This is very, very important, which determines what kind of materials are suitable for practicing interpretation shorthand. It is not difficult to see from some answers upstairs that many people have misunderstandings, such as news broadcast and dictation of TEM4, which is beyond the scope of shorthand interpretation:
A news broadcast: the amount of information is too large, and there is no gap between large segments. Only suitable for practicing retelling or extensive reading, not suitable for interpreting shorthand. It is almost impossible to interpret after listening to 10 minutes. Imagine that after listening to 10 minutes of uninterrupted Chinese, it is very difficult to repeat it again, let alone translate it, and the accuracy of interpretation is higher than that of repetition.
B. Dictation in TEM4: This test requires you to write down the words you hear completely, without revealing a word, with good words and correct grammar, which is far from the requirements of interpretation. Anyone who has studied interpretation knows that a normal interpretation test needs about 80% information reduction, while the actual work may only be 60%, so this is not what shorthand interpretation should be trained for.
Bottom line: Listening materials with too much information, too fast without pause and too high accuracy are not suitable for practicing shorthand in interpretation. In my opinion, the more suitable interpretation training materials are: Shanghai intermediate and advanced interpretation course, and listening materials with speed and content close to the above two textbooks. Some people mentioned Lin Chaolun's Practical Interpretation, which is OK, but I think the initial stage is too difficult. The topics in it are almost all pure politics, and the terminology is also very professional. You should practice interpreting shorthand instead of finding an article that you can't do as a translator.
Two: You need to be prepared before practice.
On the learning level of interpretation, there is no need to say such nonsense as memorizing words, consolidating grammar and practicing oral English. Not even these. Speaking English is still stage fright, so where does the practice of interpretation begin?
(1) Interpretation shorthand symbol: It is true that someone mentioned that there should be a personal interpretation shorthand system, but if this system is formed through continuous practice and exploration, the efficiency is absolutely terrible. Just like learning to tear cabbage by hand, it is really a waste of time to be asked to learn to grow cabbage first. You should first find a relatively complete symbol system of your predecessors and learn from him relatively completely. Relatively complete, because many symbols in this system are based on the personal associative memory of the symbol creator, but this may not apply to you, for example:
In a symbol system, the upper right corner of the word is circled to represent the people in that department, while the lower right corner of the word is circled to represent the department itself. Like people. Refers to the human resources department, and the circled person in the upper right corner represents the employees of the human resources department. I am often confused in practical application. This symbol has no associative meaning for me personally, so I abandoned this symbol in later practice.
Many symbols need you to adapt, because you didn't invent them yourself, but some of them really can't adapt. If they are really difficult to use, you can choose to give them up, because you will not hesitate to think about what symbols to use during the practice of interpreting notes.
Note symbols can refer to multiple people. Actually, it's all the same, but some of them are easier to use. For example, weapon 57 is better than WP. At the same time, you can also create your own symbols in practice, but it is really thankless to create them entirely by yourself.
There are too many shorthand symbols to say in interpretation, which is another very complicated problem. I will just explain them briefly here.
② Understand the general content of the materials: including vocabulary and topics, which can be previewed simply. Because what you want to practice is "interpreting shorthand", not listening, a material with familiar content and not too many new words is the guarantee for practicing interpreting shorthand at first. In future practice, you can gradually increase the difficulty to adapt to how you interpret new words or miss listening. But in the initial stage, you should make sure that you can understand the material in general.
Speaking of vocabulary, I have to mention that interpretation is not very demanding on vocabulary. First, because of the problem of information restoration mentioned above, and second, because the translator is you, you don't have to translate it in a formal way. For example, China people or foreigners say a bunch of beautiful adjectives, and you can use this seemingly ordinary adjective to express it, and your goal has been achieved. This can be seen from the note symbols. You can express these adjectives with a √, and then translate them according to your vocabulary.
Three: how to practice.
Because it is a shorthand exercise for interpretation, I will omit the retelling of interpretation itself and the explanation of translation skills here, and only take notes.
① The first is the practice of familiarity with symbols: familiarity with shorthand symbols is different from memorizing words, words can be recited without texts, and symbols can only be practiced. When you first come into contact with symbols, you can just find an article, hold a piece of paper to the original text and express it with explanatory symbols, then remove the original text and look at the symbols to recall what you just wrote.
② Listening practice: shorten the process of "listening to English-thinking about Chinese meaning-thinking about what symbols to use-writing down symbols-thinking about the representative meaning of symbols just now-interpreting" to "listening to English-writing down symbols-watching symbol interpretation"
3 Training logic and learning the layout of notes: Because too many people complain that they didn't recognize what they were taking shorthand at the end, it is particularly important to make shorthand logic clear (unsightly). Reasonable layout can reflect your understanding of the logic of this passage, and the translation will be much smoother.
I think a reasonable layout should meet these requirements:
1. Don't write too many words in one line. The meaning group and the subject and object of the action are separated by/or other symbols. For example, I will meet you at the airport, which can be written as: I/ welcome U/@air (this writing/seems redundant, but in actual translation, it can make you determine the subject-predicate object and sentence structure faster)
2. Write parallel things on a vertical line, one for each line, and then enclose them in braces.
3. turn around, you can use turn around and/or but, don't crowd together, so as not to explicitly deny a and affirm b, which translates into denying a and B.
4. Logical relations such as attribution, inclusion and non-attribution are most convenient to be expressed by mathematical symbols.
I like to use attributive clauses in English, for example, we should continue to develop a harmonious society, which requires us to solve the problems between people and the environment. You can write: We/Develop/Harmonious Society, and then put an arrow under the harmonious society and write Q/ People &; e/*
6. Remember more nouns and verbs can be associated with nouns. Especially in complex sentences, such as "developing economy, expanding domestic demand, promoting communication and promoting production", you only need to use symbols to express economy, domestic demand, communication and production, and then add verbs when translating.
Four. The difference between English and Chinese translation: After practice, you will find that when the language you hear is Chinese or English, the way of taking notes is different. I give the conclusion directly:
As my mother tongue, I am very familiar with it. While listening and writing without missing important information, the reaction speed should be timely, and shorthand and listening can be almost synchronized.
Since it is a foreign language and because of its expression rules, you should give priority to understanding it, and then write down the content in shorthand. For example, English likes to use various clauses (especially attributive clauses), passive voice, inversion and other sentence patterns. If you listen and write at the same time, your notes will be messy, not to mention that it is unrealistic to listen and write at the same time because of your familiarity with foreign languages.
Shorthand of interpretation, including trivial exercises such as how to remember numbers, is also a complicated problem, so I won't go into details here.
Finally, shorthand is only for memory, which is an important part of interpretation, but it must not usurp the role of the host. Understanding and memory are king, and the content of shorthand is only to help you remember. The better the translation, the more concise the notes. Therefore, we must not learn interpretation shorthand with the goal of "completely reproducing what we just said through shorthand".