In the final stages of his two-year program at SITC (Sino-EU Interpreter Training Centre) in Beijing, the young American's classmates are 95 percent Chinese. All are about to be awarded a Directorate General of Interpretation certification; his colleagues, as he describes it in the interpreter lexicon, have Chinese as an 'A language' with English as a 'B language'. He goes on to illuminate a few more interesting professional distinctions. A lot more Chinese speak English as a B language than vice versa. Working on your feet as an interpreter requires serious proficiency – 10 years of practice. To get into Sino-EU you already have to be able to speak your B language. Superbly good translation into English cries out for the kind of intimacy a native speaker has; people like Jonathan are going to continue to be in high demand.

The Chinese conversational repertoire has many more varieties

of conflict-avoidance than English, and the English use of

sarcasm has no equivalent in Chinese.

Serious Business

Jonathan wishes more people would take up the interpreting cause. He is clear that it is a cause – not a New Age "work is sacred" position but rather a refusal to downplay the importance of people getting along in the world, and he sees the role of interpreters as oiling the gears of policy-making machinery. His own interests are diplomatic, energy and environmental affairs. That said, his own entry into the field was less than obvious. Jonathan studied Spanish and Hebrew for several years and there was just no ignition. Starting in 2006 he began a zig-zag of studying here and in the US: first at Peking University for Mandarin, then some back-packing and self-study, then finishing his degree in Washington, then back to the foreign language university in Dalian, more back-packing, more self-study. Interpreting and translation both used to be part of Linguistics he explained, but both those fields were becoming increasingly independent of Linguistics and each other. Translation, which works with text, allows for a more considered approach: experts can be sought, various dictionaries consulted. Interpreting was the Formula A division and that's where he wanted to be. So now he's in his final semester at Sino-EU, doing some pro bono work for chambers of commerce, investment seminars and literary festivals. He's already a busy man, and looking over his shoulder, the field doesn't look as populated as it likely needs to be. There are fewer than half a dozen good interpreting schools in China and one or two in each of the US and Europe, he claims. He thinks about how technology could be deployed to amplify existing interpreter talent so the demand can be met – something that will organize glossaries better or recognize proper names.

How much of interpreting is about culture, I asked. All of it, he responded. If you are working with quality control officials from export agencies, for example, that highly specialized technical language means the interpreter has to prepare well, and he still recalls trying to explain things like the long-horned citrus beetle for example. But those divides aren't nearly as challenging as trying to convey subtleties: the Chinese conversational repertoire has many more varieties of conflict-avoidance than English, and the English use of sarcasm has no equivalent in Chinese.

Labor of Love

Cindy Carter would agree on the cultural ingredient. She is an American freelance translator of Chinese fiction and film, with over 40 award-winning independent Chinese films and documentaries, dozens of scripts, and many short stories, essays and poems under her belt – many at budget fees. She has translated works by two prominent Chinese novelists: Dream of Ding Village (working title) by Yan Lianke, and Village of Stone by Guo Xiaolu. This recipient of a 2008 British Arts Council award has modest goals: she'd like to translate one good full length novel every couple of years and go on supporting the independent film community.