Growing up with deaf parents, the girl became a "bridge" using symbols

(Dan Tri) - Growing up with both deaf parents, Thuc Nghi learned sign language from a young age. Now, she becomes a translator, helping conversations go beyond her home.

When it was time to eat, my father called out: "Nghi!". He tried to pronounce his daughter's name, but the call was not clear. Nghi still recognized immediately and responded. When near each other, parents can wave to attract her attention. Then the story continues with eyes, facial expressions and hand movements.

Nghi's father and mother are both deaf. Since childhood, she has been accustomed to being able to call each other in the family by voice and then converse in sign language. A reminder to eat, a request to go out or what happened during the day are all communicated that way.

"I was born in a family with two cultures, growing up every day, so I feel it's normal. It's like being born in a family that speaks two languages: English - Vietnamese," Nghi shared.

Sign conversations from the age of three

Nghi doesn't remember the first symbol he learned from his father. When she began to use gestures, gestures and a little sign language to talk to her parents, she was about 3-4 years old. Those memories have receded, and communication with her hands follows her as she grows up every day.

Nghi remembers that she often said very childish things to her parents: "I want to go out", "I want to buy toys". The two sides also do not have their own "code" or symbols that make outsiders have to guess. They use familiar family language to tell stories, ask questions and express wishes.

Thuc Nghi grew up in a family with parents who are both deaf. Since childhood, she has been used to talking to them using sign language (Photo: Provided by character).

When they want to call their child from afar, Nghi's parents sometimes pronounce her name. According to Nghi, deaf people have learned pronunciation, but each person's speaking ability is different. The parent's call "Nghi" may not be clear to strangers; To her, that sound was familiar.

Leaving home, Nghi gradually finds that her parents' communication with listeners can be more difficult. When she's not around and the other person doesn't know sign language, dad often has to write in Vietnamese. His vocabulary is not much, sometimes he understands a word in a different meaning or uses it in the wrong context. What he wanted to say could therefore be misinterpreted.

Nghi has many times helped her parents discuss when going to the doctor, doing paperwork or chatting with others. She receives what her parents express in symbols, converts it into words, and then communicates the answer back. From that experience, she understood that being heard sometimes depends on the presence of someone who knows both languages.

Nghi's father is artist Tran Ve Nhin, who has been working in animation for 26 years (Photo: Character provided).

Nghi's father is painter Tran Ve Nhin. He has been animator for 26 years, contributing art to films such as Oggy, Zig & Sharko and Monta in the Grotesque Galaxy. When telling his father's story on social networks, Nghi introduced him with pride: "My father is an extremely talented Deaf person."

The post attracted hundreds of thousands of views. What Nghi hopes is that more people know about the abilities of deaf people, including those who have worked persistently behind movies familiar to audiences.

Re-learn the language used since childhood

Growing up with sign language doesn't mean Nghi can immediately become an interpreter.

According to her, when her father was in school, the number of symbols was not as large as today. His symbolic capital was enough to converse with family and friends, but some concepts later had new expressions. Some old symbols are still used; others change over time.

After learning sign language methodically, Nghi also brought new signs back to show his father (Photo: Provided by the character).

Nghi studied from basic to advanced courses to expand her symbolic capital and be able to interpret at events. Occasionally, she brings home newly learned symbols and shows them to her father. When she was young, Nghi learned from her parents how to talk with her hands. Growing up, she had more things to share with them.

The translation job also puts her in front of another requirement: to understand clearly what she is conveying. Nghi finds it most difficult when encountering specialized or in-depth knowledge that he has never accessed. If she doesn't understand a term, it's difficult for her to describe it accurately to deaf people, especially when there isn't a corresponding symbol available.

As an interpreter, Nghi believes that understanding the correct content and context is the most difficult thing when transferring words between a deaf person and a hearing listener (Photo: Provided by the character).

There were times when Nghi was busy thinking about how to express this paragraph, while the speaker was already moving on to the next idea. She lost her rhythm, became confused and had difficulty keeping up with the rest of the information. For Nghi, interpreting requires knowledge preparation in addition to the ability to use sign language.

Screens help meet each other, people help understand each other

Smartphones have changed the way Nghi communicates with her parents when she is not around. The whole family can text or video call; Through the screen, they again saw each other's facial expressions and hands to chat in a familiar language.

Technology also helps deaf people access social networks and have more ways to express themselves. The story of her father being known to many people outside the community made her happy, because the attention was directed towards his abilities and work.

AI can assist in correcting Vietnamese sentences, but Nghi believes that symbolic translation tools have a hard time fully capturing context and emotions (Photo: Provided by Character).

With communication support tools, Nghi sees both benefits and limitations. Automatic captions can misunderstand speech and display a different sentence than the speaker intended, leading to misunderstandings. AI can help some deaf people correct Vietnamese sentences when writing for hearing people. However, each person's ability to read and understand Vietnamese is different, so it is difficult for one tool to be the same for everyone.

I believe that the interpreter needs to understand the figurative meaning, facial expressions and rhythm of the person communicating to convey the correct meaning (Photo: Provided by the character).

Nghi also has reservations about the idea of ​​letting the machine automatically translate sign language through the camera. According to her, the same symbol can have many meanings depending on the context. The interpreter must also look at facial expressions, feel the rhythm and understand the figurative meaning to choose the appropriate expression.

Therefore, she is not worried that AI will replace her job soon. In Nghi's experience, many deaf people still want a human interpreter: someone who can understand what they are saying, recognize emotions and adjust the way they sign fast or slow, strong or soft.

Through her work as a translator, Nghi meets more deaf people. She also started looking for children who grew up with deaf parents like her. They are called CODA, which stands for Children of Deaf Adults.

Thuc Nghi founded the group CODA Viet Nghi founded the group CODA Viet with the desire to connect hearing children who grew up with a deaf parent (Photo: Provided by the character).

Nghi founded the CODA Viet group with the desire to connect people with the same experience. She understands that a child can converse with his parents in sign language from a very early age, then grows up between the two ways of communication. But it wasn't until he met someone with a similar childhood that that child had the opportunity to talk about the things he thought only his family experienced.

When she was young, Nghi started using her hands to tell her parents that she wanted to go out and have a toy. Now, those hands help her translate words between people who speak two different languages. From conversations in her home, her journey expanded into a community.