japanese to english translator needed!

[Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow]

Thanks for Ted's response.  I certainly agree with your point and want to 
reiterate that my previous post was meant less to criticize certain 
comments than to remind people of etiquette whenever they post.  Sorry if 
there was any misunderstanding.

But since the thread seems to be continuing, I thought I should quickly 
give my two cents, partially because I have worked for a long time on 
both sides of the translation divide, both as a translator and as someone 
who hires translators.

To begin with, I wholly agree with those who have lamented the poor pay 
offered to translators and the mistaken impressions of those who hire 
translators--those think this can be done by anyone, in any amount of 
time, for any amount of money (an attitude unfortunately aided by all 
that horrible translation software).  But there are some problems that 
need to be made clear.

First, Jonathan is not really correct when he says that Yamagata offers 
much less than the going rate.  Perhaps he has never worked for a 
translation agency, but the going rate at such agencies these days is 
about 10 yen per word produced (some pay more, some less; others figure 
it differently, say by the numbers of characters in the original; 
translators who can do complex technical translation get more).  Yamagata 
pays the going rate in those terms (and even more if you figure in the 
fact it brings some people to Yamagata for the festival with 
transportation and room paid for).  What Jonathan is speaking of is, in 
some sense, the OFF-market rate: people who do not go through a 
translation agency and hire translators directly.  Those jobs are 
certainly juicy, but those who take them should keep in mind they are 
being used.  Companies who choose this option usually do so because they 
don't want to pay a translation agency (which can charge up to 10000 yen 
per page).  But in the process they are not getting what a translation 
agency can offer: not only elementary DTP and other services, but also a 
thorough check of the translation.  In other words, unless they've got 
someone on their staff who can do a thorough translation check (and if 
they did, they'd probably pay more like the going rate, like Yamagata 
does, since they'd have to pay for that checker), they are paying for raw 
material that may not be good.  In some ways, they are getting what they 
paid for.

This is a problem precisely because a few too many of the people out 
there working as translators in some form or another are not very good.  
Years of editing Japanese to English and English to Japanese translations 
has unfortunately made me aware of this.  Some of these less than good 
translations have been produced by grad students in a Japan studies 
field.  There are some who make simple mistakes in meaning and others who 
are frankly lazy, omitting the nuances in order to get the job done 
easily in their own style (not the style of the original).  Fortunately, 
there are many who are good, concientious translators (some of whom are 
on this list!), but even the best can make major errors occasionally 
(saru de mo ki kara ochiru!). 

This may sound a bit vituperative, but I emphasize this point precisely 
to warn anyone who is hiring a translator/interpreter that they are 
hiring an extremely difficult and specialized skill that not anyone who's 
fluent in Japanese can do.  As such a skill, it should, to the best of 
one's ability (and ability can vary, as we all know), be compensated 
accordingly.  Whatever budget you have, don't skimp in this area or you 
will regret it!

This is an important issue for the field of Japanese film studies 
precisely because many who are interested in the field don't know 
Japanese and must rely on subtitles and translations.  The Kitano book in 
question that started this thread is Abe Kasho's book which, even if you 
don't like Kitano, is still one of the more important books on Japanese 
film written in the 1990s.  But it is also quite difficult: Abe's prose 
(shades of Hasumi) is never very easy and his pseudo-theory (as 
consternating as it is provocative) is complicated or obtuse at times. 
There are very few people on this Earth who could do a good job with it 
and I have said so to the people involved.

What to do?  Well, as Lang emphasized, there's not much to do given the 
economics of publishing and the way things are with this small field of 
Japanese film studies.  But there is still a need for a change in 
consciousness on both sides:

First, those hiring translation/translators should approach this very 
seriously.  Beyond keeping in mind what I say above, learn about the 
going rates and do your best to find the money to pay for good work.  
While in many cases you get what you pay for, in other cases you can get 
very bad translation even when paying a good rate.  Ideally, when hiring 
translation for publication, you should never hire without also having 
someone on hand who can check the translation thoroughly.  True, this 
demands money or a dedicated staff, but it is better than turning out 
worthless stuff.  If you can't have anyone check the translation, at 
least hire someone who has a long record of translating for agencies or 
institutions which check that work (if they are continually asked to do 
translation, that means their work is good).

Second, those who do translation also should get their act together.  
While they should do much more to protect their interests (I still think 
translation agencies pay too little), they should also realize that one 
reason translation is treated so poorly is because there is a lot of 
inferior out there (why not use translation software if a human being is 
not producing much better work?).  Unfortunately, those who hire 
translation don't always have the luxury to shop around, which means 
knowingly hiring substandard people (I wish there were more good 
translators out there so that the poor ones can be culled out). This does 
lead some people to be lazy, which is bad for the entire field.

Academic translation, which is usually not for (much) money, is a 
different problem, so I won't get into it here.

Forgive the rambling criticism, but I think both sides of the translation 
process need to do a bit more so that we can have good work out there.

Aaron Gerow
YNU