The reason why I asked this was because I have read people talking about it off-hand, and since I consider Japanese isn’t exactly a language that you could merely go into translation without having an extremely good foundation for it, how is it possible for anyone to still end up as a bad/incompetent translator/localiser for this language?
The next relevant question I would like to ask is, are there any specific, professional checks and balances, like a certificate or something, that officially and professionally recognises you as someone who’s a real deal?
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I mean, yes. People can be incompetent at any skill they just claim to have, and translation is no different. It’s like the old joke, “What do you call the person who graduated at the bottom of their class in medical school? Doctor.”
There is literally **nothing** stopping me from going on Fiverr right now, running some Japanese text through DeepL, and doing a little editing on the English output. Of course, reputation for poor work would mean I’d likely only get a few customers being reviews basically shut it down, but I *could*
There is no overarching certification you need to claim to be able to do these things. You can certainly ask to see their Traslantion Studies Degree, or JLPTN1 certificate, or kanken scores. Big name employers probably would do this, *and* do a sample test! But if someone is just doing one off translations for small clients, it’s really easy to misrepresent oneself.
Most translation agencies will give you a bespoke translation test when you apply to make sure you actually know what you’re doing and that you’re capable of producing output that matches the style they’re looking for.
Uh, yeah? Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry’s Wonderland 3D’s fan translation translated 「やまたのおろちは １０個のひとみをうるませ 仲間になりたそうに こちらを見ている。」 (Yamata no Orochi is looking this way with 10 teary eyes, as if it wants to join you) as ‘All ten students were saved from the Orochi in the mountains’, which has, well, a mountain of mistakes. Taking the ‘Yama’ part of ‘Yamata’ as ‘mountains’, taking ‘hitomi’ not only as pupil but the *wrong kind* of pupil, and makes up some nonsense about saving them or whatever. There was also one with the Dragon Quest III Super Famicom fan translation with a trainwreck of a line that I remember took ‘goshujin’ as ‘husband’ when it was obviously master. And people say the Dragon Quest fan translations are more accurate because they don’t take the liberties like the puns and accents of the official translations.
Sources: https://youtu.be/Sp8Ah1YcPAc?t=362, https://youtu.be/K8firyAmR_Q
One thing you might find inexperienced translators doing is translating Japanese phrases literally rather than finding the more natural English equivalent. For example translating しょうがない as “it can’t be helped.” In most cases where Japanese speakers say しょうがない, an English speaker wouldn’t say “it can’t be helped.” A different phrase would be more appropriate. People have gotten used to certain awkward translations, especially in anime, so sometimes it doesn’t get caught in the editing process.
In terms of certifications, no not really. All there is is the JLPT, which isn’t a translation test. There are masters in translations programs, but you don’t need to have done them to become a translator. You usually have to submit a sample of your past translations or do a test translation to get hired though
Realistically, the best way to see improvements in translation is to pay translators more, give them adequate time to complete projects, and give them adequate information about the project for them to do their job. Some translators just get set a spreadsheet with lines of dialogue and are told to translate, without context about what character is saying what phrase and in what context. Of course you’re not going to get high quality translations in that situation
Yes, just like anything else, some people are better at their job than others.
A company might not have the money (or might not want to spend the money) for a good translator, so they can’t afford to be picky and end up hiring someone who just isn’t as good.
Yes there are several shit ones.
Didn’t you hear about Nintendo’s US localisation team?
Honestly, in the professional world, the incompetents probably outnumber the competent.
Fan translators also have variation. Some can be amazing. Others can be N3 and barely able to string together a sentence. I know because I’ve personally met the latter.
I often see patients with translators, which half of the time are just their friends so understandable even they’re bad at it, but I was appalled by one official? translator which attended when I worked at a prison. I’d assume a professional translator hired by the government would at least be able to serve a sentence.