretation market,” she said.

Bae also suggested that interpreter wannabes should be selective in picking English reference material. “I ask my students to read The Korea Herald, not the Economist, because the latter has too many stylized or literary sentences that are almost impossible to use for real interpretation situations,” she said.

The idea is that interpretation centers upon communication, not showing off beautiful sentences or expressions, Bae said, recommending plain English sentences in daily newspapers rather than highbrow magazines.

What’s tricky for Korean learners of English, Bae said, is the fact that English is not widely used for general purposes. Her tip for students is to think in English whenever possible. “Since I learned English here in Korea, I know that working in English-related fields is as difficult as living as a woman in Asia,” she said. “So when I’m at home, I talk to myself in English, in an elevator, or in my car. It may sound crazy, but there’s no other way to bolster my English proficiency,” Bae said.

Bae also called on Korean learners to study English grammar more extensively, an area that is being ignored in recent years. “I think true competence is primarily based on your level of knowledge about English grammar,” she said.

Bae, meanwhile, never stops expanding her career horizon. Her current focus is the translation of a book. “I’m working on a translation of a self-help book, and my interest in translations began two years ago when I got a chance to translate a book about cats into Korean,” she said. She is now raising six cats, a small detail that has made her also known as “a cat lover.”

(insight@heraldm.com)