For Surviving TranslatorsDon’t Read This if You’ve Been an NES JA-EN Translator for More Than 5 yearsRe-invention requires time travel‐not yet invented.
(Originally posted on January 7, 2019 by William Lise and restored here on November 28, 2024)
Observations upon reposting on November 28, 2024: Much of this points to the stark reality that translators, once a bit into their careers, cannot re-invent themselves. Redoing your CV and polishing your curated and transparent online profile is not reinvention.
The title does not mean that if you have that amount of experience you don’t need to be told the things I am going to tell you because you already know them. Rather, it means that with that number of years in JA-EN translation you almost certainly are in one of the following situations:
- you have already taken most of the following advice before you heard about it,
- you realized that you are incapable of taking the following advice, or
- you have made life decisions that preclude you from taking this advice.
Some of the things I suggest here are not for everyone and not possible for everyone. A number of pieces of advice to follow will anger some translators, particularly ones living in a bubble of their own limited experience. However, if there are even a few readers who can be convinced that there are alternatives to the inherited approach of working in the bulk market and never engaging with translation consumers, this article will have achieved something.
Move to Japan.
Yes, there are lots of reasons for not living in Japan. One I heard recently is that the spouse of a translator does not speak Japanese, thereby making a career in Japan difficult. Yes, you are at a distinct disadvantage in Japan if you don’t have Japanese language. But if you do not have such family-related restrictions, consider living in your source-language country (Japan for the NES translators I am addressing).
Living in Japan will provide a range of advantages, not the least of which is the ability to engage with consumers of writer-driven translation. Almost all of the JA-EN translators outside Japan are essentially limited to reader-driven translation, which comes with a number of disadvantages, including much lower rates, having to work with translation brokers, and very rarely ever having the opportunity to ask questions of authors.
Even if You Live in Japan, Don’t Live in a Remote Area.
Yes, there are numerous reasons and motivations for living away from urban centers in Japan. My experience tells me that NES translators who choose to live in remote areas of Japan do so for reasons such as:
- they don’t like big cities in general,
- they have a strong motivation (and sometimes an absolute requirement) to live near their Japanese spouse’s hometown or place of employment, which is quite often distant from people who can help them develop a translation career outside the bulk translation market, or
- they don’t realize that, unlike translation brokers, direct clients in Japan expect direct contact, which is expensive to achieve from a rural area in Japan.
Living in a remote area, you will not easily be able to have face-to-face contact with the people who can help you break away from the bulk translation market and into the market that serves translation consumers directly. Forget the Internet mantra of connection and the misconception that working at a distance is as good as working close to your clients. Japanese businesses that have serious translation demands and serious money to spend don’t work that way. Pressing the flesh in direct meetings is still a given.
Abandon the notion that everything you need to use is free.
The advent of the Internet did not give value to things that are free; it just made lots of things free (or apparently free) for the taking. There’s a serious difference. Here are some suggestions, some of which will be annoying to some translators who have bought into the everything-is-free approach. The next several pieces of advice are related to the cost-free approach many translators take.
Don’t use a free mail account.
Many people are wedded to the idea that there is no downside in terms of positioning to using a Gmail account. This is not a problem if you are resigned to not having translation consumers as clients, but completely inappropriate if you want to move up and out of the bottom ranks.
If you are aiming at serving translation consumers in Japan, don’t use free email services such as Gmail. Use of such accounts effectively positions you as a backpacker sleeping rough, whereas you would do better to look like you have a real suitcase and stay at real hotels. Obtaining a unique email address at your own domain is not that expensive, and goes a long way to bring you out of the crowd of backpackers.
Don’t live with your in-laws in Japan.
Certainly living at your in-laws can be very inexpensive, and some translators have painted themselves into a corner in which it might be hard to avoid (see comments on spouse hometown residence). Even if you take the easy way out, have a separate telephone line for your business. And having a family member who knows nothing of your business answer the phone is not acceptable, unless you want to create the impression that you have not only not arrived yet, but have no intention of arriving in the world of Japanese business.
Spend the time required to learn to converse in Japanese at a level expected by translation consumers.
There are certainly NES translators who have taken this advice. The reality, however, is that many more (most, in fact) have never achieved that level of spoken Japanese, and I am including those living in Japan. I would say that no more than 5% of NES translators living in Japan can speak Japanese at a level usable in a sales situation in which a direct customer (translation consumer) must be convinced that you have what it takes to do their translation work. That figure will surely be disputed by some people, but it is precisely those people who have an overblown evaluation of their own Japanese speaking ability. I’ve met a lot of NES translators and make these comments based on sufficient observation.