There are certain challenges for English Mandarin interpretation that are unique to this language pair.
One of the challenges is distinguishing between the pronouns he and she. In spoken English, the two words are distinct; however, in spoken Chinese, they sound identical (for both he and she, the phonetic spelling in Mandarin is TA, and the phonetic symbol is /tä/). Likewise, his and her, his and hers, and him and her, are identical sound pairs in Mandarin.
For English Mandarin interpretation, these pronouns can be particularly problematic.
Below are our approaches to tackling this issue.
Mandarin English interpretation
Scenario #1:
A witness is testifying on the witness stand about an incident that happened between a husband and a wife. The testimony is in Mandarin and is as follows:
[In Mandarin]: TA came downstairs. TA was standing at the door. TA wanted to get out, but TA blocked TA’s way. TA shoved TA and TA punched TA.
Comments:
The testimony is extremely confusing as to who tried to stop whom and who hit whom first. Under such circumstances, the interpreter has to intervene and make a request for clarification to the judge, so that the witness can be instructed to specify each person by name or identity rather than by pronoun. The interpreter can then ask the witness to start all over and restate the complete statement.
English Mandarin interpretation
The he vs. she problem is not as bad for English to Mandarin interpretation, but still warrants special attention.
Scenario #2:
A witness is testifying on the witness stand about an incident that happened between a man and a woman. The testimony is in English and is as follows:
[In English]: She ran out of the door and he ran after her. He caught up with her and threw her to the ground. Then he got on top of her and punched her.
Comments:
The interpreter does not necessarily need to ask for clarification in this case. The Mandarin TA can be avoided altogether; instead, 男的 (the man) and 女的 (the woman) may be used for he and she, respectively.
So the above testimony would be as follows in Mandarin:
女的跑出去，男的追出去。男的追上后把女的扑倒在地，骑到她身上用拳头打她。
To learn more about our Mandarin interpretation services, go to our Mandarin Interpretation Services page.