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18 September 2018
Soccer ladies relish challenge in Potch
Trinity Melakeco (right) in action for the Kovsie women’s soccer team against the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) last year. They will face TUT, the defending champions, on Friday 21 September in Varsity Women’s Football.

The Kovsie women’s soccer team has a tough challenge ahead of them in their quest to reach the semi-finals of Varsity Women’s Football for the first time.

The tournament starts on Thursday 20 September 2018 in Potchefstroom. The Kovsies’ best performance in the competition was in 2016, when they were fifth.

They are in the same group as the University of Johannesburg (UJ), the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), and Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). TUT has dominated Varsity Women's Football, winning four of the five tournaments. TUT and UJ contested the final last year, as well as the University Sport South Africa (USSA) tournament in July.

Kovsie coach, Godfrey Tenoff, says the challenge of playing the top-seeds is one they relish and welcome.

According to him, the ladies will have gained confidence from USSA where they ended sixth, improving by two places from 2017.

“We were satisfied with our performance at USSA. There are so much the players are capable of, but they don’t get the platform to test their talents as often as the men. We only play UJ and TUT once or twice a year, and there are very few teams in our province with that much talent. So, we have to get out more and find opportunities to play against top-teams to put our preparations and methods to the test.”

“We’ve had a good defence all season, led by our captain, Uma Jakalase. This will have to get us through the tournament.”

* The fixtures: 20 Sept vs UKZN; 21 Sept vs. TUT and UJ. The play-off matches are scheduled for Saturday.

News Archive

“To interpret is more than the ability to have mastered two languages”
2014-03-27

 

It is equally unfair to the accused as the victim when an untrained court interpreter is used in a court case.

In South Africa there are currently a large percentage of interpreters employed by the Department of Justice without any formal training.

While interpreting is in reality a very complex subject, the general acceptance is that everybody who is able speak two languages or more can be an interpreter.

This perception harms interpreting as a profession, as it results in most institutions appointing any multilingual person as an interpreter.

In many cases people are used to interpret into and from their third or fourth language (of which Afrikaans is one). This leads to inaccuracy and the incorrect use of expressions and terminology. Specific cognitive processes also have to be developed and practiced.

The University of the Free State (UFS) has since 2008 trained approximately 200 court interpreters in South Africa. This training includes the theory of interpreting and practical exercises, as well as the development of terminology and a basic knowledge of the legal system in South Africa.

The training provided to court interpreters by the Unit for Language Management and Facilitation, is done in conjunction with the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development and SASSETA (Safety and Security).

Apart from Afrikaans, native speakers of all South African languages are included in the training.

Much attention (rightfully) are given to interpreters who can interpret between the nine African languages and (mostly) English, but in the process the development of interpreters between Afrikaans and English was neglected, as became apparent in the past two weeks during the Oscar Pistorius case.


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