Thank You Notes/Happy Teamwork

German Is Your Mother Tongue, And Chinese Is Mine, Together, We Built A Strong Team

Teamwork on a translation project made us a win-win

What is teamwork?

“Teamwork is the collaborative effort of a group to achieve a common goal or to complete a task most effectively and efficiently.”

— according to Wikipedia

Have you ever seen morning glory? This flower does not have a tall torso but relies on fences to show its beauty in a proud posture. At the same time, the fences have created a landscape with morning glory.

Teamwork makes them a win-win.

About 10 years ago, I had a pleasant collaboration with my German colleague.

Judith and I have worked as German teachers at a university in China. She focused on training the listening and speaking abilities of the students, while I was responsible for teaching grammar rules and cultivating students’ reading habits.

We both love language. Judith has learned Chinese for two years before she started working with me. In our free time, we used to sit in a cafe for hours and talk in two languages: German and Chinese, and we also had a passion for the cultures of the two countries. Those discussions made us lots of fun.

One day, a professor from an art academy was going to visit Germany and would give a speech there. He commissioned me and Judith to translate his manuscript from Chinese into German.

The manuscript has about 5,000 words. Each of us took half of the work and translated it first separately.

On the next day, we met in the cafe. We went through our work to ensure that the tone of the context and the wordings were consistent.

Chinese is my mother tongue, which effectively helped us understand the author’s intention correctly.

As a German girl, Judith was good at examining whether our translations were in line with the original text. Further, she was able to choose a more suitable vocabulary and use more authentic expressions.

Whenever we disagreed, I re-read the original text carefully and expressed my understanding in German. Judith revised and supplemented my translation.

Finally, we reviewed the translation together, put forward our opinions, and continued to modify until we both were satisfied.

In the end, the professor paid us twice as a reward for our work.

Like Judith said: “We are rich!” 🤣 🤣🤣

Take away

1. By doing the teamwork, not only have our respective advantages in language been best utilized, but also we have learned a lot from each other.

2. Teamwork made the boring job of translation interesting, saved us lots of time and energy. Therefore, it greatly improved our work efficiency.

3. We found that we were growing in many respects, not only our foreign languages were improving, but also we have had a new experience about respective culture.

What a win-win situation for both of us!

“Teamwork is 1+1 ≧ 2 !”

-by unknown

Teamwork makes our life shine!

Thank you for reading! This story resonates with Trista Signe Ainsworth’s December prompt, Happy Teamwork.

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