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Final Fantasy Piano Concert Interpreter — 6 Comments

  1. Oh man, that’s so cool! Unfortunately I’d be like that fake interpreter from the Mandela event if I tried.

  2. Sounds like a thrilling opportunity for any FF fan, especially if there’s a chance to talk to the composers in attendance =)

    On a slightly related note, I was curious about something…

    When you’re working as an interpreter, how do you handle situations where you either-
    A: Don’t understand the Japanese being used or
    B: Understand, but don’t know how to express it in English?

    That seems like it could bring your interpreting flow to a grinding halt, and would be hard to completely avoid even at a very high (70+) level. To use this case as an example, I know a lot about Final Fantasy and gaming in general, but my mechanical knowledge of music and musical instruments is almost non-existent even in English. If I was doing this job and one of the musical guests started to wander down that road, I’d be left standing there like a deer in headlights >_>

    • This is my personal experience, but before anything technical or with specialized terminology, I’ve studied up on the subject quite a bit. Just like in your own language, any new field you are unfamiliar with is going to be filled with technical terms.

      When you get to the actual interpreting, and are stuck due to not understanding/not being able to translate, you have two options.

      1. Ask the speaker to clarify what they mean
      2. Improvise to the best of your ability, getting the main gist of what the speaker was saying

      Consecutive interpreting is the easiest to talk with the speaker and ask questions. Simultaneous interpreting not so much. But simultaneous interpreting often involves an already prepared speech (think of a conference, or presentation) so you have special time to prepare down to pretty good accuracy.

  3. Actually an awesome opportunity, i’d do it in an instance. I played FF and studied music, which became my job. Unfortunately i only started the intermediate deck, so i’m far away from interpreting anything beyond チーズスイートホーム or ドラえもん. And it isn’t even that easy to understand everything in ドラえもん…..

    • I’m sure that when you finally become fluent there will be other opportunities like this that will have perfect timing for you.

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