I think this has been discussed here before but every time I try to get into this. I always get popped up with the same question. "What's your experience?" I've been reading up some sites about certain translation jobs requiring to have at least JLPT level 2 or 1 to get a job into translating anime/manga(actual work). Should I wait a few years until I become fluent in japanese? Or should I try to work my way up now while I still have time to do so.

Also I was wondering about this for a while. Do translators specifically transcribe everything then translate? or just translate solely of the audio they hear?

Also what are some ways I can improve on my translation skills and so on. Should I wait until I reach a level of which I can call myself fluent or work on it soley now, until my skills rise up to that point. [Right now, I can pretty understand/read all that I come by with not too much effort,occasionally still screw up but over time that will disappear)

Translating from a foreign language into your native language requires more than just 'this sounds natural to me.' You have to have a good grasp of your own language's vocab, their nuances, grammar, as well as how to make things flow well. I would suggest you pick up some writing style guides for English before you do more than fansubs, etc.

If you're just doing anime or manga, it might not be so big of a deal. Then again, I'll bet people who want to, and are qualified to, do just this are a dime a dozen. If you're interested in translating things more specialized (especially novels or poetry) you'll have to be able to put the feel of the original into your Native language. In a sense, you have to be a skilled writer yourself.

As for how you actually get into the translation industry, I don't know. I'm thinking about perhaps heading towards technical translations, so I'm also interested.

I get what your saying. Basically I should read up on writing(Grammar,etc) so that I can craft what's being said in japanese but also make sense of it in English.
Well It's just for starting out, need to gain experience some how. I do also want to do various translations as well. Not just anime/manga. But translations for videos,articles,new,etc

From what I've been researching, JLPT 1 is definitely needed. Definitely one needs to have a good grasp of japanese and english in order to translate all the little nuances,etc
I also have been noticing when I follow the subtitles for a japanese video in english. I can understand how the translation works. So that's one way I can work on it by myself. But also gotta keep on learning more japanese as well as english.

I actually met a girl who worked as a translator, localising Japanese games to English. How did she get the job? Well, she's half Japanese and she also took a 3 year degree in Japanese, so she's *really* fluent. She was then working in Q&A, and the job just came up - she got lucky. You really do need a qualification though, to prove you can do it; JLPT1 is what you should be aiming for.

My advice; practise output first on lang8 - post English text and your translation into Japanese text, people will be more than happy to correct them. After doing that for a while, go into fab-subbing - just do it for fun. Even youtube song-lyric subs would be cool. Boom, there's your experience.

Tough field though; there are so many people in the world who have been brought up natively speaking Japanese and English (mixed parents), I don't really see how anyone can compete..?

@aphasiac
your right about the qualification. Almost all the translation jobs I've found online, said you need some sort of qualification. Definitely JLPT is one of them. The music lyrics thing sounds like a good idea. Interesting

Haha cool. My annoyance is, most anime and manga has been translated, as well as some theme tunes and J-pop, but hardly anyone translates Japanese rock!!

My first project when I'm at intermidiate/advanced stage is going to be to translate all くるり and ザ・ブルーハーツ songs into English, and stick em on youtube. People will appreciate it, and it'll be fun. Could even get lang-8 people to help with the tricky bits..

Or you could just start translating things, and perhaps making a blog(?). I'm not sure if that would count as "field work" or "experience," but it'd be something you could hand them and say "I've translated this."

aphasiac Wrote:Haha cool. My annoyance is, most anime and manga has been translated, as well as some theme tunes and J-pop, but hardly anyone translates Japanese rock!!

My first project when I'm at intermidiate/advanced stage is going to be to translate all くるり and ザ・ブルーハーツ songs into English, and stick em on youtube. People will appreciate it, and it'll be fun. Could even get lang-8 people to help with the tricky bits..

I actually recently just made a youtube account for transcribing stuff. But I can definitely gear it into a translation/transcribing

Asriel Wrote:Or you could just start translating things, and perhaps making a blog(?). I'm not sure if that would count as "field work" or "experience," but it'd be something you could hand them and say "I've translated this."

I do have a blog about my experiences so far with japanese. But I haven't made about showing a translation there. Interesting idea.

I think that's a good route to follow. Showing them some your example translations from various sources. Definitely something I will do soon

I know this is too early for it. But maybe I should work on translating profile? Something like that?
[initial goal is to translate anime/manga, then work my way up into different types of translations, ranging from articles,videos,songs,news,etc]

Profile? You mean like...translating your profile on websites into Japanese...?

Asriel Wrote:Profile? You mean like...translating your profile on websites into Japanese...?

Not that.I'm referring to how we make profiles for projects/jobs. Can't the same apply for translating jobs? and such?

What is really trendy nowadays is technical translation, for instruction manuals, company directives and such. Maybe you can find a course to do that.

If you don't want to end up in the technical branch, yes, I'd recommend you do a lot of different stuff. I'd even go as far as translating a short story or a novel if you got the strength (of something you really like and already know well) if I were you.

I know that if somebody told me he translated Mishima or Murakami, I'd be impressed. ^_^

EratiK Wrote:What is really trendy nowadays is technical translation, for instruction manuals, company directives and such. Maybe you can find a course to do that.

If you don't want to end up in the technical branch, yes, I'd recommend you do a lot of different stuff. I'd even go as far as translating a short story or a novel if you got the strength (of something you really like and already know well) if I were you.

I know that if somebody told me he translated Mishima or Murakami, I'd be impressed. ^_^

that's very true. I think that's the best thing one can do. Start off by translating stuff they enjoy/like. I always wanted to translate stuff like this:
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%96%84%E...A%E3%80%9C
[p.s. character descriptions? Or more towards the initial plot. Translating that into English would be very fun to do.]

IceCream Wrote:yeah, i think it's too early to start making job profiles... the very best thing you can do is just start translating stuff, today, just for fun.

i don't know much about translation, but especially for non-technical stuff it can be really really hard. It takes years and years to learn to do well, but it will definately help your japanese while doing it!!! Even if you can understand something in japanese easily, it doesn't mean you're not gonna have an absolute nightmare trying to translate it...

that's true, i've always found translating it to english can be really hard. It really depends on the materials one is translating.

Be aware that anime/manga/game translation pays virtually nothing, even if you move up into a coordinator role. You're also not going to have a choice of what you work on, so you might just be doing the JP equivalent of Barbie's Horse Adventure constantly.

You'd probably make more just doing eikaiwa.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Be aware that anime/manga/game translation pays virtually nothing, even if you move up into a coordinator role. You're also not going to have a choice of what you work on, so you might just be doing the JP equivalent of Barbie's Horse Adventure constantly.

You'd probably make more just doing eikaiwa.

In America and at Square-Enix, all translators on staff that I knew, they were all native speakers of English and Japanese. I also think they got paid more than their Japanese equivalents who did more work, haha.

So yeah. I don't think JLPT1 would help there.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Be aware that anime/manga/game translation pays virtually nothing, even if you move up into a coordinator role. You're also not going to have a choice of what you work on, so you might just be doing the JP equivalent of Barbie's Horse Adventure constantly.

You'd probably make more just doing eikaiwa.

Gain experience and then move onto other translations? Technical perhaps?

your right about the pay, I looked up online and there was this anime translation job-posting. The job wasn't the scary part, it was the pay...
[10/episode] 10 dollars.
I guess that job was just basic but in general guess you gotta start from somewhere....

$10 per episode seems pretty decent. Good way to get paid doing AJATT study..hmm..

I think really translating something well is a lot more involved than you might think. A good book that explores the nuances of translation is Le Ton beau de Marot by Douglas Hofstadter. This book isn't about Japanese but if you're truly interested in translation I think you'd really enjoy it and learn a lot from it.

I also found this paper during a google search a while back. It talks about a lot of unforeseen difficulties of translation (specifically Japanese in this case).

And I have to agree with previous posters that you really need to work on your English before you have a chance at a translating job.

I think you may be jumping the gun a bit, but if you want to see how to make a name for yourself and get over the dreaded "need experience to get experience" hurdle, read up on the localization process of a game called Recettear. I wouldn't be surprised if indie translations like that become increasingly common with digital distribution taking off.

chair Wrote:I think really translating something well is a lot more involved than you might think. A good book that explores the nuances of translation is Le Ton beau de Marot by Douglas Hofstadter. This book isn't about Japanese but if you're truly interested in translation I think you'd really enjoy it and learn a lot from it.

I also found this paper during a google search a while back. It talks about a lot of unforeseen difficulties of translation (specifically Japanese in this case).

And I have to agree with previous posters that you really need to work on your English before you have a chance at a translating job.

I saved that pdf file to my computer. That one can really help me out a lot. I agree completely with you. A lot of people have told me to work on my grammar. Not extremely, just to review the basics. I should really get onto that but that's definitely something I can put off for just a bit.

Since you will most likely be translating from Japanese to English, your English will be more important than your Japanese in many ways as that is what is actually seen and what employers will be looking at in determining if you are qualified. It's not just, "Did he understand the Japanese?" but "Is the English translation something we can publish?"I would suggest picking up the Chicago Manual of Style or some other book that goes over the more technical points of writing correctly. If you really want to become a translator then I would make it my goal from here on out to write in English as perfectly as possible. I know this is a forum and perhaps when you submit formal papers things are much different, but it still wouldn't hurt to work on training this all the time.

thistime Wrote:Since you will most likely be translating from Japanese to English, your English will be more important than your Japanese in many ways as that is what is actually seen and what employers will be looking at in determining if you are qualified. It's not just, "Did he understand the Japanese?" but "Is the English translation something we can publish?"I would suggest picking up the Chicago Manual of Style or some other book that goes over the more technical points of writing correctly. If you really want to become a translator then I would make it my goal from here on out to write in English as perfectly as possible. I know this is a forum and perhaps when you submit formal papers things are much different, but it still wouldn't hurt to work on training this all the time.

Very true. I'll try my best to post correct English from now on. But just like you have mentioned before, this is a forum. So the English posted may not represent how people really write but majority of the time it does.