I started my first, official translation job with the company I’m working for in mid to late November of 2018, and I got my first anime title to translate for them at the beginning of January 2019, so I’m splitting the difference and calling this my one year anniversary as a translator. Hooray!
Here are 10 things I’ve learned…
- Translation alone won’t pay the bills. (At least, not at first.)
- English skills are important. (a.k.a. the thesaurus is your friend)
- The hard stuff always needs to be localized.
- Translator doesn’t get the final call.
- Working in a team is hard, but it can be rewarding
- Everyone has a different depth of understanding.
- The fans are a force to be reckoned with.
- A written medium is easier than a spoken one. Probably.
- There will always be things you wish you could go back and change
- I love it.
Want more detail? You got it. Elucidation below.
1. Translation alone won’t pay the bills. (At least, not at first.)
This should have been obvious, but somehow it wasn’t. Translation is a job just like any other. You have to work your way up the pay scale, put in the time, earn trust, and gain experience. Also, I’m freelance, so that’s got its own set of challenges…
2. English skills are important. (a.k.a. the thesaurus is your friend)
People who want to be translators, myself included, tend to focus their linguistic studies on whichever language is their non-native language, in my case, Japanese. However, as I translate from Japanese to English, knowing more English gives me more options when I’m confronted with a scene where three characters greet each other by saying, “Yo・ro・shi・ku,” “Yoroshiku onegai itashimasu,” “Yoro~♥︎”
Also, solid English skills ensure that you’re saying what you think you’re saying. For example, “you mistook aggressiveness for rashness,” means that you thought it was “rashness,” but it was actually “aggressiveness,” whereas “you mistook rashness for aggressiveness” means you thought it was “aggressiveness,” but it was actually “rashness.”
3. The hard stuff always needs to be localized.
It was actually one of the veteran translators I’ve gotten to work with who explained this to me. I’ve got a tendency to want to leave the more untranslatable, culturally embedded words and phrases such as “itadakimasu” and “yoroshiku” untranslated because, well… they’re really untranslatable. They can mean a bajillion different things in a bajillion different situations. What was pointed out to me was that that’s exactly why they need to be translated. For the audience member who’s never heard it before and wants to know. For the audience member who’s heard it a million times, but not quite in this context. To help them understand, it needs to be localized. Because it’s really, really hard.
4. Translator doesn’t get the final call.
This is another one of those things I should have realized and didn’t. In the world of official translation, the owners of the source material have the right to make sure things are done the way they want them done. That makes sense. But so many other things can come into play. For example, other people’s official translations. If an anime is based on a light novel that has an official translation published then the novel translation can influence the anime translation. Why? Because the existing fanbase is going to be expecting consistency even if the companies producing the translated works are completely unaffiliated. So, names, attack names, place names, character names…
Also, see point 5 below…
5. Working in a team is hard, but it can be rewarding
Teams. Working in teams. Working in teams of people you’ve never met before, so they’re just names on an email list, and you’re not exactly sure what they want from you, but you don’t want to disappoint them or make their jobs harder, so you do what you can, and… yeah.
The thing about teams is that it can be rough at the beginning when you’re still getting to know everyone’s styles and schedules. Sometimes things get thorny over linguistic expression and interpretation. An editor might argue for readability over cultural accuracy. When everything’s clicking though, you can get a synergy that creates something which is greater than the sum of its parts. That makes all the rest of the grind worth it.
6. Everyone has a different depth of understanding.
This is true of people you work with, editors, bosses, people back in Japan who have to sign off on a project before it can be called “done,” but it’s also true of the people consuming the finished products. If you’re working in a team, communication is of the utmost importance because there’s no guarantee that the things you think are “obvious” are obvious to the rest of the team. When you’re creating a translation, there’s no guarantee that whoever’s consuming the end product will know that thing that “everyone knows.” Sometimes you can make it easier for that person, and sometimes you can’t, but it never hurts to try.
7. The fans are a force to be reckoned with.
I’ve watched anime since the mid-90s. Actually, technically, I’ve watched it since the 80s, but I didn’t know the cartoons I was watching were from Japan, so I don’t think it really counts. That said, I’ve never really been a part of the anime fan culture. In this past year, I’ve seen how active and responsive the fanbase is, as well as how much their thoughts and reactions can influence the people working on the projects. It makes sense. It’s a business after all. Gotta keep the customers happy! And, business aside, when you see a comment saying that someone really likes the project you worked on, well… that’s a good feeling. Gives you energy to tackle the next project!
8. A written medium is easier than a spoken one. Probably.
I’m still going back and forth on this one, but I think there are a lot of freedoms in translating manga or prose that you don’t get in translating dialogue for anime subtitles.
With anime, you have the advantage of hearing native-speakers who are also really good actors act out the lines for you. This is, however, a double edged sword, because you then have to match what they do in tone and intention with your translated text. And people can hear if you did it wrong. They can get very judge-y. I know I do it when I’m watching subbed anime. I’ll yell at the screen, “that’s not what they said!” It yanks me right out of the story.
When you’re doing manga or prose, there isn’t any original Japanese left in the final product for the consumer to compare your translation to. (Okay. There’s sound effects in manga, but that’s pretty much it.) If you want to get very loose with your interpretation because you think it reads better that way, you can, and hardly anyone’s going to call you out on it. But in an anime, if someone calls out “ekisutora janpingu dogeza” and you put up a subtitle that says “super jumping grovel,” you can bet someone’s going to be yelling at the screen. (They said “extra”! “Extra Jumping Dogeza!” Why can’t they get it right? I could do that job!)
9. There will always be things you wish you could go back and change
Some of this has to do with the speed at which translations need to be pushed out to keep to production schedules. Even if the deadlines are completely reasonable, which they may or may not be, they’re still deadlines. Cut-off dates. Points of no return. Hard lines which say “you cannot go back and change this again, ever.” And inevitably, sometime after you’ve submitted your final translation and it’s gone live or gone to print, that one phrase that you just couldn’t quite get right will suddenly unfurl in your mind leading to exactly the right words. Too late.
10. I love it.
In spite of all the challenges, the late nights, the impossible-to-translate phrases, the differences of opinion, the mental and emotional demands… I do love translating. I love it. It’s storytelling in a different form. It’s a chance to help people see the things I see and feel the things I feel. When the source text is funny or sad or profound, I get the chance to help hundreds of thousands of people understand it, to love or hate the characters, to experience a story they never would have without the help of a translator. I am proud and happy that one of those translators is me.