Hello, I am a recent graduate who majored in Japanese Language and Culture.
My dream is to work as a Japanese to English translator, however I don’t know where to begin. I want to eventually be able to apply to a big company like Nintendo/Pokemon/etc… so it would be good pay (and I get to translate something thay interests me)
I plan to take the JLPT 2 within the next few months, but if anyone knows of any remote translation jobs that I could apply for before the long term goal of Nintendo/Pokemon, pleade leave a comment. Or, if anyone has any good advice where to start.
Thank you very much!
4 comments
This might be a bad recommendation but you could work under a manga scan translation company. Whenever I read Blue Lock from Po2 I always see a help wanted translator job. You might want to try it 🙂
Honestly I don’t think translation has a bright future given the state of current machine translation. Realtime translation will probably be a thing for a bit but everything text based is already on the brink of death, which is not to say that translators will immediately become obsolete, it’s more likely that there will be a transition period where translators will use machine translation to their job quicker so that they only have to check where the translation was off or failed.
Also I don’t think JLPT N2 is really enough to be a translator, and neither is N1, perhaps for childrens manga but that’s about it. The thing with translation is you do not only need to be proficient in both languages but you also need to know how to *translate* which is a skill of its own, it’s not uncommon for professional translators to have studied translation ontop of learning/kowing a second language to a high level.
Not here to shater your dreams, perhaps I’m wrong and translator will remain for much longer, but I don’t see how that would be economical for companies given the current state of technology.
Sorry if that was too harsh, at the end you should do what makes you happy, but I just wanted to offer another perspective as I see a lot of people that don’t take advances in machine translation into account.
You should know that full time translation jobs are paid terribly, especially in Japan. Freelance translation can be paid well if you find the right gigs but it doesn’t come with a visa.
Also N2 is not the level anyone would hire a translator at. You need to be at a point where N1 is a stroll in the park. Especially your kanji reading ability better be top notch.
I do translation with a Japanese agency and, honestly… You won’t get in unless you know the right people. They value your language knowledge for sure but more important than that is being available and submitting things on time. Usually only vetted people (as in colleagues of colleagues or friends) can get in. I haven’t seen any big translation agencies advertise open positions.
Maybe you’re lucky but for translation N2 is probably a bit lacking.
Check LinkedIn once you pass the N1.