IW 97: InterpreTips-Comedy: Serious Professionals! - Seriously?

April Fools!!!  OK, not really. No, really. Maybe.

Humor is a fun and challenging thing to interpret. Shall we discuss it more? Yes! In this combination episode of Tips and Comedy, we'll explore the fun topic of humor, specifically how to interpret it. Or at least, how we need to make it work just as well as any other message we interpret.

Enjoy this April Fool's Day fun.

Transcript

IW 97: InterpreTip-Comedy: Serious Professionals! – Seriously?

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[ROCK INTRO MUSIC STARTS]

00:00:02 Tim (Only Tim is speaking in this episode.)

Good morning, good evening, good afternoon. Wherever you are, this is the Interpreter's Workshop podcast. I'm Tim Curry, your host. Here we talk everything sign language interpreting the ins, the outs, the ups, the downs, the sideways of interpreting. If you're a student, a new interpreter, experienced interpreter, this is the place for you. If you want to know more, go tointerpretersworkshop.com.

00:00:28

Let's start talking... interpreting.

[ROCK INTRO MUSIC ENDS]

00:00:35

And now the quote of the day by American comedian Groucho Marx. “If you find it hard to laugh at yourself. I would be happy to do it for you.”

00:00:47

Today is April 1st, April Fool's Day in America. So, today, let's laugh at ourselves. Let's laugh in general and let's look inward to see what's important and what's not. So, let's have a laugh or two. Let's get started.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:01:13

As an interpreter, we go through a lot of ups and downs. We make a lot of mistakes, and if we don't have a sense of humor, we're not gonna get through it all. You gotta laugh at ourselves. When we make a silly mistake, we need to laugh inside at least. If we don't take ourselves so serious, so professionally serious, then other people will be more comfortable with us unless we have clients who are very serious about everything. That's when we need to make them comfortable.

00:01:47

In other words, as an interpreter, we need the professional soft skills to be able to monitor how people are reacting to us, how they're reacting to conflict, how they're reacting to, how the conversation is navigated.

00:02:04

So, we gotta have humor.

00:02:07

On every episode I usually say, ‘keep calm and keep interpreting’.

00:02:13

And by that I do mean we need to calm down. Don't be so serious about what we do. Yes, it is a serious and critical work that we practice, but don't take it so seriously that it makes us freeze when we make a mistake because we're going to make mistakes.

00:02:35

We're going to have problems. We're going to have people that we can't deal with, people that we don't want to team with, people that we don't want to work with, clients hearing and Deaf. There are topics that we can't endure, or we can't think about, that causes us stress, that gives us anxiety. Or there're situations where we just don't feel right. Or we just have a bad day when nothing seems to be working, our brains, our hands, our breathing and that's human.

00:03:09

Yes, interpreters are human, or at least just. It's amazing what our brains can do. And it's amazing that we don't make many more mistakes.

00:03:20

So, I think it's amazing that we can laugh at ourselves, that we can find humor in so many different things and in so many languages. As an interpreter, we have the joy of understanding humor in at least two languages.

00:03:35

Those two cultural “meshings”, collaboration, cooperation, overlap… is amazing.

00:03:43

But it's also really hard for us to get humor across from one language to another language. Sometimes it's, it's almost impossible because it is a play with the language.

00:03:58

It's a visual play or a playing with the words, especially in English we have words that have double meanings or multiple meanings like the word run. A runny nose, the car is running. I'm running out of steam, I'm having a good run.

00:04:18

[Starts playing with the words-humorously] So many meanings, and when we have to interpret it, you have to know all of those meanings that the person who's saying it means. Uff. You know what I mean? I thought you would. I know that was mean of me to do that.

00:04:34

But I had to run it by you. [sighs like rolling eyes]

00:04:37

OK, sorry, I know I'm not running out of puns, so words can be…

00:04:43

Meaningful, full of meaning, important and I am running off at the mouth. I know. However, if we can get back to the point. What was the point to Tim? What was your meaning? What was your intention when you started this monolog?

00:04:59

Yes, words have multiple meanings. Or does multiple meanings have many words? Hmm? And multiple signs have different meanings…

00:05:09

Innuendos, metaphors, idioms, and idiots.

00:05:15

Wait, no. Yes.

00:05:18

So…

00:05:19

Let me give you an example of one that I've been toying in my head trying to figure out how to sign it.

00:05:27

It's an English joke.

00:05:29

Last year, my daughter made me very proud, and you will know why at the end of the joke.

00:05:37

We were with some friends, and they had to tell Juliana, my five-year-old, a joke. And the joke goes like this.

00:05:46

Do you know why 6 is afraid of 7? Well, that's because 7…8 [ate]…9.

00:05:57

And my five-year-old, after chuckling, she was thinking for a moment and she said, “Daddy. Daddy! I know how to count to 10 now.”

00:06:05

I said, “OK how do you count to 10?” She says, “1-2-3-4-5-6,” and she shivered as though she was afraid, “7-8-…10. Because 9 doesn't exist, Daddy because 7…ate [8]…9.”

00:06:24

I couldn't have been prouder at that moment.

00:06:28

Being able to take a language joke and then create a new one in just a few seconds.

00:06:36

Wow. And it's my type of humor. So, you know.

00:06:41

Playing with the word sound eight and ate, the number, 8 or the past tense of eating, ate.

00:06:49

And now, how many interpreters are listening to this and thinking, ‘I could sign that this way? Or I could sign it… No, I could sign it, this. No. Well, I don't think that really works’. Yeah, I've been thinking of the same thing.

00:07:04

It's not a hearing joke, it's a spoken language joke.

00:07:09

And we all know it. The Deaf know it. The hearing know it. Those of us who know sign language, I should say know it.

00:07:16

Because there are visual jokes that...just fit.

00:07:21

And there are spoken language jokes that just fit that situation.

00:07:28

That just make us chuckle, make us smile and give us that wonder, W-O-N-D-E-R about how wonderful language is.

00:07:40

Because it's not about the words, it's not about the syntax. It's not about the linguistic elements.

00:07:47

No.

00:07:47

It's about how it's used. That's language, that's, that's communication, the use, the communicating between humans.

00:07:57

We have a sense of humor to understand how we are to know that we are human.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:08:08

My grandfather was known in the family to say often, he loved to work with pleasant people. He loved to do business with pleasant people, and I've lived by that myself. The more pleasant the people are, the more I will stay in touch. As an interpreter, I do the same thing.

00:08:30

The jobs I take, I enjoy the jobs with people who are more pleasant, who take life less seriously and understand that we're all human and we all make mistakes and we're all trying to do our best. Those people who don't have that kind of attitude or for some reason, their personality and my personality just don't connect, well, those are the people that I wouldn't, would work with less or not at all.

00:08:58

It's a mutual consent. But those people are few and far between in my experience. I would say maybe a handful of those types that I've met in my life. The majority of people I tend to get along with.

00:09:13

And humor and being able to laugh at yourself, those are qualities, those are traits that I find very important in a friendship or any relationship.

00:09:26

The interpreter-client relationship is one of those relationships.

00:09:31

Some of you might be thinking, yes, Tim, but I don't always get to pick who my clients will be. Yes, that's true.

00:09:40

If you are fortunate enough to live in a, a region where the agencies will allow you to put a note by certain specific individuals, interpreters, or whether they are deaf clients or whether they're hearing clients with that note saying that you prefer not to work with them, or for them, or near them. Those are fortunate places to work, but not all of us have that privilege.

00:10:11

However, we still have the right, even though we are in a service profession, we have the right to say, “No, I can't do that because there is a conflict.” Either a conflict of interest or a conflict in perspectives or biases, just like I personally will never interpret at a gynecologist’s office, hopefully.

00:10:37

And I have that right to do so because I know I will not do the best job for the clients. I will not give the service that’s needed.

00:10:46

Now let's get back to working with pleasant and humorous clients.

00:10:52

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC STARTS]

Thank you to all the hundreds of people following this podcast. If you want to hear from interpreters around the world and get the latest episodes, follow the podcast in your app. Just check out some of the links in the show notes to help you with that.

00:11:06

Thank you. Now let's go back.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC ENDS]

00:11:08

There was one client at an office in a big business. Every morning people would come into the office, sit down at their computers, sign in and start working, finding out what the project plan was for that day. I would sit in my designated interpreter chair in a little corner, minding my own business and interpreting.

00:11:31

Each day, this client would come in, sit down, turn on the computer, and then start signing to me with a little smile on his face, and then proceed to go into working on the computer.

00:11:44

In one particular morning, his co-worker came to me with a puzzled look on his face and said, “Why is it that Bob comes in every morning, sits down his computer, turns it on, and then signs something to you, smiling, and you chuckle a little bit, nod your head, and he then starts working.”

00:12:05

“It seems like he does this every morning.” And I said, “Yeah, he usually does. It's his little bit of humor”, and the colleague said, “Well, what's the joke?”

00:12:15

I said, “Well, you know how you come in and you have to sign in on the computer, and then before you can start working blah, blah, blah, right?” He says, “Yeah.” “Well, that's my client’s way of saying he comes in to the office, turns on his computer and then looks at me and starts signing because he is saying, ‘He's signing in.’

00:12:37

And while you might be rolling your eyes right now at that silly pun, the colleague just stared blankly at me and said, “Yeah, but what was the joke? What's he signing?”

00:12:48

And I had to explain the joke.

00:12:50

That he is in the office, so he is signing in his language, signing in before he starts working. Yeah, it's never as funny whenever you have to explain it.

00:13:04

The colleague finally got it and kind of nervously smiled and rolled his eyes as well. But then at the end of the day the joke continued.

00:13:15

At the end of the day, I'm getting my things ready to take with me and leave, and Bob turned off his computer, got his things, walked outside, turned, looked at me through the window and started signing to me and had the same little smirky smile, and I'm nodded with the little chuckle, and the colleague came to me, said, “Now what?”

00:13:35

“Now, what's he doing now?” I said, “Don't you remember the joke in the morning? It was he was signing in. Well, now he's outside… signing… out.

00:13:48

Yeah.

00:13:50

But it's that kind of humor. Not taking yourself seriously, playing with the language, playing with the “funniness” of the moment, the stressful job doesn't need to always be stressful.

00:14:04

Now that's just one tiny little humorous thing that happened.

00:14:09

But what I liked is that he knew that he was connecting with his colleague by doing this joke every day and finally someone asked about it.

00:14:21

And when it was asked, then he realized now I can take it a step further and have the last joke, signing out. And while that's not the most hilarious thing in the world, it was another step to making a relationship with his colleagues.

00:14:39

Little humor like that, being able to make fun of the languages, both sign language and English mixing it together so that the colleague was less uncomfortable around…Bob.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:15:01

So, aside from the fact that some jokes just aren't funny, or the speaker that we're interpreting for the source material is delivered poorly, and so the joke just doesn't come off really well, even for the native speakers of that language.

00:15:20

It's hard as an interpreter to get the right meaning or intention of the joke and have it to be funny in the target language for many reasons.

00:15:32

One, not every interpreter has a great sense of humor, and most interpreters don't have the same sense of humor that the speaker has, or the speaker is really poor at delivering a joke.

00:15:48

And then there's the time constraints.

00:15:51

How do we deal with a fast-paced speaker who also wants to throw in a joke or two or three one after another?

00:16:01

And for some reason, they think it all connects.

00:16:04

And as an interpreter, we haven't seen the connection yet, maybe. And we're trying to make it funny in an interpretation that is immediate. That's hard… with very little preparation, very little knowledge of where the speaker is going.

00:16:23

If you are inexperienced with interpreting with various types of speakers, it's really hard to get the joke across.

00:16:33

Part of my preparation when I do have materials or some idea of what's going to be said, I'm the type of person that also thinks about jokes that thinks about the humor that is there. Maybe the play on words or the personalities that might be there. It doesn't always come up.

00:16:54

But…

00:16:54

…as an interpreter, we need to remember that humor is serious.

00:17:01

There's a serious reason for people using humor, and why do you use humor? Why do you make a joke? Why do we sometimes nervously make a joke? Sometimes we find humor in the midst of tragedy. Why is it funny when someone else trips? Not when we do, of course.

00:17:22

But when someone else trips and falls in a funny way, or says something that is a slip of the tongue but means something very funny.

00:17:32

Why?

00:17:34

Why is it funny?

00:17:35

Why do we use humor? Why do we laugh?

00:17:38

It's because we're trying to connect with the other people, trying to avoid conflict or we're trying to make connection trying to make people feel more comfortable, more relaxed, or to understand a point and for them to remember a point.

00:17:57

That happiness feeling gives us the connection because we feel the warmth from the speaker, the comfortable, relaxed atmosphere that the humor gives.

00:18:10

That's why we call it breaking the ice. That's why we have little moments where we have everyone, maybe in a room. Tell us where you're from, how you're feeling today or something special about you or something that nobody else knows about you. Those types of things are to open up the comfort zone…

00:18:30

…so that we can be more open to discussion, debate, understanding, trust and that is used in any discourse…

00:18:40

…trying to get that moment of connection, to get the communication flowing properly.

00:18:49

And as an interpreter, we need to know how to do that. We need to have the skills to handle those situations, those connections, those ways of human interaction that makes it comfortable for everyone.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC STARTS]

00:19:03

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[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC ENDS]

00:19:21

Many students have told me, “Well, I'm not an actor. I can't make jokes. I’m not good at that.”

00:19:25

Well, you don't have to be. All you have to be is good at interpreting. Copying the intent of the speaker, the source message, becoming that person. Think like them.

00:19:40

Use that skill over and over again until you get better and better at it. You may not be able to express it yourself, but you can express how someone else is expressing it, just like actors or dancers. Dancers, they are graceful fluid until they're just walking normally then they become clumsy.

00:20:00

Well, not all of them, but many people who are clumsy if they are dancing, they become more extroverted and flowing and graceful. Actors, many actors are introverts.

00:20:14

But when they're on stage or when they're in front of an audience of any size, they become extroverts. They take on a different persona. Many interpreters are this way as well. I know that whenever I use sign language in a conversation, Czech Sign language or American Sign language or International Sign, when I'm signing it's usually at a slower pace, a relaxed pace of delivery. But when I'm interpreting, I match the pace of the speaker.

00:20:44

How do you do it? Are you the same? If you are, if you can match the speaker, even though it's different than you, then yes, you can deliver the humor the way the speaker does. You can work on that skill. You can expand that skill. Think about that.

00:21:04

The other difficulty with humor is the fact that most spoken language…

00:21:10

…jokes have to do with the culture, have to do with a play on words. When it has to do with the language specifically, that's when we have to be creative. Very creative. Sometimes it works perfectly, sometimes not so much. Practice interpreting a sitcom.

00:21:30

Oooh, there's humor left and right. Say, for instance, the TV series Friends.

00:21:36

Can you interpret that and get a laugh in… signed language? Uff! The difficulty there is that many times a joke at the end of the show is connected to the beginning of the show or the middle of the show. The same joke that's been running through that show.

00:21:54

Speakers who deliver their presentation with humor that ties into the beginning of the presentation makes it a little bit harder for us. The more you work with the client that you know uses humor a lot, the more prepared you are for it. Be flexible, be flexible in the language.

00:22:15

Use that visual vernacular to be able to flow into humor in a different, unique way than just a “text”.

00:22:30

It's very important, especially at conferences.

00:22:34

Speakers giving a lecture, speakers giving a keynote address.

00:22:40

Using humor to connect with the audience, using humor to make a point.

00:22:47

Well.

00:22:48

That is the point, isn't it? As an interpreter, we want to get the point across because that's the intention of the speaker. Laughter is contagious. Let's try and make it spread even faster.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:23:06

Humor is used quite often when there is conflicting views, or tension, or nervousness, it’s trying to break that ice. Trying to open up the dialogue to relax.

00:23:22

So, use the humor. See the humor, feel the humor. Become the humor. Make yourself laugh. Laugh at things that no one else sees or hears or thinks about. Laugh.

00:23:37

Just like when you're in the car and you're talking to yourself about something and no one else is there, and then you notice the driver in the next car seeing you talking and you act like you're on your phone, you know, talking to somebody else that's on the phone, on a speakerphone, of course. Or you're just singing to the song in the car.

00:23:58

Use that voice well, perhaps don't sing while you're interpreting, although I've had to do that a few times. That's, that's not pleasant. So, try the humor. Even when you're interpreting, think of how someone else might make this into a joke.

00:24:16

So seriously, take humor seriously.

00:24:22

Make it a skill that you hone that you sharpen, that you expand on in all the languages that you use, practice that skill.

00:24:33

When you can do that, hoo, I think you can do any interpreting. That's a bold statement and I'll stand by it until the next time I talk about this topic.

00:24:48

So, until next time, keep calm. Keep the interpreting jokes alive. I'll see you next week. Take care now.

00:24:59

Wait. Did you take care? Because I don't see any care here anymore? I guess you took it or did someone else take it?

00:25:06

Hmm. Now try and interpret that.

[ROCK EXIT MUSIC ENDS AT 00:25:46]