Toastmasters international should have translators

Today. I heard a friend was going to a Toastmaster International (speakers club) contest. I wondered why I had not heard of it nor been invited. I am very active in toastmasters. I go to meetings almost every day and sometimes twice a day in Singapore. I texted, "May I come along?"

My vip friend replied: "Do come along. It is in Mandarin."

Oops! That explains why I had not heard about it. Most of the written announcements would be in Mandarin. If I saw one in English I would ignore it. I do not speak Mandarin.

But why is there no translation into English?

I understand that Toastmasters international started in the USA. The finals of contests are in English.

But almost every major conference and international event worldwide will have multilingual transcripts and simultaneous translations. Toastmasters does not train translators. Nor does it train scriptwriters, except for writing your own speeches. (Other clubs are for speech writers who write speeches for other people, mainly politicians and company directors.)

But Toastmasters trains leaders. One of the essential in organising a large meeting where many people are not proficient in other languages is to have translators. We have plenty of bilingual members in clubs I have visited in Singapore. The same applies in the UK. And Europe. If you held a wedding with parents of the bride and groom from different countries you would have some translation. Or you should. The MC or organiser should organise translation. That is what leadership is about. Seeing that everybody knows what is going on.

In Singapore all the announcements on the trains are in the four recognized, official languages: Mandarin, English, Malay, Tamil. It is time that the UK which spends millions of pounds translating documents so that foreigners can deal with the government had multi-lingual information on stations. It is also time for Toastmasters international to insist that clubs which hold meetings in Mandarin, French, Spanish, German, Polish, Arabic, Tamil, should run translations, not occasionally, on an ad hoc basis, but as a regular service.

Toastmasters should have an additional contest for somebody giving the same speech in two languages, or a speech which can be understood in several languages.

For example, in Cambodia, few tourists speak Cambodian. So the tour guides are often multi-lingual. Stop a tour guide who is speaking to a group in a temple, using French or German, and he will be able to answer your query in English.

Some tour bus guides in a mini-van will have a mixed group of English and non English speakers. The guide has to speak in both languages, but also to switch sufficiently frequently to prevent the passengers who speak another language from interrupting or running a stage whisper distraction because they are trying to translate or have lost interest because they cannot understand a word. When I translate into French from English, I translate every sentence so that every other sentence is in the language of the listener. Sometimes I translate phrase by phrase.

For example: "Ladies and Gentlemen - mesdames and messieurs, I thank you, je nous remerge ..." I first did this in thank you speeches on behalf of British journalists to French tourist board hosts. I later did it for a reception in England at which we had invited French guests. Later I did it again at Harrovian Speakers Club in London.

It can be done. It should be done.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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