Translator in training

[AbsyntheDelacroix]

So basically, I really really really love languages, and I'm currently studying Japanese. I'm still in high school so this is not an urgent issue but I was wondering if any of the translators lurking in this forum could give me some advice i.e.: requisites to join a localization company, recommended studies etc.
Thank you very much for your attention!

[jeffx]

If you're looking to translate SNES and PC98 games, prepare to lower your standards. This is no-preposition-land we're talking about.

Oh, wait, it's 2009.

Anyway, I know it's a love-hate thing 'round these parts, but go for JLPT4 first. How much Japanese do you already know? Drill hiragana and katakana every day until they show up in your dreams. #### romaji, that #### is weak. That will give you a great base then you can work your way from there. Of course you should look into a school with a good language program, but you don't need anyone to tell you that.

From what I know, some localizers enter the "biz" from the back door; i.e. they had many fan patches in their portfolio. Some current Atlus USA employees used to write online articles. Then again, some pro translators do the opposite: the Mother 3 patch mostly comes from the guy who did Kingdom Hearts II.

[AbsyntheDelacroix]

Cool, I didn't know that Mato worked on Kingdom Hearts II. And with Japanese I'm about to finish the third-year-kanjis, so in a couple of weeks I'll be done with those and start the next; that means around 450 kanjis.

[jeffx]

Then you can easily skip to JLPT2.5 or actually N3 now... if you need to take the test at all. Some of us need deadlines, ya know?

[AbsyntheDelacroix]

Heh, but I'm not so sure about my Kanjis. I guess I'll take 'em one by one, starting by four, just to feel more confident about things I already know. But I heard bad things about JLPT, and I don't want to sound like an over-certificated idiot.

[jeffx]

It's just a way to tell yourself "this is where I am". F the haters. It's a FUN test.

[AbsyntheDelacroix]

Ooh, sounds like fun. Really. And I think that you've GOT to love tests in the language you're studying, otherwise that means that you don't like the language itself and therefore it's meaningless to go on. I'm going to check out where I can take the test here in Italy.

[Rednusander]

I'd say there are three bottom lines you should have mastered if you want to go into translation: Fluency, accuracy, and speed.

If you aren't fluent, you won't get hired.
If you're fluent, but you can't take in Japanese and spit out English (Italian?) in a way that someone who speaks those languages can comprehend, you won't get hired.
And finally, if you can do all that, but you take too long to do it, you'll get fired.

Being in high school still, you've got a one-up on a lot of people who decide they'd like to translate stuff after taking a semester of Japanese in college. I'd say your biggest goal should be to look at colleges where you'll have the opportunity to study abroad in Japan.

Study kanji all you want, and you should, but the harsh reality of it is that you'll probably never learn enough from books and classes in a country other than Japan for a company to take you as a translator over someone who was born/raised knowing Japanese. Your edge will come from becoming nearly as fluent as a native speaker, but having a strong command of English/Italian as well. Going over there is the most realistic way of achieving that, no matter how unfeasible it may sound to get and stay there.

You can practice by importing games. See how well you can translate the text. And as a bonus challenge, make your translations fit in the same text boxes, at a rate of about 2 English characters per kanji. ;)

This is of course, all my personal opinion.

[AbsyntheDelacroix]

Woah. Thank you for the answer. And if I could bother you a bit more - could you rate my fluency in english? (since Japanese is not the only translation possibility I have - albeit English-talking Italians are muuuuch much more than Japanese-talking ones) In a 0 to 10 scale, if you please. And again, thank you.

[jeffx]

It's fine to me. FWIW, a team of Italians were working on translating Ys I & II for the DS before Atlus USA announced an official version was coming out.

[DamageCity]

I'd say your biggest goal should be to look at colleges where you'll have the opportunity to study abroad in Japan.


I completely agree. Remember Japanese start learning English from a very young age and in the next 3 - 4 years all High School English classes will be taught in English.

[LiquidPhire]

in the next 3 - 4 years all (Japanese) High School English classes will be taught in English.

As an ex-English teacher in Japan, I find this extremely hard to believe.

[xtreme_phoenix]

one of the best things you can do for your career is a solid fan translation. I reccommend that you find someone with a proficiency in english to work as a localizer and then work on bringing over an inexplicably untranslated game.

[Futomimi]

in the next 3 - 4 years all (Japanese) High School English classes will be taught in English.

As an ex-English teacher in Japan, I find this extremely hard to believe.

uh oh.

[DamageCity]

meh

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081223a2.html

[iammako3]

one of the best things you can do for your career is a solid fan translation. I reccommend that you find someone with a proficiency in english to work as a localizer and then work on bringing over an inexplicably untranslated game.

Do companies even want localizers anymore? I'd love to localize (versus translating -- I know I'll never be fluent enough to translate, but I enjoy the localizing process), but I hear that most translators pull double duty. Is there any hope for people who strictly want to localize?

[AbsyntheDelacroix]

one of the best things you can do for your career is a solid fan translation. I reccommend that you find someone with a proficiency in english to work as a localizer and then work on bringing over an inexplicably untranslated game.

I'd LOVE to do something like that. And I think I might be able to do it since I have no problem with repetitive work and whatnot. But I know nothing about hacking and stuff so how could I do? Translating the original Devil Summoner or Soul Hackers would be awesome.

[jeffx]

dude

Edit - Link removed.

[Onion of Mystery]

Yeah, please don't post links to hacking sites.

[Rednusander]

Do companies even want localizers anymore? I'd love to localize (versus translating -- I know I'll never be fluent enough to translate, but I enjoy the localizing process), but I hear that most translators pull double duty. Is there any hope for people who strictly want to localize?

I think you guys are getting a little confused. "Localization" is a very broad term used to describe taking a game from one language/region, and making it viable for players in another language/region. If you're looking to become a "localizer," that position would describe everyone from the translators on up to the producer of a game being localized.

In other words, you'll need to be more specific.

[jeffx]

OK, but he's bound to get much better answers to his questions there. 'far as I know there is nothing illegal on RHDN either, but I guess that's subjective.

[iammako3]

Do companies even want localizers anymore? I'd love to localize (versus translating -- I know I'll never be fluent enough to translate, but I enjoy the localizing process), but I hear that most translators pull double duty. Is there any hope for people who strictly want to localize?

I think you guys are getting a little confused. "Localization" is a very broad term used to describe taking a game from one language/region, and making it viable for players in another language/region. If you're looking to become a "localizer," that position would describe everyone from the translators on up to the producer of a game being localized.

In other words, you'll need to be more specific.

Ah, fair enough. I was under the assumption that "localizer" was someone who took the rough/technical script translation and made it more palatable to an English (or whatever native language) audience. So, to be more specific, *that* is what I'd love to do. ^_^

[Rednusander]

Ah, fair enough. I was under the assumption that "localizer" was someone who took the rough/technical script translation and made it more palatable to an English (or whatever native language) audience. So, to be more specific, *that* is what I'd love to do. ^_^

In these parts, we call those people "editors." We've had quite a few editors write production diaries, you should check them out if you haven't already.

So to go back to your original question... Yes, there is hope for editors in the world. Companies may be buckling down and asking translators to pull "double duty" as you called it, doing both the translation and the editing... But when that happens, you don't get stellar localizations, either. Generally speaking of course, I'm sure there are exceptions.

The reality of it is that the person who has the capacity to translate as well as a native speaker AND make dialog sound natural to the new audience is a rare, awesome soul.

If a company wants quality localizations, they're going to rely on editors. These are people with solid writing and grammar skills who can bring the characters within the games to life for north American audiences.

[Emilio Morales]

If you can get your hands in this software called, "Rosetta Stone" I totally recommend it! I'm currently learning Japanese with it and is really cool and entertaining, since I don't have enough time to enter a language school to learn Japanese, so what I do is practice with this software 1 hour daily.

If you're really into any language, then it's peace of cake. :D

[Pibbman]

If you can get your hands in this software called, "Rosetta Stone" I totally recommend it! I'm currently learning Japanese with it and is really cool and entertaining, since I don't have enough time to enter a language school to learn Japanese, so what I do is practice with this software 1 hour daily.

If you're really into any language, then it's peace of cake. :D

I gotta agree, Rosetta Stone is fantastic software. I learned a lot about sentence structures, and appropriate terms and the sort with this software. It's really expensive, but worth it.

[iammako3]

In these parts, we call those people "editors." We've had quite a few editors write production diaries, you should check them out if you haven't already.


Thank you so much for the clarification! I am all over those production diaries now! ^_^

[Vincent Alexander]

Is Rosetta Stone worth it? I had it a few years back, and I hated it. I wanted a program that would allow me to customize my lesson and such. Maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance.

[Emilio Morales]

^I haven't tried other language learning software to compare Rosetta Stone with, but in my opinion, is really worth it!

[Camanche]

I started to learn conversational Japanese and I started to teach myself Chinese and a few other asian languages pretty hardcore. Your best bet is to go to translation companies and ask them what languages they do the most work in/for and the kind of translation they do the most. I'd hate to see someone go and professionally try to learn a language, only to have no realistic application for it afterwards.

I didn't read the whole thread, so sorry if this was already said in so many words.

[mumu]

Hi!! I'm a translator.

To tell you the truth... Japanese is a hard language to get to a native level with if you weren't born into it. A lot of it has to do with culture - it really reflects in the language. For example, you're expected, and it's normal, to concentrate on what's NOT being said, by "reading the room," the atmosphere, the mood, and making sure you don't offend anyone and keeping yourself protected from being shunned lol That's kind of an extreme way to put it, but it's mostly true.

So... when you look at the language on paper, you actually have to go past what it's saying to what it's NOT saying, by reading between the lines, and coming to a conclusion. This is very different from English, where what you see is what you get. Of course, when you're born and raised in the culture, you instinctively know (for example, if you've studied conversational Japanese, you know that sentences regularly lack subjects, right? The speaker and the one being spoken to are never exactly mentioned, but it's obvious, and assumed - kind of like that, except more complicated...), but it might be tough for people who grew up in a more direct language. Like Rednusander said, instincts like these can't be honed if you're not immersed in Japanese culture.

It's really obvious if you don't have this sense - Sometimes, some people doing random fansubs just haven't studied enough and make crucial mistakes completely changing the meaning of the sentence because they're still thinking in English-speaking culture. It's understandable, of course, because of the nature of the language, but the kind of translation mistakes you can make from converting Japanese to English are, most of the time, REALLY BIG, so you really have to know what you're doing. Not to mention the slang you have to keep up with...

That's just the understanding Japanese part. Translating is a whole other animal (preferably a bunny). I always feel like, rather than "translating," I'm explaining the culture of one country to a different culture in a totally different country. It's so much more than replacing words... you have to think like a person totally brought up in Japanese culture first (to understand it), then, think like someone totally brought up in American culture, objectively view the Japanese sentence as an American person, yet knowing everything it's saying, and spit it out in a way that makes sense to you, as an American. A relatively good command of English is thus important too.

And if you're getting paid to translate, all of this must happen quickly.

Of course, this is just how I view the process - I'm totally sure there are other approaches, but yeah, you should be pretty good at both languages. Watch Japanese dramas without subtitles! Buy Japanese manga and write in them! Studying abroad for a long time is the best though, if you're really passionate about it.