Translation: The Basics

I've been writing a series of columns on translation for participants in the JET Program, borrowing on material I use in the translation course I teach and experiences I've had. (This means that the columns aren't too balanced, since I know little about translating tech documentation, or patents, or other things that make up some lucrative chunks of the industry. But I try to stay on universal themes for the most part.) Here's the first one:

Translation: The Basics

What is translation?

An easy question, right? You take words in language A and write them in language B, and you’re done. You’ve produced a translation!

That’s on the right track, but it isn’t a complete answer. Translation is an effort to re-create a source text in another language. This means conveying the same information—and the information contained in a text isn’t always the same as the words on the page. A piece of writing can convey emotion: the writer is angry, or the essay makes the reader feel sorrow. A successful translation conveys the same content and makes the same impression on the reader as the original does for its readers. Translators don’t deal just with the words in a document: they think about the author of the source text, the reader of the target text, the demands of their editor, the rules of style.

So language skills don’t count for much?

Of course they do. You do need to pay attention to those words. A translator needs to possess talents in both languages involved: to be able to read source-text material with understanding and to write well in the target language. Let’s take a look at both of these areas.

(Note: I’ll use the J-E translation combination in the following examples, but any language combination can be plugged in here.)

You studied Japanese in school and you can puzzle your way through a newspaper. Maybe you’ve got your level-one certificate on the proficiency exam. This is a good start. What you need to build up next is a deeper understanding of the ways Japanese is used in certain contexts. Field-specific knowledge is what lets you really understand the source text—what the words say, what is implied between the lines, and why the document has been written the way it is.

The other side of this equation—easily the more important one if you want to be good at this—is your English writing skill. Without a firm command of English grammar, punctuation, spelling, and style, it doesn’t matter how good your Japanese is. You need to write appropriately and confidently. Translating a government announcement? It should sound like a similar announcement from a local government in New Zealand, for instance. Medical document? Make sure it’s something an American doctor can read without scratching her head. And no matter what you’re translating, don’t make the client do your spell-checking for you.

How do I improve those skills?

You read. You pay close attention to how language is used. On the Japanese side of things, you spend a lot of time reading different texts and asking questions about them. (If you work in an office with lots of Japanese coworkers you’ve got a great resource all around you.) The best course of action for a professional translator is specialization: to do work in the fields that interest you and inspire you to master them. This isn’t possible when you’re asked to translate anything and everything, but the task is still the same: learn as much as you can in Japanese about the things you deal with in your translation work. It’s good to read widely and deeply in both languages, since that lets you write naturally in English about the things you know naturally in Japanese.

And you write. Do lots of translation and get lots of feedback. (This can be tough: many beginning translators will pay serious money to a mentor for editing services, since clients won’t always have the time or ability to sit down and go over the problem areas in their work.) Be systematic about your writing: have a large English dictionary, a grammar guide, and a style manual, and make heavy use of all of them. Be your own harshest editor, and put all your writing through multiple drafts before you attach it to an email message and hit “send.”

What else do I need to know?

Lots of things! There’s an ocean of information out there on translation, and this industry is truly vast. Translators do work in the public and private sectors, for clients from massive companies and national governments right on down to individuals. They work in medicine, law, education, publishing, advertising, manufacturing . . . you name it. Here are a few ways to learn more about the field:

Honyaku is a mailing list for professional translators working between Japanese and English. Lurking here will give you an idea of the linguistic and other problems translators face on the job.

The Japan Association of Translators is a group for individual translators working with Japanese and other languages, mainly English. Membership is ¥10,000 per year and gets you onto the mailing lists; monthly JAT meetings in Tokyo are open to all, as is much of the information on the website.

The Society of Writers, Editors, and Translators is another Tokyo-based group with an informative website. The mailing list is open to nonmembers; pay ¥5,000 per year to get reduced admission prices for the meetings and lectures.