Translators' Toastmasters and Linguists Meetup

Learn a language, translate a speech, understand a foreign language - do any of these interest you/ Have they been a challenge in the past?

I have attended these Toastmasters clubs meetings:

Problems
1 An all-Mandarin club in Singapore
I could not understand a word, nobody could translate, and I had trouble finding the toilet. (Plus problems finding a public telephone, ordering a taxi home, and telling the taxi where to find me.)

2 A bilingual club in Singapore
A speech entirely in Mandarin. How could I vote for the best speaker, when two species were in Mandarin and two in English.

Successes
As 'secretary' cum translator into English in the typing room, surrounded by men who all jumped to their feet when I entered, at a conference at a hotel in India. I had to correct the English handout which translated a speech from French into English, for a Belgian lady.

I spent about three hours trying to understand the handwritten three page original. First it was in French, with lots of technical terms. Secondly, it had various crossings out and insertions and arrows for reversed paragraphs.

I spent some time trying to type it up. Then with the writer, another hour or so asking her about each sentence. She tried to explain, looked words up in a dictionary, then revised what she had originally said to make it clearer or because she had second thoughts. We needed up with at least six pieces of paper marked version one and version two.

Then I spent another two hours typing the translation with the correct punctuation in French. Finally another hour or more on the English translation.

Angela Lansbury, B A Hons, CL, ATG, English teacher, speech writer and speech coach.