As referenced here; http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/jtq (product at the bottom of the page), has anyone bought the translation industry information package? If yes, what are your thoughts on the contents? I don't believe in paying for information (especially the exhorbitant prices offered by AJATT), but I want to know if this actually helped anyone to distinguish between low/high quality translation houses or roll off their translation career (I'm very lost because of the information overload of endless options). Thanks!

Huh, $3000 for the ultimate package. Good thing he put that at the bottom or I would not have read that far. While I'll have a soft spot in my heart for AJATT, that does not include my head when it comes to deals like that.

Since I've been out of the loop for a number of months if not years, what was the aftermath of his "Silverspoon" package? I mean from people that actually paid into it.

(2016-05-23, 7:49 pm)Nukemarine Wrote: Huh, $3000 for the ultimate package. Good thing he put that at the bottom or I would not have read that far.  While I'll have a soft spot in my heart for AJATT, that does not include my head when it comes to deals like that.

Since I've been out of the loop for a number of months if not years, what was the aftermath of his "Silverspoon" package? I mean from people that actually paid into it.

That's been discussed extensively in this thread,
http://forum.koohii.com/thread-12626.html

The upshot is that a lot of people asked for refunds, some got them, some didn't. It's not easily known how many people the program worked for or didn't work for, and how many asked for refunds or didn't. Khatz disappeared for a long while but seems to be working on AJATT again now after a couple years of absence.

It’s probably just satire or something. I doubt it’s serious. Freelance translator is a hardly a job to aspire to. Many companies don't care if you’re barely at N3 level and write English as badly as Khatz himself appears to, which means your best qualification is your willingness to work for ¥1/character. 

You’re also guaranteed approximately nothing. It’s up to you to keep finding clients, and the “freedom” you gain comes with an unpredictable income, no insurance, no paid holidays and no visa sponsorship. Fun is relative, but I personally find translation absolutely mind-numbing. It’s work and it’s incredibly monotonous work.

If you do find translation enjoyable, then I'd recommend freelance translation only long enough to build a portfolio that would get you a real job. You'll probably still need some real skills (IT, finance, etc.) to improve your chances of this though.

Thanks for your input, jimeux.

I actually have an academic background in coding, but recently became more interested in translation/interpretation. Now, I can't say for certain but freelancing would only be a stepping stone towards a full-blown position. 

May I ask how you went about finding clients and what you're doing now that you stopped translating(?)?

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(2016-05-24, 12:24 am)jimeux Wrote: It’s probably just satire or something. I doubt it’s serious. Freelance translator is a hardly a job to aspire to. Many companies don't care if you’re barely at N3 level and write English as badly as Khatz himself appears to, which means your best qualification is your willingness to work for ¥1/character. 

You’re also guaranteed approximately nothing. It’s up to you to keep finding clients, and the “freedom” you gain comes with an unpredictable income, no insurance, no paid holidays and no visa sponsorship. Fun is relative, but I personally find translation absolutely mind-numbing. It’s work and it’s incredibly monotonous work.

If you do find translation enjoyable, then I'd recommend freelance translation only long enough to build a portfolio that would get you a real job. You'll probably still need some real skills (IT, finance, etc.) to improve your chances of this though.

$3000 seems like a fair price to me xD

Now on a serious note: Being a freelance translator IS a 'real job' and you can earn a lot of money actually. A good start would be to join PROZ and Translator's Cafe or similar groups on facebook. You may find clients by attending conferences on topics of your interest, networking, and proactive PR (heck, you can even write to certain companies you would like to work with and offer your services). Also, a professionally designed homepage can surely help!

(2016-05-25, 6:38 am)Seikou Wrote: Thanks for your input, jimeux.

I actually have an academic background in coding, but recently became more interested in translation/interpretation. Now, I can't say for certain but freelancing would only be a stepping stone towards a full-blown position. 

May I ask how you went about finding clients and what you're doing now that you stopped translating(?)?

Sorry if I sounded a little negative. Personally, I was only doing it to pay the bills until I found a programming job. If you were genuinely into it and worked hard at it, I'm sure your experience would differ greatly to mine. I just felt that a lot of what was written on that AJATT page was unrealistic.

Being a native English speaker, passing N1 and having a great portfolio mean nothing to a lot of companies. That's why they offer ¥1/character and hire non-native or inexperienced translators. You'll be lucky to find anything worth your time just by browsing online, so you really need to work hard to build your own network.

What Shinichirou suggested is what you want to be doing. Networking got me all of my most lucrative projects. Get an online portfolio set up and print some nice business cards. Meet as many people as you can and make a good impression. Get your friends to recommend you, and even try contacting companies directly. Remember that translation agencies are likely to charge companies ¥10/character or more, so somebody reliable without a middleman can be very appealing.

I'd recommend starting translating right now. Just translate something as much as your schedule allows, and see how you find it day after day. I started studying Japanese just for the language itself, but translation really took the fun out of it for me, and it did nothing for my speaking skills. If it's Japanese that you love, then you might get more out of a job that will allow you to build transferrable skills while using the language to actually communicate. 

I'm not sure what your feeling about the software industry is now, but if you're worried about Japanese companies, try taking a look at https://jobs.forkwell.com/. A lot of newer companies try to emulate the working environment of major US companies, and have pretty competitive salaries and benefits.

(2016-05-26, 1:46 am)jimeux Wrote:

(2016-05-25, 6:38 am)Seikou Wrote: Thanks for your input, jimeux.

I actually have an academic background in coding, but recently became more interested in translation/interpretation. Now, I can't say for certain but freelancing would only be a stepping stone towards a full-blown position. 

May I ask how you went about finding clients and what you're doing now that you stopped translating(?)?

Sorry if I sounded a little negative. Personally, I was only doing it to pay the bills until I found a programming job. If you were genuinely into it and worked hard at it, I'm sure your experience would differ greatly to mine. I just felt that a lot of what was written on that AJATT page was unrealistic.

Being a native English speaker, passing N1 and having a great portfolio mean nothing to a lot of companies. That's why they offer ¥1/character and hire non-native or inexperienced translators. You'll be lucky to find anything worth your time just by browsing online, so you really need to work hard to build your own network.

What Shinichirou suggested is what you want to be doing. Networking got me all of my most lucrative projects. Get an online portfolio set up and print some nice business cards. Meet as many people as you can and make a good impression. Get your friends to recommend you, and even try contacting companies directly. Remember that translation agencies are likely to charge companies ¥10/character or more, so somebody reliable without a middleman can be very appealing.

I'd recommend starting translating right now. Just translate something as much as your schedule allows, and see how you find it day after day. I started studying Japanese just for the language itself, but translation really took the fun out of it for me, and it did nothing for my speaking skills. If it's Japanese that you love, then you might get more out of a job that will allow you to build transferrable skills while using the language to actually communicate. 

I'm not sure what your feeling about the software industry is now, but if you're worried about Japanese companies, try taking a look at https://jobs.forkwell.com/. A lot of newer companies try to emulate the working environment of major US companies, and have pretty competitive salaries and benefits.

Thanks for the detailed response! Are you working for a startup-sized place now? How do you feel about the general work environment/culture and would you suggest to avoid the big capital (Tokyo) if you have any intel on that? I have heard that Tokyo isn't exactly representative of the "Japanese experience" due being extremely large so people just kind of come and go and it becomes harder form meaningful relationships.

(2016-05-26, 6:22 am)Seikou Wrote: Thanks for the detailed response! Are you working for a startup-sized place now? How do you feel about the general work environment/culture and would you suggest to avoid the big capital (Tokyo) if you have any intel on that? I have heard that Tokyo isn't exactly representative of the "Japanese experience" due being extremely large so people just kind of come and go and it becomes harder form meaningful relationships.

I was actually lucky enough to get to know two startups before making my decision, and they're both really great places to work (though I can't speak for the long-term at this point). You can wear what you want, have a lot of autonomy, get paid well, work with smart people, improve your Japanese daily, be treated with respect, and have your opinion count. It's like the opposite of the eikaiwa industry. If you don't mind putting in a bit of effort to create your 履歴書 + 職務経歴書 and contact some recruiters, you can judge for yourself during some interviews and decide that way.

As for Tokyo, it's really what you make of it. Personally, I really like living here. Every station has its own character, and there are regular events and countless restaurants/bars to go to. I don't feel Japanese people leave Tokyo any more than English people leave London. Ex-pats are a different story, but that's part of what makes it interesting. If you live in a smaller city, your options will be limited in every way, so I don't think there's any guarantee of making more meaningful relationships. Once you have a bit of experience (either with dev work or translation), there's nothing to stop you moving yourself either.

The good thing about freelance translation is that you can start now and stop just about whenever you want. The visa for translation and IT work has also just been merged. If you're hard up for money or a visa, it's possible to work part-time at an eikaiwa until you get everything together. My advice would be not to rule anything out yet. Get yourself some translation projects and go to a few interviews for dev jobs while you decide on a long-term plan. If there's one thing Tokyo has, it's opportunities for people willing to go for them.

(2016-05-24, 12:24 am)jimeux Wrote: and write English as badly as Khatz himself appears to

Khatz's writing was always one of his strong points. At the very least his English (and his vocabulary) is significantly better than yours.

(2016-05-23, 10:21 pm)SomeCallMeChris Wrote: Khatz disappeared for a long while but seems to be working on AJATT again now after a couple years of absence.

Outside of the occasional e-mail he still hasn't actually posted since 2013 or 2014, so I wouldn't say that.

(2016-05-29, 12:52 am)ryuudou Wrote: Khatz's writing was always one of his strong points. At the very least his English (and his vocabulary) is significantly better than yours.

I'm not sure exactly what I was objecting to after skimming through the article again, so I'll choose to trust your opinion in spite of the unnecessary goading.

(2016-05-25, 6:38 am)Seikou Wrote: Thanks for your input, jimeux.

I actually have an academic background in coding, but recently became more interested in translation/interpretation. Now, I can't say for certain but freelancing would only be a stepping stone towards a full-blown position. 

May I ask how you went about finding clients and what you're doing now that you stopped translating(?)?

---

(2016-05-24, 12:24 am)jimeux Wrote: It’s probably just satire or something. I doubt it’s serious. Freelance translator is a hardly a job to aspire to. Many companies don't care if you’re barely at N3 level and write English as badly as Khatz himself appears to, which means your best qualification is your willingness to work for ¥1/character. 

You’re also guaranteed approximately nothing. It’s up to you to keep finding clients, and the “freedom” you gain comes with an unpredictable income, no insurance, no paid holidays and no visa sponsorship. Fun is relative, but I personally find translation absolutely mind-numbing. It’s work and it’s incredibly monotonous work.

If you do find translation enjoyable, then I'd recommend freelance translation only long enough to build a portfolio that would get you a real job. You'll probably still need some real skills (IT, finance, etc.) to improve your chances of this though.

Take it from me - as a professional developer for an Australian company working on a big software project with a Japanese systems integrator and having to do translation for meetings/emails/communications/training/skype calls etc... After doing that for a year and a half I just wanna get as far away from that as possible. Coding is much more fun, much less stressful, much more rewarding, a much better quality challenge. Translation... kinda shitty tbh.

Also, one of my friends has been a full time freelance translator for years and she definitely enjoys the freedom it allows her but she's also constantly ripping her hair out over clients that simply 'complain' to the company so they don't have to pay after she's translated the whole thing for them, so she doesn't even get any money out of what might have been an 18 hour day. Not glamorous.