Japanese-English Translation ServicesQuality | Accountability | Experience
We are an outlier as a translation service provider, because we are not a translation broker (purchaser/reseller of translations), but rather a true translation company. The translations we provide our diverse clients are the result of end-to-end professional translation by accountable professional translators, with no involvement of risk-prone AI that produces just artificial translations that need repair work.
Legal & Intellectual Property Translation
Our decades of experience assure our clients of high-quality translations of critical documents.
Legal Document Translation
- Purchasing agreements
- Powers of attorney
- Non-disclosure agreements
- Priority documents
- Non-patent documents, including academic papers submitted as prior art
- Employment agreements
- Corporate safety and health regulations
Intellectual Property
We handle not just patent specifications, but virtually any document related to the patent prosecution process, patent litigation, and a wide range of other legal matters, a very partial listing of the type of documents we handle being as follows.
- Patent specifications (related to a diverse range of fields of art
- Procedural amendments
- Written oppositions
- Appeals
- Notification of reasons for rejection
- Trials to invalidate
- Arguments (written opinions)
- Allowances
- Complaints
- Final rejections
- Licensing agreements
Technical/Industrial Translation
In a space mostly populated by translation sellers claiming to be able to handle any language and any subject matter, Kirameki is unusual, in that we consciously limit our scope to the Japanese<>English language pair and to the fields in which we can guarantee high quality.
Kirameki is operated by a professional translator who comes from an engineering background and has significant real-world industry and research experience, and we feel strongly that a "jack of all translations" translation seller is not the best choice for clients looking for high-quality translations of complex subject matter.
Since starting to provide technical translations decades ago, we have executed high-quality translations done by identifiable professional translators who understand the technology they are translating, something that is clearly not a given in the translation industry.
Documents We Handle
While we can handle virtually any type of document in fields that are within our range of competence and experience, just a few of the types of documents we handle are as follows.
- Technical papers
- Specifications, sales literature, user manuals, and maintenance manuals (particularly for complex industrial equipment)
- Internal engineering & production documents
- Test reports
- Software-related documentation
- Technology transfer documentation
- Complex specifications for automotive electronics
Technical Subject Matter Fields We Handle
We have a translation track record in a wide range of fields, just a few of which are show below, and we have direct industry and research experience in a number of these fields,
- Electronics
- Chemical and other analysis systems
- Frequency analysis systems for use in vibration testing
- Machinery
- Semiconductor devices and manufacturing methods
- Energy/power generation/transmission & storage infrastructure
- Display technology
- Materials
- Automotive electronics
- Measurement & testing products
- Optics
- Medical imaging systems
- Control systems
- Games
- Communications
Criminal Matters
We have extensive experience in translating Japanese police investigation documents, one particular assignment involving more than 200 documents totalling over 1200 pages and ranging from statements given by witnesses and victims to documents provided by numerous entities having contact with or knowledge of the particulars in a criminal investigation.
We have also provided interpreting in criminal matters, as noted elsewhere.
Certified Translations
For translations we have executed, we can provide certification for use in prosecution or litigation. We can provide a letter of certification for a translation signed by the responsible professional translator, something that many larger translation sellers do not and cannot do. Such translation brokers very often provide a purported certification letter signed by a person who is not a translator and who has no way of judging the quality of the translation they have sold you.
The Process
Every document we accept for translation is subjected to a number of rigorous process steps.
- Initial Readthrough
- An initial readthrough is done to identify problems at an early stage that could impact the translation process.
- Establishment of Terminology to be Used
- Terminology needs to be both consistent within the translated document and aligned with terminology conventionally used in the subject matter field.
- Translation
- The steps have been completed, the translation process begins, executed by a professional translator. We will never allow a translator unknown to us to do a translation and, it should go without saying, we never entrust your valuable documents to an AI translation system or send them to another translation provider or broker.
- Questions
- Questions might arise during the translation process. If you are not accustomed to receiving questions from your translation source, rest assured that the questions are because the translator is committed to provide the best translation possible.
- Checking
- To assure the quality you require, before we deliver a translation, we always have the work of the main translator checked by yet another translator.
The Reasons We Don't Use AI in Translating Client DocumentsThe main reason is that we are responsible professionals who care about our clients.
Although there is a white-hot frenzy over artificial intelligence and many entities that are best characterized as translation brokers have jumped on the AI bandwagon, we are committed to not using AI to create artificial translations, for a number of good reasons.
We front-load quality into the translations we produce.Artificial translation just automates the age-old approach of starting with a rough translation and repairing it.
For a variety of reasons, Japanese-to-English translation has often taken the approach of obtaining a first, rough translation, followed by considerable editing or rewriting, only sometimes by someone capable understanding the Japanese source text and the subject matter.
Artificial translation done by the alien intelligence of AI has provided dramatic acceleration of the process of creating a first rough, artificial translation at a greatly reduced cost, but with an added twist; the translation can be spiced with mistranslations and hallucinations not likely to occur when even an unqualified professional human translator does the first translation.
HallucinationsArtificial translations provide them; we don't.
Just like the output of various chatbots, artificial translations from AI are susceptible to hallucinations, and regularly get things seriously wrong.
This comes from the AI system's total lack of real-life experience. It cannot do a reality check on the artificial translation it produces because it doesn't understand—and is not concerned with—reality, but rather just attempts to emulate the writing behavior of a human. This is based on statistics, rather than a true understanding of the subject matter or the real world in which the subject matter is relevant.
Real translations are best executed by real professional translators with experience in and understanding of the real worldAI doesn't get out in the real world much—or at all, actually.
Professional translators commonly have a deep understanding of the subject matter they translate, often gained from experience in the real world, something that is impossible for a collection of software instructions to achieve.
AI doesn't care.Your translations need a translator who cares; AI couldn't care less about you or your documents.
There numerous things that AI cannot and does not care about:
AI doesn't care about quality
Being a collection of software instructions, AI "translators" are not concerned with—and don't have a stake in—the quality they produce.
AI doesn't care about whether it should ask—and doesn't ask—questions of the source-text originator.
A conscientious professional translator will ask questions to clarify things that are not clear, including aspects of how a document is to be used. An AI artificial translation system cannot and does not do that.
AI doesn't care about the context of your translation
It doesn't consider the context of your document, the intended reader, and the purpose of the document.
AI doesn't care whether it is actually capable of producing a translation of sufficient quality
Whereas machine translation systems of the past were known to flag or leave things untranslated that they couldn't translate, AI translation systems suffer from Dunning-Kruger effect and simply produce what they produce, the assumption being that someone will be able to correct problems. That assumption is sometimes quite optimistic and accompanied by significant risks.
Security
If you don't mind having your documents dumped into an unidentified database in a black box for use by unidentified entities in unidentified and unknowable places, you might consider using AI to create artificial translations.
The Things We Commit Not to Do Also Set Us Apart from the Crowd
- We will not accept an assignment unless we have the in-house capability of assuring the quality you need.
- We will not accept a job without knowing beforehand who will be doing the translation.
- In the world of translation providers, this is a promise that very few translation sellers can make and fulfill.
- We will not risk the quality of your translation by entrusting it to an AI translation system at any step of our translation process, which provides translations executed end-to-end by accountable professional translators. We hold to this policy has good reasons.