The 7th “SITS Cup” Interpreting Contest

    On November 25^th, the 7^th “SITS Cup” Interpreting Contest was held in the Lecture Hall of Building Six, North Campus. Outstanding interpreters from four schools of GDUFS gathered together, including students from the School of Translation and Interpreting Studies, School of English for International Business, Faculty of English Language and Culture and School of English and Education. At the beginning, ZHAO Junfeng, Dean of SITS, delivered an opening speech. He pointed out that the SITS Cup Interpreting Contest is held every year to provide a great platform for students to practice and show their professional skills in interpreting, and also to experience the charm of interpreting.

ZHAO gave an opening speech

After the preliminary contest, 16 contestants stood out for the exciting final. In the first round, contestants were required to present their interpretations in turns after watching two videos in Chinese and in English. Though the materials given were the same, interpretations from 16 contestants were delicately different. During their brilliant performances, the audience were immersed in this feast of interpretation and some of them even took notes arduously.

Round one: Video interpreting

   In the interval, an exciting game called “Buzzwords Guessing” got the audience involved and warmed up the atmosphere. The host came up with a list of Chinese buzzwords, which were required to be translated into English by the audience. Sparkling and creative ideas were put forward: A student translated the word “Tuhao” into “a stupidly rich man”, causing a stir among the audiences and a round of applause for his humor.

“Buzzwords Guessing”

After the result of the first round was announced, the top 8 contestants were promoted to the second round – Dialogue Interpreting. Four distinguished guests were invited to the stage: Professor ZANG Yu from the Faculty of European Languages and Cultures, Professor ZUO Yan from Faculty of Chinese Language and Culture,  Hurry Harding and Cesar de Prado Yepes from Guangdong Research Institute of International Strategy. The discussion centered on “Whether artificial intelligence will one day surpass human’s intelligence which leads to translation machines replacing the role of humans in translation”. Professor ZANG explained the ancient form of Chinese character “Ti” which means replacement and said change is a natural process, while Professor ZUO used the theory of evolution to support his opinion. Hazza considered that there is scarce chance that AI will replace people in intellectual jobs. As the bridge between two languages, eight contestants played a vital role to keep the conversation on-going. When the guests were speaking, they lowered their heads slanting towards them to hear more clearly, face strained, taking notes swiftly holding a pen in hand tightly. They were conscientious, devoted, firing on all cylinders.

Round two: Dialogue interpreting

  After two rounds of interpreting, judges came up to the stage and made comments on the contest. XIA Zhimeng, who graduated from SITS and now works as an indoor interpreter at McKinsey Co, congratulated all the contestants for their excellent performance. Moreover, she pointed out some problems, such as the lack of eye contact with the audience while interpreting and missing small but important points. She also shared her personal experiences as an interpreter, which gave us a valuable lesson.

Awards

  At last, the hosts announced the awards. The first prize went to SUN Lianmi, student from the Faculty of English Language and culture, who demonstrated a large bank of vocabulary, accuracy and fluency in interpreting. The 6th“SITS CUP” Interpreting Contest culminated with a group photo marking this unforgettable night.