Job Discussion Forums

[Mark]

Hi folks,

Bit of a question here: how much success have you had in learning Japanese? How about reading Japanese?

I'm an ESL teacher in Vancouver currently doing the Japan vs. Korea vs. Taiwan debate (the old classic). I'm leaning towards Japan and have started studying the language, but I'm just curious to hear about people's results.

My other question is this: is there much freelance work to be had translating from Japanese to English. If I go to Japan, I'm hoping to stay for 3-5 years and learn the language well enough to be able to translate into English. I'm sort of following the model of someone I know who runs a private translation service (for French, though, not Japanese).

Also, I'm wondering if you think it's necessary to live in Kanto in order to a) learn standard Japanese and b) develop business contacts for future translation purposes.

Any comments will be greatly appreciated.

Mark

[guest of Japan]

Two and a half years ago I was wondering about that option too. I'll say anythings possible. I know two people who were able to become translators after three years of teaching here. One studied really really hard. The other studied pretty hard, but was a member of a band which consisted of only Japanese people and himself. I've been here for about two and a half years and I am not even close to having enough ability to be a translator.

What I have been able to do is learn enough to meekly function as a teacher in a high school. Now I find that my speaking opportunities are greatly enhanced so I presume that I will learn more quickly. Nonetheless, give yourself some time and be prepared to study hard

Good luck.

[Sunpower]

[Guest]

A lot can depend on where you're teaching. In an eikaiwa native teachers are not encouraged to speak Japanese. Quite the opposite in fact. If you are planning to work in this kind of environment you won't find the need to speak Japanese and no one will thank you for trying. The other down side of these jobs is by the end of the day the last thing you will want to do is rush home to memorise another hundred kanji. With teaching jobs in the public sector you may have more chance to study and more opportunities to practise your new skills.

The grammar of Japanese is not difficult compared with other languages, but the problems come with the reading. If you set your mind to it, it will not take long to be able to understand product labels in supermarkets. To become a translator though you will have to memorise thousands of kanji - no mean feat.

If you're willing to put the time in anything is possible, but Japanese is not French and I'm guessing it will take you somewhat longer to learn.

Good luck

[Mark]

Thanks for the responses, everyone. I'll try and answer the points raised.

Chinese vs. Japanese:

I agree that Chinese is much more prominent globally (to say nothing of Vancouver), but learning to read Chinese well enough to translate it seems like a significantly more daunting task. That's an interesting thought about the chilren's books, though. Are you planning to give that a whirl?

Also, the isolation of Japanese might be an advantage. It's one of the top 10 most spoken languages on the planet, but the overwhelming majority of people who speak it live in Japan. As well, they're ranked rather low when it comes to English proficiency. So, when interacting with companies/individuals/etc. outside Japan, they'll need translations done. At least I'm hoping!

As for location, I'm not too terribly concerned. My friend's business is entirely online, and that's a big advantage for me. I'd like to free myself of the necessity of living in one particular place.

As for French, I know it's much easier for us to learn that Japanese (I used to speak somewhat halfway-decent French myself, back in my school days), but my friend translates software into French, her 2nd language, which is a pretty challenging thing to do. Anyway, I was just pointing out that it wasn't Japanese.

Whew, hope I didn't forget anyone.

Regardless, my plan is to spend a year in the Tokyo area teaching, and then assess the translation market and make a decision about whether to stay longer. So, if the translation thing is a no-starter, at least I'll have had quite the year.

The teaching market in Vancouver is unreliable at the best of times, and the international situation has really reduced student levels, so I'm going to go somewhere for a year, hence the Korea vs. Taiwan vs. Japan debate.

Thanks again,

Mark

[nakanoalien2]

Mark,

I had a similar debate a few years ago before coming to Japan. I think alot of people have the same idea you've mentioned, but I've noticed it seems to be a bit like becoming a celebrity - sounds glamourous, but it's alot more difficult than it seems and in the end you meet alot more wannabes than success stories.

That said, I think you should try to learn the language and culture of the country you are most interested in for 2 reasons. First, you will spend alot of time in the country. Second, for all the talk of rising China or the fall of Japan, it is really difficult to predict what language will really be in demand. For example, who would have thought that Pashto would have been desirable a few years ago?

I think Korean is often ignored. While the media hypes the downfall of Japan and rise of China, Korea is left out. But consider these possible determiners of supply/demand:


-Any conflict in the Korean peninsula will require more Korean speakers by western intelligence agencies, and an opening of the North would open up NGO opportunities


-Although China is growing quickly, it is relatively less developed than South Korea. Certain large financial firms are talking Korea rather than China as a growth area.

-Many Chinese-Americans and Chinese-Canadians are said to be moving back to the region because of perceived opportunities (i.e. influx of bilinguals in companies doing cross border business with China)

-Despite its economic problems, Japan still accounts for a great deal of business in Asia. And companies routinely have ops in both Japan and say HK because doing business in Japan is a skill in itself.


Finally, consider where the opportunities might be if you make it halfway. For example, if you can speak fairly well, but cannot read well enough, or if you reach a conversational level only. Consider also whether or not you may be able to get some business experience in the country. This will be helpful for your resume as a translator and in general.

[Mark]

Thanks for the great reply, Alien. You raise a lot of great points.

I've no doubt that there are many people who would like to become translators. I think that I'll be able to stick with it and keep working on the language, but I guess time will tell.

I agree that Korean is often overlooked and may prove quite useful in the future.

Also, given that the visa system in Japan allows you to change employers and bring your visa with you, it seems that Japan might offer foreigners the greatest amount of mobility. This would certainly be helpful in gaining business experience.

As for the usefulness of partially learning a language, that award would probably have to go to Chinese as there's such a larger Chinese presence in the rest of the world.

I don't know, it's a tough decision. I'm trying to avoid making my decision based on the criteria of "Wow, Japan is so cool!" but I admit that that consideration is still a factor.

Anyway, thanks again. Your thoughts are much appreciated.

Mark

[PAULH]

Mark,

If I could add my two cents worth- Katy touched on this but the average Japanese person knows about 1800 Kanji characters by the time they finish high school and they probably learn another thousand by the time they finish university. For a western foreigner with a background in romance languages you can expect to spend between 3 to 5 years learning the Kanji required to reach the same level as a native speaker. As Katy said you can pick up the spoken language soon enough but reading and writing, which uses different vocabulary and styles than spoken speech is an entirely different animal altogether.

Japanese do have a poor reputation for learning English, but that is for the same reasons that we have trouble learning Kanji -the vocabulary, syntax, grammar and morphology are totally alien to us, unlike French and Spanish etc. French is much easier for us as they use the same words etc but with japanese you pretty much have to start from scratch and that takes YEARS of hard work and study.


Its also my belief that when many Japanese companies send their own staff to foreign countries they DO have some command of spoken English, and now many require high TOEIC (800-900 to be posted overseas) and TOEFL scores before they will post them overseas. Many will call on local translation companies to put things into English for them so that may be your first port of call to find out what the minimum requirements are.

This is not to rain on your parade, but you may also want to find out what the market is for Japanese- English translation is Vancouver, and what kindsof things they are asked to translate. If you know Japanese but know nothing about engine transmissions or cell biology in Japanese you may find it difficult to get work. You may have to develop a niche area or an area of knowledge that you specialise in before someone will hire you.

Also you mention that you can take your visa with you in Japan- this may be so if you are changing jobs as an English teacher, but translation jobs are much harder to come by unless you have specific skills and its not as easy to job-hop from one employer to another with visa in hand if you are working for a translation company.

[Munchen]

Some years ago, I was interested in pursuing an MA at Mi ddlebury College in Vermont, a place renouned for its language programs.

In my query, I had a most pleasant meeting with the head of the Italian Department in Florence, Italy, where the graduate Italian program was held in conjunction with the University of Florence. I was enrolled at the Universita Italiana per Stranieri in Perugia.

In persuing some of the options as to what I might do with an MA in Italian, I brought up the possibility of translating, I suppose in broad terms.
Dr. Castiglione immediately prompted me by saying, "Let me tell you something about translating/interpreting. You really have to be bilingual or pretty close to it!" Like native proficiency in both languages.

It turned out that I did not pursue the course and it was the first and last time I had encountered the gentleman. From that discussion, I assessed that I had a decent but nowhere near an inherent bilingual proficiency in two languages.

I suppose one could go to Japan and stay a few years, perhaps learn the rudiments of Japanese well enough to do document translation, i.e., Kanji, the Kanas, etc. plus a thorough knowledge of, say, technical matter would be essential. I'm sure it has been done. But it did always remain in my mind what Dr. Castiglione had remarked to me that time in Florence.

Thought I would just share this experience with anyone who might be giving consideration to getting into the field of translation, whether it be Japan or anywhere. I have talked to translators and in order to make a good living, speed and accuracy in getting the job done is a definite plus!

All the best.

[Brooks]

my brother knows a guy who was in Tokyo for four years and he does translation related to software. He lives in New York.
He quit his job in Tokyo because he got sick of all the drinking sessions after work. His boss must have been a heavy drinker who took the midnight train home.

By comparison my wife has put in over ten years of learning English and she takes a translation course in Osaka (with interpreting as a focus).
Some work is freelance, but some is not.
There was an interesting article about her former teacher (in the Japan Times, I think) and she does interpreting at courts. That is well paid, but t is not regular work.
The interpreting work for the World Cup was not well-paid.

NHK in Shibuya has a good school for interpreting but it is expensive.

At least Korean has an alphabet. Japanese has two, plus 2000 kanji.
Learning the different pronunciations of individual kanjis is a major hurdle.

If Korea becomes unified, I would say that Korean will be a more important Asian language in the future.

Brooks

[Erikku]

[markle]

Before embarking on this venture also check the qualifications/certifications you will require to be recognized as an official translator back home in Canada. It won't matter how good your Japanese is without the piece of paper (usually requiring passing an exam) you will not be eligble for most work. BTW if you have any legal background and can translate legal documents then we are talking MINTING money.

[pdxtran]

and my standard reply is that you are ready to become a translator of written Japanese if you can read a Japanese newspaper or shuukanshi with about 90% understanding without looking at a dictionary.

Why?

The reason is that translators are paid by the word, either source language or target language. In either case, your ability to earn an income depends on a combination of speed and accuracy. The faster you can provide an accurate translation of a given text, the more money you'll make. If you have to look up every other word, you'll soon be down to a very low hourly income.

In addition, I highly recommend living in Japan for a while before embarking on a translation career. There are so many culture-bound aspects to the language that many texts will be incomprehensible if you've never lived in Japan or among Japanese people.

Finally, you need to be able to move beyond word-for-word translations and find the functional English equivalent, i.e. how a native speaker of English would express the same thought. Ideally, your resulting text should be free of "Japanesisms" and not identifiable as having come from another language.

By the way, it is not considered good professional practice to translate out of your native language into a foreign one. If you want to know the reason, just think of all the laughable English you have seen in Japan. English speakers trying to write in Japanese make the same kinds of mistakes.

[Nismo]

[Nagoyaguy]

That is true. Japan is one of the few countries where people do so, I think. I am amazed by the number of so-called translators I meet who are barely conversational in their second language.

My wife goes both ways.

I should say, she translates both ways, J to E and E to J. However, very few people are really good at it. Even so, she always asks me to proofread anything she translates into English. There are too many little cultural rules to know, plus little grammar points (use of articles, punctuation,etc.) that are impossible to completely know. Her English is virtually perfect, and I can still find 2 or 3 mistakes per page of her work. Not mistakes of fact, but of style and format.

The big reason to do it is that the money is better translating J to E. Plus, a lot of companies here are reluctant to hire a non Japanese person to do their translating, no matter what language or what direction. They just dont trust us gaijin, I guess.