I'm officially a freelance translator!

A few months, when I was depressed and wishing I could do something productive and income-generating with my life here in Japan as a university student in limbo, I signed up for the Japan Association of Translators (JAT) in order to get access to their electronic bulletin board and many articles about every aspect of Japanese/English translation. I wasn't doing it as a promotion of my translation services at all. But yesterday morning, I got a random call from a guy who wanted me to translate a 25-page memo for a Japanese university by Sunday night. I was quite unsure about my translation speed so I asked him to send the document so I could see whether I felt comfortable with the material, volume, etc. I think he could tell by the way I spoke that I don't have a long history as a professional translator, and I didn't want to commit to a deadline that I am not able to make, so we struck across the following agreement: I would take a shot at the translation last night, and assess whether the deadline was doable or not; if I thought so, I would send him a copy of the translation up to that point and he would get me the job.

I was somewhat surprised when I found out the compensation: 180,000 JPY, about $1611 going by today's exchange rate. I have worked for about six hours on it so far, and estimate that it will take about 38 hours to finish the whole document. If I speed up, it may only take me 25 hours or so. That seemed like a shitload of money to me at first, because I didn't even get that much from my former internship in a month, before taxes!! Also, if I had steady work at that rate (which is a big impossibility), I would be making $77,300 per year, which isn't at all bad. However, it wasn't until I did a bit more research that I realized that I had agreed to a rate that is probably unfair. The reasons: (a) Japanese-English translation rates are based on the number of kanji (called "words" in the industry for some reason), not the number of physical pages. Although certain fields (biomedical, patents, etc.) garner higher-than-average wages, the industry standard is that a billed "page" amounts to 300 kanji. There are about 24,000 kanji in my document, or 77 billed pages, which should pay 231,000 JPN at the standard rate of 3,000 yen per page. This means I'm actually doing a cutrate translation at 80% of the established standard.

I'm a little uneasy about this for two reasons: (1) the JAT community warns very sternly about accepting jobs on the cheap in order to gain experience as a beginner, because that will drive down the industry rates and eventually damage your and others' wages later on in life, and (2) it may be difficult to negotiate for higher rates if this guy calls me for translation work in the future.

I hate sitting in front of the computer for 10 hours a day, but I have often done so out of my own will in the past, so I better just suck it up and work, since money and my reputation as a professional translator could be on the line this time.

In case you're wondering what sort of language I'm tackling, check out the following excerpt:

し かし今日の改革は、全学を挙げて一つの課題を集中して行う段階から、幾つもの改革を同時並行で行い、かつそれぞれの部毎に持続的な改革能力が求められる段 階に至っており、全学的な戦略企画調整部門の確立とともに、部門毎に全学的視点に立った企画・執行能力のある多様な専門家、少なくとも10年先に責任をもてる人材の大量確保・育成が必要となっている。これらの人材が確保できなければ、国際的競争に耐えられる《検閲》の持続的な改革は不可能である。

現在、旧帝大系大学を始めとして、わが国の拠点大学たらんとしている大学は、能力さえあれば、学内の元文部科学省の職員、コンサルタント企業の専門家、銀 行などの民間会社の社員などから、その経歴にこだわらず、大規模にかつ教員系列の形式にした大学管理運営の専門家集団を組織し始めている。《検閲》学園は、これらの動きに立ち遅れることなく、大学行政センターにおける職員研修をはじめとする様々な形での養成と、外部人材の登用を含め抜本的な仕組みで大学管理運営プロ集団の形成に努めなければならない。

However, the reforms of today range from single issues affecting all faculties to the many issues handled simultaneously and in parallel requiring continual reform effort. In addition to establishing an interdepartmental strategic planning department, these reforms also require the securing and cultivation of large numbers of talented people -- diverse specialists in each department who have experience in executing plans with a university-wide scope, each of whom shall have at least 10 years of experience. If these talented people cannot be secured, continuous reform of [CENSORED] which can stand up to international competition will be impossible.

Our country's base universities, beginning with the formal imperial universities, are now beginning to organize specialist groups of university administrators; they are seeking out capable people from among employees of private corporations, the former Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, consultant company's specialists, banks, and so on, without giving too much regard to their career. The [CENSORED] school must take radical measures in striving to create a professional group of university administrators without lagging behind. These motions will begin with staff training in the university administration center, and will also include appointment of external personnel.

Exciting stuff, isn't it? Just imagine doing that for pretty much forty hours in a row, with a little bit of sleep thrown in there. My translation is not very beautiful, but it's roughly functional. Japanese mission statements are so hard-handed and repetitive, it drives me crazy! (Maybe they're the same in many other languages/countries, to be fair...) And they use the same words again and again as though the author just learned them the morning the document was composed. It is a mammoth struggle to produce high-quality non-repetitive English prose from a Japanese source document while staying true to the original. I hope it gets easier soon. Maybe I had work really hard in engineering when I get back to Pitt so that I don't have to get stuck doing this forever...

Okay, I'm going to take a little exercise break to relieve my eyestrain, and then it's back to work. I promised myself I would put in 10 more hours today. If I am not too braindead after it's all over, I will report back with a status update later today.