Aaron and I visited the New Zealand branch office of Jehovah's Witnesses in the morning of our first full day in Aukland. The first New Zealand branch office was opened in Wellington in 1947. Later, the office was moved to Auckland. In time, however, increased growth made a larger facility necessary. Hence, in 1986 the branch office was moved to Manurewa, South Auckland. From this location the New Zealand branch office supports the preaching work of Jehovah's Witnesses in New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue, Norfold Island and Tonga.
The New Zealand branch cares for the translation of a number of Pacific island languages. Literature is translated into Niuean and Raratongan in NZ, while Tongan is translated in Tonga
(according to their brochure ©2003). Things are changing from year to year at branches worldwide. Some translation teams have moved from branch facilities to a location where the language is spoken.
The New Zealand branch also serves as a hub for distributing bible literature to the congregations they serve.
The Bethel family consists of 52 volunteers who live and work at the branch offices.
Front gate
Front desk
Map showing the territory serviced by the New Zealand branch
Conference room
Library
Guest room
Family room
Beautiful sky
Laundry
Dining room with a beautiful view of the grounds
The two people in this photo are siblings from the Cook Islands.
Publications in various languages
African brother at work in shipping
We had a lovely tour.
It was a nice way to begin our stay in New Zealand!
Its a beautiful branch. Nice pictures, thanks for the tour. How was it being dressed in warm clothes again?:)
ReplyDeletevery nice...but it looks like there are more tourists than workers! :)
ReplyDeletedid you get to have a meal with the family?
D'OH! I thought I beat ya this time Cindy!
ReplyDeleteAs a French-English translator, I found it interesting about the translation. Does this mean that they have on-site translation teams in branches? And I wonder about interpretation as well?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I am not an expert on translation. :) According to the NZ branch brochure:
ReplyDelete"English text of our publications is received in electronic form from the headquarters in Brooklyn, NY. The text is translated and checked for conformity to the English source text. Then the translated text is proofread to ensure that it adheres to established standards of spelling, punctuation, and grammar."
Some of the translation teams are located at branch facilities and some are located out in the field. For example, the Marshallese translation team was recently moved from the Hawaii branch to the Marshall Islands. It is optimal to have them in the fields but for various reasons—perhaps a lack of facilities or communication via internet—it is not always possible.
As far as interpretation, I'm not sure how to answer that question. I do know that Jehovah's Witnesses are taught the same Bible truths worldwide. Attend a meeting anywhere in the world and you will be taught the same thing.
One thing that is interesting is that where there are illustrations (word pictures), sometimes the publications are altered so that people will understand better. For example, instead of using a "brick falling from a skyscraper" the translators may use a "coconut falling from a palm tree". Jesus taught using simple illustrations so that the people would relate to what he was trying to say. JW's try to follow his example in using effective illustrations.
Hope that answered you questions. Thanks for commenting.
Thanks for the answer!
ReplyDeleteSounds pretty standard in terms of the written translation. And it looks like as far as interpretation (in my field, meaning live translation/acting as interpreter for two parties that don't speak the same language) is kind of taken care of with localized information.
So cool that all this language stuff works the same no matter what the subject!
All that said, I really should be working on some translation stuff now, but hanging out in the blogosphere is so much more fun. I put up the pics from Sunday's snorkeling. I keep things pretty anonymous on the site, but feel free to forward on!
Cheers, Alexis (sometimes logged in as tamagosan sometimes as gonetoguam!...)