From watching anime to translating shuttlers: Young interpreters' untold story

NEW DELHI: At the recently concluded BWF World Championships, players weighed every word as carefully as their drop shots. But beyond the glare of the cameras, another contest was quietly unfolding. Standing a step behind the athletes were the interpreters, almost invisible yet carrying the immense responsibility of ensuring that nuance survived the journey from Mandarin, Japanese or Korean into English.At a World Championships, where every word can travel as quickly as a smash, a mistranslated phrase can soften conviction, distort the meaning of an entire exchange or, in the worst case, trigger an unintended geopolitical controversy. For the interpreters, getting the words right is only part of the job. The real challenge is ensuring that nothing gets lost in translation.Chaavi Raj, one of the three Mandarin interpreters, felt the pressure immediately when local hope Ayush Shetty stunned World No.