For Surviving TranslatorsJAT Project Osaka 2009

by William Lise

These are comments by the author a JAT Project Osaka, a one-day Japanese/English translators’ conference held on November 28, 2009 in Osaka. Although that sounds like a long time ago, the comments have not lost their relevance. In fact, with agency translation work slipping away and dealing with translation consumers promising to be ever-more important, the comments on acquiring a specialization now have increased relevance.

Self-Introduction

Patent, technical, and legal translator & litigation interpreter
Translating full-time for over 40 years
Electrical engineer in my former life

Beginnings

First regular paying "job" was language related.
I came to Japan the first time 50-plus years ago to serve as a Russian-language specialist on intelligence gathering platforms of the US Navy. I have been in Japan this time for about 46 years.
My Japanese was completely self-taught.

シャバ復帰

Back in the "world," I worked in a fiber optics lab of the then Western Electric while obtaining an electrical engineering degree.
One day an electrical measuring instrument company was looking for someone to start up and manage their Japan operation. I was that person.

Entry into Translation

Although I was the branch manager, I also did some incidental Japanese-to-English translation (mostly market information and competitors’ technical information) as part of my duties.
The chance to translate was valuable, but developing sales-ready spoken Japanese was at least equally valuable in terms of acquiring translation clients. More on that in a moment.
When it came time to go home to the US, I declined and stayed here.

First Paid Translation

An ex-employee of mine asked me to translate an instruction manual for one of his products at a different company (a blood pressure gauge, sphygmomanometer to people in the industry) and the pay was two of the products. It made me wonder whether there are people out there who are paying real money for translation. I discovered there were.

Subsequent Work

I targeted my former competitors and clients.
I mentioned the name of my former employer in doing sales.
More recently (until the COVID pandemic, that is) I lurk at events attended by US attorneys, Japanese patent attorneys, and personnel from intellectual property departments of Japanese manufacturers.

Field-Specific Knowledge

The myth of "general translation" is just that—a myth.
All translated texts are "about" something.
Texts that are not "about" much are not very valuable to a client and lower paid.

Acquiring Field-Specific Knowledge

Formal education can help, but is not the only path.
Real-life experience can obviate the need to spend years in formal education.
Reading in both your source and target languages in your field of specialty is very important. If that is painful because the subject matter is boring to you, you might be in for a lucrative but boring career.

Good Spoken Japanese Can Greatly Affect Your Earning Power as an NSE Japanese-to-English Translator

It can open doors to Japanese direct clients.
It avoids slammed doors when approaching even non-Japanese firms if the gatekeeper is a Japanese speaker.

Rare Opportunity to Sell in Japanese

When I worked for the US company here, I had more clients and sales leads than people to handle them, forcing me to interact with Japanese clients and prospective clients.
At first, I visited clients with one of my experienced salesmen, essentially stealing his tricks of the trade. Later I went out on my own.
The sales skills I acquired were valuable in selling translation services and interacting with translation clients later.

Invest Now for the Future

For beginning translators, unless you are aiming at avoiding contact with Japanese speakers, time spent in acquiring sales-ready spoken Japanese is very likely going to be a good investment.
However, decades of interaction with translators strongly indicates to me that, if you have not acquired that level of Japanese in ten years or even five years of effort, your chances of doing it by starting now are poor.

Japanese-Language Qualifications

If you are aiming at freelancing, qualifications are unlikely to affect either your earnings or your ability to find work in Japan.
One possible exception is looking for work at a foreign firm, for example, which might not otherwise have the ability to judge your Japanese ability themselves.

Translation Qualifications

ATA certification might be of concern to US translation agencies, but not to direct clients.
It has not been an issue for me. People never ask; I never tell.

Summary Advice

Acquire field-specific knowledge.
If you are early enough in your career, invest time now in acquiring good spoken Japanese; later is almost certainly going to be too late.
The acquisition of direct clients is going to be increasingly important as agencies move to machine translation for their first rough translations.