All Content Deleted (July 12, 2025)The end of Japanese-to-English
freelance translation is here.No amount of denial and delusion can stop it, and I have stopped feeding the delusions and misplaced hopes of freelancers and would-be freelancers.

IMPORTANT

Students learning Japanese should discard plans to freelance translate as a career. Such planning is not informed by reality, is reckless, and will simply inhibit decisions to opt for more promising career choices.
Freelancers already translating need to cast off the aspirational delusions and denial of what has happened to freelance translation. It has ended, for all intents and purposes.

Given this reality, I will no longer engage in any activity that would lead people to believe freelance translation is a promising career. That means:

removal of legacy content that I had written for freelancers, and
abandonment of plans to write further such content.

Translation Notes

This content is gone and will not reappear.

Note N001:: Confusion of the Whole with its Parts in Japanese (June 28, 2025)

Presentations

IJET Conference Presentations

These are presentations I made at IJET (International Japanese/English Translation) Conferences held by Japan Association of Translators, which have alternated between Japan and overseas venues.

Because they cannot be found on the JAT website, having been lost or deleted, I had preserved these presentations on this website. That included the now deleted or long-lost scanned copy of the Proceedings from the first IJET Conference, held in Hakone in 1990, also not available on the JAT website, is also linked to below. With freelance translating at its end as a realistic livelihood, this content is of historical value only, hence its deletion.

IJET-30 (Cairns, AU June 29-30, 2019, organized by Japan Association of Translators): Lise, Getting from Tier Two to Tier One in Japanese-to-English Translation
The content of this presentation, long lost or misplaced on the Japan Association of Translators, is closest to hitting the mark about the reasons freelance translating is dead, but the advice I gave in this presentation cannot be applied by more than a tiny number of translators. Others will meet the end shortly, if they haven't already left translation.
IJET-19 (Okinawa, Japan April 12-13, 2008, organized by Japan Association of Translators): Lise, Japanese Patent Translation
Even patent firms, which also profit from their translation business activities, are moving to AI. Nothing here of value to people who were hoping to make a living translating patent documents.
IJET-16 (Chicago, US June 4-5, 1997, organized by Japan Association of Translators): Lise, Japanese/English Deposition Interpreting (Presented on Lise's behalf by Manako Ihaya)
IJET-9 (Yokohama, Japan May 23-24, 1998, organized by Japan Association of Translators): Lise (panel discussion comments) Taking More Money for Your Translations
Relevant at the time, but not irrelevant and usable by only a very small number of freelancers.
IJET-8 (Sheffield, UK June 19-21, 1997, organized by Japan Association of Translators): Lise, Symbols, Abbreviations and Layout Issues in J-E Translation>
Discussion of things they don't teach you when you are learning Japanese in university. Irrelevant now, because the target translator reader demographic is experiencing the quick demise of freelance translation as a career.
IJET-7 (Yokohama, Japan May 18-19, 1996, organized by Japan Association of Translators): Lise, Japanese-English Translation of Patent Documents for Filing in the US
Irrelevant for reasons noted above.
IJET-5 (Urayasu, Japan May 24-29, 1994, organized by Japan Association of Translators): Lise, An Investigation of Terminology and Syntax in Japanese and US Patents and the Implications for the Patent Translator
As noted above, this translation sector is quickly disappearing.
IJET-1 Proceedings (The First IJET Conference, held in Hakone (JP), May 26-27, 1991, organized by Japan Association of Translators): Read
I retained a copy of this Proceedings, JAT apparently does not. Not a problem; freelance translating is coming to an end, and this document is of historical interest only.

All Content Deleted (July 12, 2025)The end of Japanese-to-Englishfreelance translation is here.No amount of denial and delusion can stop it, and I have stopped feeding the delusions and misplaced hopes of freelancers and would-be freelancers.

Translation Notes

Presentations

IJET Conference Presentations

Other Presentations

All Content Deleted (July 12, 2025)The end of Japanese-to-English
freelance translation is here.No amount of denial and delusion can stop it, and I have stopped feeding the delusions and misplaced hopes of freelancers and would-be freelancers.