With the Rugby World Cup coming soon, our students had a great chance to volunteer as interpreters for a children’s rugby camp at Kitakyushu’s Mikuni World Stadium today. Organized by the British Rugby Club, Leicester Tigers, the camp will run for four days and will help 170 young boys and girls to develop their rugby skills. Here are some comments by a few of the students:
“I was a little tired after the long exciting situations where I had to help interpreting from English into Japanese for about 20 young players (9-year olds) and I felt a big responsibility to myself for that all the time I was staying at the stadium. I used my brain much harder than usual.It was never easy to interpret into Japanese as soon as I heard what the coach said in English, but I really enjoyed it and I appreciated this precious, rare opportunity from the bottom of my heart. I know I am not confident in listening to English so I didn’t think I could do well as an interpreter, but thanks to this experience, I was stimulated a lot and my motivation absolutely became higher and higher! But anyway… I should have studied the rules or words of rugby more before I did this. Next time, I will prepare more!” (Aya – 3rd-year student)
“In the morning, we handed out the goods, T-shirts, but there were some problems—for example, there weren’t the correct size or enough T-shirts, so we asked the organizer, Kevin, and he could solve the problems. After that, we separated into 5 groups, and I translated what the coach said for kids who are 9 years old. I instructed them in Japanese, too. Kids looked as if they had fun and I felt energy from them. However, I think we should learn the rugby rules before, or we can’t translate more detailed information. I could have a goooood experience today, so I wanna join next time!!” (Yuuki – 3rd-year student)
“I joined the rugby event as an interpreter for 3 days. More than 80 children joined each day. I didn’t know about the rules of rugby at all, so it was really hard to translate to give explanations of the games for the children. When I couldn’t understand what the coach from England said, I could ask them to do a double check and then I could translate into Japanese. It was really the first time for me to work as an interpreter so I was super nervous at first, but I could enjoy working and learning about rugby, and how to translate through this event.” (Ayumi – 3rd-year student)
