How Do You Translate "Fast Break?"
Monday, 28th April 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
With so many foreign coaches of Chinese teams, and such a short history of foreign language education in China, we've often wondered about the challenges of coaching in translation. Tom Maher, head coach of the Chinese women's basketball team, shares some thoughts on this topic and more in the above video from FIBA, the international governing body of basketball. The video is a little hard to watch, with Maher's forehead cut off for much of the time, but includes some interesting comments.
Maher says about the language barrier:
"You can't communicate the same way. You don't realize how many pictures you paint with words. There's so many little phrases and analogies we make and you don't realize how much it is until you try to communicate. It's a little bit sad because you can't bridge that gap as well as you would like to."
His observations about China come at around 3 minutes into the interview. Also, having coached New Zealand and Australia at past Olympics, Maher has a good read on the international women's game. At about six minutes in, he breaks down the top teams contending for medals in August.
The answer to the question in the headline above, by the way, is 快攻 (kuàigōng), or "fast attack."
Tags: basketball, Olympics, Tom Maher