Japan Association of Translators 日本翻訳者協会

The October Tokyo JAT meeting will be held on October 20th, and will feature a legal workshop focused on English-to-Japanese translation, with Makiko Yamamoto. We will discuss Japanese translations of a legal document prepared by two anonymous volunteers. Participants may wish to familiarize themselves with the text, or prepare their own translation to make the discussion more interesting. This document is a warning letter to a party infringing on a client’s trademark and other intellectual property rights. The workshop will be held mainly in Japanese. For legal reasons, the source text cannot be posted in advance. This event does not require an RSVP.
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Every time we communicate with someone, we are “selling ourselves.” Through everyday interactions, if you project an image of a careful and considerate professional, and if you make others feel good about working with you, then you will dramatically increase your chances of getting the next job.

On September 29, Dan Castellano will lead a discussion on “E-mail and Business Etiquette,” raising issues related to how day-to-day dealings with others can add to (or detract from) a professional image, and examining the challenges of choosing the correct rules of etiquette in cross-cultural business situations. The first half will focus on e-mail, and the second half on telephones, face-to-face meetings, and business manners in general. We look forward to lots of lively debate from participants.

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The International Federation of Translators, of which JAT is a an associate member, is now accepting proposals for presentations at its XVIII World Congress, which is going to be held in August 2008 in Shanghai (right before the Beijing Olympics kick off). Proposals are due in about a month (September 30th, to be exact), so if you’re interested, head over to their site for more information.

Now that we’ve flipped the switch and officially launched our new site, we’d like to tell everyone a little bit about it.

Why a new site?

According to the wayback machine, JAT has maintained a web site since late 1996. Since then, it has grown from a collection of links to include to a searchable member database and an integrated mailing list. Unfortunately, the infrastructure upon which the site was built wasn’t really equipped to handle its new responsibilities, and like a translation that has been revised by generations of editors, was drowning in cruft. The recently elected board decided to make this a priority, and has decided to make the switch from a hand-coded system to one based on well-tested frameworks.
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