Interwiew with Frank——by Eric

Interwiew with Frank

Frank英文学习心得

点击边框编辑视频

采访对象：Frank

Interviewee: Frank

采访人：Eric

Interviewer: Eric

采访语言：英文

Interview Language: English

采访地点：Frank家中

Interview Location: Frank’s Home

采访时间：2015.05.25 晚

Interview Time: Evening on May 25, 2015

文字整理：Eric

Dictation and Editing: Eric

翻译：Eric

Translated by Eric

PS

采访录音无剪辑，文字稿有部分修改。

Audio interview presented without cutting. Text presented with some modification.

Eric: Today we’re so happy to have with us Frank, who is a top translator in China, who passed CATTI Level 1 back in 2013, also who came back from the United States. Frank, thank you for giving me this opportunity to have an interview with us. Hello, Frank.

Eric: 今天我们很荣幸邀请到国内顶尖翻译Frank接受我们的采访。Frank美国求学归来后，在2013年就通过了CATTI一笔。Frank，非常感谢拨冗接受我们的采访。

Frank: Thank you, Eric. Hello, everybody, I’m Frank. I’m a part- time translator. I also work in a joint venture now.

Frank: 谢谢，Eric。大家好，我是Frank。我在一家中外合资企业工作，同时是一名兼职翻译。

Q: I know that you have been a translator for quite a few years, and it seems that you got a lot of interest for translation, so I want to know how did you embark on this journey of translation?

Q：据我所知，你做翻译有不少年了，你似乎对翻译有着极大的热情。你是如何踏上翻译之路的呢？

A: That comes to several years ago. As you know, I majored in ecology, so I always thought about contributing to environmental protection in whatever forms. In 2009, I learned that China Dialogue was recruiting volunteers who could do translation for their website. I knew that that website had global impact focused on environmental problems, so I joined that group (of volunteers). Because all the materials we translated would be edited before publication, so during that period of time I learned that doing translation was quite different from language study. That’s the beginning when I entered the field of translation.

A：这要说回几年前了。我的大学专业是生态学，所以我总是想着尽己所能的为环保做点事。在2009年，我得知“中外对话”网站正在招聘翻译志愿者。“中外对话”是一家具有全球影响力的环保类网站，因此我就报名参加了志愿者。因为我们翻译的材料要用于出版，所以会受到编辑严格的审核，在此过程当中，我意识到翻译和语言学习有着极大的不同。我就是这样进入翻译领域的。

Q: You have taken up translation for such a long while, which means that you have taken up English for a much longer while, so- when did you start to learn English?

Q：你学习翻译已经这么久了，那么，你学习英语的时间肯定更久。你是什么时候开始正式学英语的？

A: Well, I have to point out that I haven’t been a translator for so long a time, but just several years- about 5 or 6 years. That’s not quite a long experience. But I really have something to share with you about my language study. When I entered college, I felt quite embarrassed in the first English class, during that class the teacher asked us to give a presentation or just tell a story. One classmate, who came from Xinjiang Autonomous Region, told us a movie story which lasted about 5 minutes. She performed so well that impressed everyone of us. But, at that time, I could not speak one complete sentence, I felt so embarrassed so that I decided to improve my oral English from then on. I knew that I had some problem with my pronunciation, so I went to Li Yang Crazy English for pronunciation correction. That course took me about 2 days. (That course was) just about pronunciation correction, nothing else. After that, I tried to practice purposefully and I kept pronunciation in mind every time I spoke English. After 3 to 4 months, it became natural for me to speak English in a relatively correct way. That helped me a lot because it helped build up my confidence. After that I went to New Oriental for another course, which was called American English, it took me about 6 or 7 days. What I learned from that training course was one conception: the teacher told us that if you want to study English and if you want to speak fluent English, you need to memorize as many sentences as possible instead of just memorizing words. If possible, we should recite paragraphs, or even, essays. That will give us the context of how to use the words, make us really understand its meaning and how to use it when we communicate with other people. After those two training courses, about 2 years of studying and practicing, I improved my English quite a lot.

A：我必须要说明，我做翻译并没有多久，也就是五六年。但我确实想和大家分享一些个人的语言学习经验。我刚进大学的时候，在第一节英语课上就觉得非常尴尬：当时的英语老师让我们每人用英文做一个演讲或讲一个故事。一名来自新疆的女同学，以流利的英文讲述了一个电影故事，她说了五分钟，震撼了我们全班同学。与此同时，我却连一个完整的英文句子都不能说。我倍觉尴尬，于是在心里暗下决心一定要提升英文口语。我甚至自己当时的英文发音非常不好，于是我去李阳疯狂英语参加了为期两天的发音纠错课程。课程结束后，我有意识地开始练习发音，每次开口说英语都提醒自己正确的说话方式。过了三四个月，我就能以相对正确的方式自然地说英文了，这让我拥有了更大的信心去继续学习英语。后来我又报名参加了新东方美式英语课程，这段课程大约六七天。在这次课程中，老师不断给我们灌输这样一个观念：如果你想说一口流利英语，你应当背诵英文句子，而不是单词。如有可能，你甚至应当背诵段落和文章，因为段落和文章给了我们单词使用的上下语境，单词的精确含义，以及和外国人交流时如何正确使用这些单词。随后我又坚持训练和学习两年，我的英文取得了极大的提高。

Q: I know that after graduation from university, after getting a master degree in China, you went to the United States to get a doctoral degree. I feel like that a lot of people think that studying abroad will help you a lot in improving your English mastery. What do you think?

Q：你本科毕业后，在国内有读了个硕士，随后去美国攻读博士学位。很多人觉得只要在国外留学，外语就会自动变好。你对此有什么看法？

A: Well, not necessarily. I know several of my friends and several of my classmates, who have stayed in the United Stats for several years, but they still cannot speak English fluently- let alone deliver a presentation fluently in an academic environment. I have to say that living in an English- speaking country will force you improve your listening ability quite quickly, because we need to respond to others in conversations- we expose ourselves to that environment. But if you want to speak fluently, you need to practice it. When you are alone, you should go to some English environment that could really immerse yourself to interact with people orally; otherwise it does not necessarily improve your oral English. I know there many overseas students, especially the young ones, they would love to hang around with their Chinese friends after class. After several years of study when they finish their undergraduate study, they still cannot express in English fluently. So whether a person can improve his/her language ability depends more on his/her own efforts.

A：这个不一定。我有几位朋友和同学，已经在美国呆了好几年，但他们仍然英语说不利索——更不用说做学术演讲了。我认为在英语国家生活会让你的听力迅速提升，因为你无时不刻都需要在对话中要迅速回应别人。但如果你想让自己的英文口语变得极其流利，你还是得花大量的时间自己练习。与此同时，你应尽可能多地让自己进入英文环境中，尽可能多地使用英文和他人交流——否则你的英文口语不一定有所提高。现在好多人在国外留学，包括很多年轻人，他们课后还是和中国同胞混在一起。几年之后，他们本科毕业了，英语还是说不利索。因此一个人的外语能力是否能有所提升，取决于他自身是否努力，而不是取决于英文环境。