You can download Rick Weisburd’s Presentation Editing (and/or Translating) Scientific Research Manuscripts for Meaning from the January 23, 2010 Tokyo meeting using the following link:
You will need the member password published on the list to access this file.
This article by Ben Davis originally appeared in the November 2009 issue of the Tsuyaku-Honyaku Journal. Reprinted with permission.
Medical translation is generally considered difficult to break into. As a bare minimum, medical translators must be able to write well in their native language, have a near-native understanding of a foreign language and have in-depth knowledge about medicine and health care, among other things. It is hard enough to acquire one of these skills, never mind all three. Many, but not all, documents for translation are written by specialists for specialists, and require familiarity with the content. Translators working in this field must be able to write like a specialist, even if they are not. Work is required to get experience and experience is required to get work. So how can you become established as a medical translator with only limited knowledge and experience?
I admit that the barrier to entry may be slightly higher than for general translation or some other specialties such as business or public relations. The difficulties are by no means insurmountable though. Having worked at a pharmaceutical company, translation agency and other companies using the services of freelance medical translators, I can say with certainty that competent medical translators are in short supply, meaning those who can consistently produce quality work are always busy. It goes without saying that companies need good translators just as much as translators need clients.
The first thing to note is that there are very few people who have formally studied biomedical sciences, a foreign language and medical writing to a high level. The vast majority of medical translators have to work on at least one or two of these skills through self-study. While experience counts, interest in the field and perseverance are just as important in determining long-term success. Translators who are fascinated by the material they translate tend to enjoy their work and devote significant time to background reading, which naturally brings rapid improvement in knowledge and skills.
Medical translation can be demanding, requiring various different skills and specialist knowledge. It is not all bad news though. There is usually a considerable amount of reference material available on the Internet and elsewhere, a sizeable amount of which is available in both Japanese and English. There is possibly no other field of translation with the same amount of reference material at one’s disposal. Sentences are usually quite short, which can be a welcome change if you are more used to deciphering the logic of long sentences in contracts, patents or annual reports. Although in medical translation there is always an objective to be met, the focus is more on conveying information accurately and concisely rather than selling an idea with highly persuasive writing. Good medical translators usually have more than enough work to keep them busy, and demand seems relatively unaffected by economic conditions.
It is important to remember that not all medical translation is about cutting-edge research. For some documents such as patient education materials and users manuals, only limited medical knowledge is required. If you read around the subject as you work, you will gain knowledge, skills and confidence, even with relatively simple material.
The road to becoming a full-fledged medical translator can be likened to training for a marathon. I ran my first marathon (42.195 km) in April 2006, finishing in a respectable time of just over four hours despite only being able to run a few kilometers when I started training. The key is persistence. You have to keep pushing yourself, increasing the distance you run, without pushing yourself too hard. Of course, you become fitter and stronger as you train. Running 12 km is not too difficult for someone who has done 10 km a few times; it would most likely be torture for someone who has never run more than a few kilometers though. The same applies to medical translation—always stretch yourself to develop your abilities, but know your limitations. When you translate something, you become intimately familiar with the material, which is great exercise for your translation muscles. Translating highly specialized documents would be daunting for a beginner, but it is by no means impossible with the right training.
I began my career as medical translator about six years ago translating marketing reports and annual reports for pharmaceutical companies. This material would not be so difficult now, but it was very challenging at the time. After that, I moved on to patient education materials and abstracts for medical conferences. This was more demanding than the reports I had done previously, but the jump was not too great. Doing this work enabled me to make the transition to more difficult material such as medical papers and clinical trial related documents. Of course, I always try to do as much background reading as possible to expand my knowledge. This works best if you are genuinely interested in the subject. I would never have read up about semiconductors or politics, for example, in my spare time as these subjects do not interest me as much.
In addition to translation, reading and study, there are many things you can do to improve your skills. Checking or editing work done by other translators is enormously beneficial. Checking quality translations can give you good ideas about the best way of translating tricky expressions, while working on mediocre translations will give you confidence if you can improve the overall quality of the finished product. You also may be able to obtain translation memories or similar reference materials from clients to help you with your translations. Asking a more experienced translator to give feedback on your work may also be helpful. Of course, you should expect to pay for such a service.
Conferences and seminars such as those organized by Japan Association of Translators (JAT) are good for developing your skills, exchanging information and meeting fellow translators. Do not become discouraged, however, if everyone you meet seems to have more experience than you—everyone was a beginner at some stage, and the vast majority of seasoned professionals are more than happy to lend a helping hand to people starting out.
Always give yourself plenty of time to finish your work, including any research that may be required. Specialized material can take three to five times as long to translate as general documents. Challenging work like this may not be so lucrative without significant experience, but you can guarantee that you will learn a lot from doing it, provided that it does not stretch you too much. That said, you should always refuse work when it is beyond your capabilities or you do not have enough time to do it well. There is no faster way to lose the trust of your clients than submitting substandard work or missing deadlines.
It is possible to develop one’s skills as a medical translator, while taking on more general work to pay the bills. Experience has taught me that it is a good idea to call yourself a medical translator right from the outset though, even if you do not think you are ready to be called a specialist. No one else will have confidence in your abilities if you do not.
Finally, always ask if you are not sure. Documents to be translated are often produced under severe time pressure and can be vague. Far from revealing a lack of knowledge, asking for confirmation will show your attention to detail. Sadly, some translators do not bother to check when they are in doubt about something, which often results in mistranslations the client must fix. It is safe to say that by being conscientious and submitting your work on time, you can put yourself ahead of at least 80% of translators.
Although people tend to think running a marathon is impossible, it is achievable with the right training. The same is true about medical translation. Start with material you are confident about translating well and gradually increase the level of difficulty to provide the best training for your translation muscles. With dedication and an interest in health care, you can do it. Go for it!
This article by Kiyoko Sagane originally appeared in the August 2009 issue of the Tsuyaku-Honyaku Journal. Reprinted with permission.
母国語へ翻訳することを基本とする他国の翻訳事情とは異なり、日本では日本人が母国語でもない英語へ翻訳する傾向が今もかなり強いようです。これについての是非をここで深く議論するつもりはありませんが、これから翻訳者を目指して学習中の方で、特にフリーランサーとなることを希望している方は、英日翻訳の力を強化するよう重視したほうが良いような気がします。仮に日英翻訳だけを専門にした場合、海外に所在する会社から仕事を得難いと思われますし、今後ネイティブによる翻訳の良さを理解する顧客層が広がれば、日本国内ですら日英翻訳を専門にする日本語を母国語とする翻訳者のニーズが下がる可能性もあるからです。ちなみに私の勤める翻訳会社も日本人は日本語へ翻訳することが基本で、仮に私が日英翻訳をすることがあったとしてもある所定の文書だけで当然のことながらネイティブの厳しいチェックが入ります。
とはいえ、読者の皆さんの中には何らかの事情で日英翻訳に興味のある方や既に社内で日英翻訳を担当している方、その他翻訳に限らず英文を書く環境に置かれている方もいらっしゃると思います。その様な皆さんの今後の学習に役立てていただければと思い、私の翻訳経験に基づき独断と偏見で簡単にまとめてみました。
まず、英語ネイティブの記載をよく理解・分析することの重要性をお話したいと思います。基本的なことですが、言葉を話したり書いたりするというアウトプットを行う為には、その前の知識としてインプットが必要となります。極端な例ですが、「翻訳者」という言葉と「～中」という表現を知らなければ「翻訳者になるために勉強中です」という文を書くことは不可能です。その代替措置として、例えば「英語と日本語を訳す人になるために今勉強しているところです」等の冗長で幼稚な文になってしまうかもしれません。学生時代のジャーナリズムのクラスでも必ずプロのジャーナリストが書いた記事を分析するプロセスがありました。これも、良いとされる記事がどのようなものかを理解・分析しない限り、自分で良い記事など書けるはずがないということだと思います。
さて、ではなぜインプットのソースをネイティブの記載にすべきなのでしょうか。単純なことです。仮に英文を書くことがあるとしたらそれを読む相手は英語ネイティブ (または別の言語のネイティブで英語も分かる人) です。日本語ネイティブの人に対してだけを唯一の目的として、わざわざ英文を書いて提出したり、日英翻訳をすることはほとんどないと思います。ですから、ネイティブの人が読んで自然な文章でなければなりません。やはり言葉は生き物ですので、それを使う地域や世代等によっても大きく異なりますし、これを書面に落とすとなれば分野、ターゲットとなる読者、目的、スタイル等で「良い」という文章も異なります。となると、ある一つのテキストやマニュアルなどに頼って、良い文章の概念だけを覚えても自然な流れの良い文など書けるわけがありません。そもそも「良い」の尺度があまりにも違い過ぎます。ですから、自分の分野の文書でしかもネイティブが記載したものをよく理解・分析することが、必要なアウトプットをするために重要となるのです。
では、具体的なインプットの方法ですが、私は職場環境にも恵まれ次のような二つの機会がありました。まず、ベテランの英語ネイティブ翻訳者が行なった日英翻訳のチェック作業です。特に初心者の頃は数字等の明らかな誤記をチェックする場合がほとんどでしたが、これによって、例えば、契約書や特許などの独特の言い回しや、ネイティブによる訳し方、自分では思いつかなかったような表現を学ぶ機会となったのです。つまり様々な情報がインプットされていったわけです。もう一つは、英日翻訳作業です。英日翻訳作業中には、ネイティブ (そうでない場合もありますが) が記載した文書を当然のことながら読んで理解する必要がある為、同じ分野においてこのような作業を何度も繰り返して行くうちにその分野独特の表現が自然と身に付いてくる、つまりチェック作業と類似した効果を感じたのです。そして、インプットしたことは記録に残して今後の業務に役立てるようにしました。
ただ、一つ注意が必要なのは、翻訳には数式のようにたった一つの回答があるわけではない点です。文書の種類や前後関係によって上記のようにインプットしてメモしたものがいつでも使えるわけではありません。つまり、柔軟性が必要となるのです。この柔軟性は、例えば原文と翻訳文を何百ページも何千ページも見比べて徐々に強化して行くことが遠い道のりに見えて効果的な学習方法ではないかと思います。語学学習はマジックではありません。努力して知識を蓄積していかない限り上達することなどあり得ません。今現在、チェック作業も翻訳作業も全く機会がないという方は、どこかで原文と翻訳文が併記されているものを探しそれをよく比較・分析してみると良いのではないでしょうか。
日英翻訳に限ったことではありませんが、迷ったら分かる人に聞くのが一番です。例えば、日本翻訳者協会（JAT）では、会員用メーリングリストがあり世界各地の会員と情報交換ができます。私も何度か質問したことがありますが、質問後数分で最初のメッセージがあり、数時間後には少なくとも7件ほどのメールをいただいたこともあり、とても感謝しています。
ライティング力強化に役立った参考書には以下のようなものがあります。まず、『A Writer’s Reference, 4th Edition』(Diana Hacker、Bedford/St. Martin’s、1999年)。大学生が論文を提出する際の参考書ですが、Effective Sentences、Word Choice、ESL Trouble Spots等の項目の記載は論文以外でも役立つような内容で、自分の文章を見直す際の注意事項としても活用できました。また、NHKテレビ『3か月トピック英会話ハートで感じる英文法』(2005年7~9月放送分) のテキストをまとめた『ハートで感じる英文法』(大西泰斗、ポール・マクベイ」NHK出版、2006年)と、これと同じ著者による『ネイティブスピーカーの単語力 2. 動詞トップギア』 (大西泰斗、ポール・マクベイ、研究社、1999年) と、『ネイティブスピーカーの英語感覚 ネイティブスピーカーの英文法3』(大西泰斗、ポール・マクベイ、研究社、1997年) です。『ハートで～』は基本的な文法、後者はそれぞれ動詞、助動詞や丁寧表現を重視したものですが、いずれも日本人にとって分かり辛いニュアンスの違いが詳しく説明されています。
さて、ニュアンスを理解する上ではOxford Dictionary of English等の英英辞典は欠かせません。試しにある日本語を日英辞典で調べて出てきた複数の英単語のそれぞれについて英英辞典を引いてみて下さい。明らかな違いが分かるのではないでしょうか。
上記は私の単なる経験談に過ぎませんしこれ以外にも様々な方法があるのではないかと思います。ただ、いずれにしても一朝一夕で結果が出ることを期待せずに地道に学習すると良いのではないでしょうか。かなり簡単ですが何かしらお役に立てていただければ幸いです。皆さんの今後のご活躍に期待いたします。
Jeremy Whipple has recently produced a report on an initial testing of “e-juku” for JAT which can be accessed here:
The abridged version of this article by Jim Hubbert originally appeared in the May 2009 issue of the Tsuyaku-Honyaku Journal. Reprinted with permission.
This article briefly discusses quality assurance (QA) for translated entertainment content, including dubbed and subtitled film and television dialog. I will argue that such translation is often inadequately vetted for quality, and that similar QA approaches should be used for entertainment as well as other types of content.
Translation involves paid creation of work product. To ensure accountability as well as accuracy, translators should not be the final judge of their work, so to gain assurance that the work product accurately represents the source content, the client typically has a third party review the translation for accuracy.
The abridged version of this article by Phil Robertson originally appeared in the February 2009 issue of the Tsuyaku-Honyaku Journal. Reprinted with permission.
(Note on terminology: since the terms “translation” and “interpreting” are often confused with one another in books and news media, it is worth reiterating that “translation” refers solely to the rendering of the written word into another language. The terms “source language” and “target language” refer respectively to the language of the original text and the language into which it is translated. Finally, three abbreviations are used for convenience: J2E for “Japanese to English”, NSE for “native speaker of English” and NSJ for “native speaker of Japanese”.)
Something is rotten in the state of the J2E translation market in Japan. In Europe it is axiomatic that a translator should only translate into his or her own native language. Thus, only a native German speaker will undertake an English to German translation. The underlying rationale is that even a person who has studied another language in considerable depth will inevitably have a greater “active” command of his native language than of his second language. The term “active” denotes a language user’s ability to identify the proper word in a given context (with or without recourse to a dictionary), to use technical terminology and idiom, and to accurately craft natural sounding sentences. (In contrast, “passive” facility in a language denotes the ability to comprehend text or speech in the language.) A true bilingual may have an equally well developed active facility in two languages, but such people are extremely rare.
Translation is essentially a two stage process, consisting of thorough comprehension of the source text followed by precise rendition of the meaning into the target language in written form. Only the second of these—the writing stage—requires an active command of the language in question (the target language). Thus it follows that a translator ought to be a native speaker of the target language, not of the source language. Reinforcing this argument is the sad reality that relatively few people are capable of writing well in their own native language—let alone in one that they have acquired through study. The number of people who can also write well in a language other than their own is much lower still, and the great majority of these are undoubtedly people working in pairs of languages that are structurally similar, such as English and French, or Japanese and Korean. For language pairs that are as structurally dissimilar as English and Japanese, people with strong writing ability in both are sufficiently rare as to be effectively non existent.
In Japan, however, where there is a huge market for J2E translation of documents, the caveat that only native speakers of the target language should be used for translation goes largely ignored. Much of this J2E material ends up being translated by native Japanese speakers—often with dire results. There are several reasons why this situation has arisen.
First, there is a shortage of proficient NSE translators. Japanese is still a fringe language in terms of study in English speaking countries (although Australia is leading the way in attempting to rectify this state of affairs). As a result, the number of NSEs who have attained a level of Japanese reading ability that is high enough to enable them to translate effectively has traditionally been fairly modest. (The increasing prevalence of PC based and on line dictionaries, which obviate the need for the translator to know the pronunciation of kanji in order to look them up has gone some way to alleviating this situation.) Hence, it might sometimes be difficult for an individual or company who requires J2E translation to find a suitable NSE translator who is available.
Second, for reasons of cost, some companies with no foreign staff opt to translate in house, and the task is routinely assigned to the resident NSJ who is perceived as having the highest level of English ability—no matter how limited this may be.
Third, there is a perception in Japan that Japanese is such a complex and subtle language that only NSJs can understand its nuances well enough to translate from Japanese into another language—the logical extension of this being that no NSE can ever attain sufficient Japanese comprehension ability to be able to adequately render the meaning of a source text into English.
Fourth, there is a belief in Japan that the best way to manage a J2E translation task is to have an NSJ familiar with the subject matter translate the source text into English and an NSE checker then edit the resulting English text to produce a polished final version. The assumption here is that although the Japanese translator’s English may not be perfect, his output will be of sufficient clarity for the editor to easily divine the correct meaning and turn it into natural English.
Fifth, a significant proportion of NSE J2E translators are significantly less adept at speaking Japanese than at comprehending written Japanese (as these are two quite distinct skills). This makes it difficult for them to convince potential clients that they can be entrusted with J2E translation projects, as the client may judge their suitability on the strength of their spoken ability (as irrelevant as this is to translation ability).
Sixth, some English documents are intended purely “for show”—that is, as cosmetic devices that are not intended to be read or understood. Hence, the quality of the English is immaterial and machine translation (or random number generator) output could equally well be used.
However, experience has consistently demonstrated that the various rationales for using non NSE translators for J2E translation are fundamentally flawed. Twenty years ago Japan was universally admired for the quality and quantity of its consumer electronic devices, but was a laughing stock for the English contained in the user’s manuals for these devices, which provided a stark illustration of the need to avoid non native writing in any language in the commercial arena. To a large extent, Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers have rectified this problem and now produce manuals of a quality commensurate with the products themselves. However, English text authored by NSJs is still prevalent in Japan, and can readily be seen in company reports, in corporate promotional literature, on company websites, and on barely comprehensible signs in public places such as airports, conference centres and sports stadia throughout the country.
Two of the reasons cited above for the continuing reliance on NSJs for J2E translation merit further discussion.
The belief that only an NSJ can appreciate the subtleties of the Japanese language well enough to render the meaning correctly in English is pure rubbish, and denigrates the intelligence and diligence of numerous non Japanese students of the language. As mentioned above, the translation process requires only a passive understanding of the source language, and a diligent student could quite conceivably acquire a passive command of Japanese that approximates to that of an NSJ.
The notion that acceptable J2E translation might be produced by an NSE checker correcting the output of an NSJ translator is not so easily dismissed. (The arrangement may indeed be workable under ideal conditions, under which the NSE checker would have unlimited access to the NSJ translator for clarification of questionable points; however, this is rarely the case in practice.) The operative word here, however, is “acceptable”. The process of editing non native English rarely results in text that reads smoothly. More importantly, the individual or company commissioning the translation will often seriously over estimate the translator’s level of English ability and under estimate the degree of difficulty that the NSE checker will encounter in divining the intended meaning. Thus, in practice misunderstandings are highly likely to occur between the translator and checker, resulting in errors of meaning and nuance. Hence, the final text will be prone to imperfection—in terms of both accuracy and style.
Claims of efficacy for the NSJ translator/NSE checker combination in J2E translation are often buttressed with the argument that an NSJ translator with specialist knowledge of the field in question will make a better job of a translation than an NSE who lacks knowledge of the field. This is a complete red herring, however. A translator will naturally have a significant advantage if he possesses knowledge of the subject, and of the technical vocabulary and phraseology used in the relevant literature. However, this alone will not be sufficient to overcome the deficiencies inherent in using a non native translator, as outlined above. What is true is that high quality J2E translation of specialist material requires an NSE translator who possesses a sufficient level of understanding of the subject matter and adequate knowledge of the attendant terminology. However, this is a matter that is entirely separate from the issue of the translator’s native language.
What, then, is the best way to maximise J2E translation quality? Experience has demonstrated that consistently excellent results can be obtained by using the following process: first, a qualified NSE translator with knowledge of the subject matter translates the source document; second, an NSJ checker with an advanced level of English ability checks the translation against the original source text and points out any outright errors or mistakes in nuance; and third, an NSE editor (not the original translator) incorporates the NSJ checker’s corrections into the translated text and performs a final stylistic edit and check for accuracy. The two NSEs are thus making maximum use of their active facility in English, while the NSJ is bringing to bear his likely superior passive facility with Japanese. This use of high quality personnel and three pairs of eyes is a proven method of achieving a near perfect translation that will read as smoothly as an original document written in English. For individuals and organisations that are aware of the potential ultimate costs of bad translation, recourse to such an approach should be a matter of priority.
This article by Mark Stevenson originally appeared in the November 2008 issue of the Tsuyaku-Honyaku Journal. Reprinted with permission.
Hot Okinawan sun against the back of my neck dissolves the morning grogginess. A few too many island coffees last night. But who here’s counting? It’s a paradisial day in late September while Tokyo slips slowly, but irrevocably, into cooler and drearier months. I have to go home tomorrow, back to Tokyo. Back to an office chair and 6-am alarms and a damp concrete jungle. If I was still a freelance translator I could stay here as long as I wanted. Or I could go down under for the Australian summer. Or up to Hokkaido for some snowboarding. Something about working in-house, however, makes the sacrifice worth it.
(more…)
This article by Dr. David Petersen originally appeared in the August 2008 issue of the Tsuyaku-Honyaku Journal. Reprinted with permission.
Aside from a few volunteer projects, my start in translation profession was with a private school in Hiroshima where I was employed as a teacher. The English department had taken on responsibility for a visiting author who was writing a novel about the atomic bombing. She had amassed a series of transcripts taken from interviews in Japanese with atomic bomb victims, and came to us looking for a clean English version. The project was to take 6 months. Although the department accepted the work, this was its first venture into translation, and there was no one available to deal with the task on a full-time basis. Knowing of my interest in becoming a translator, I was given a portion of the responsibility, and eventually the better part of the material ended up on my desk.
(more…)
This article by 佐藤綾子（Emily Shibata-Sato） originally appeared in the May 2008 issue of the Tsuyaku-Honyaku Journal. Reprinted with permission.
約10年前の1999年、本誌の「Translation World」シリーズで「人生の転機はアポロ、パソコン、インターネット」と題して次のような内容のエッセイを書かせて頂きました。
「英語が仕事になる！」と最初に知ったのは、アポロ11号月面着陸時の交信の同時通訳を聞いた小学生の時。最初は通訳をめざしたが、パソコンが購入可能となった1980年代半ばにローンで購入し（一式100万円もした！）、勤めを辞めてフリーとなり、翻訳と通訳の仕事を開始する。その後のバブル時代、翻訳の仕事がメインとなる。90年代後半にはインターネットが登場し、情報収集の入口となる検索エンジン（YahooやGoo）、世界規模の翻訳者向けメーリングリスト（JAT-LISTやHonyaku）という二つの強力な情報ツールを利用するようになった･･･
結びの文章はこうでした。「日々変化することばと、進化する技術を追いかけながらの『コミュニケーション助っ人』稼業は、これからも続けていくつもりです」
はい、2008年の今もまだ続けています。
(more…)
This article by James Phillips originally appeared in the February 2008 issue of the Tsuyaku-Honyaku Journal. Reprinted with permission.
People that are considering a career in patent translation often seem to have exactly the same questions. In this article I will attempt to answer those questions, give some hints as to how you can study for free, and give some useful advice regarding how to get work once qualified.
(more…)
You are currently browsing the archives for the Articles category.
IJET-21 will be held in Miyazaki, Japan on the weekend of April 24/25 2010. Learn more »