目次

1. Introduction

2. はじめに

3. Taking a Step Back

4. 多領域連携―A Multi-disciplinary Task Force

5. Translating a Book: More Like a Marathon than a Sprint

6. Bound to the Pages, Not the Words

7. 沈まない流木（Driftwood that Floats）

8. Translating about Cyber Mercenaries

9. On Willing Suspension of Disbelief

10. 20 Years of Freelance Translating: Making the Most of Happenstance

11. On 掛け持ち作業 (Kakemochi Sagyō) and the Value of Translators

12. JATとアンソロジーと歩んだ10年

13. Lone(ly) Wolf in a Gaping Niche

14. 翻訳の機械化が進めば、発信する翻訳者の時代が来る

15. How the Pandemic Can Bring Translators and Academics Together

16. 翻訳の仕事はどのように獲得するか

17. Never Lose Sight of the Big Picture

18. Repackaging your Skills

19. The Risk of Erring on the Side of Caring

20. Origins of the Rules from Clients for Patent Filing Translation

21. A Dream, Persistence, and Patience

22. Staying in Touch While Staying Apart–Keeping B Language Ability Intact

23. 第二外国語の習得がもたらす英語原文の理解度向上

24. 映像翻訳・稀少言語と英語と日本語・通訳・取材とレポート作成 – いろいろ思うこと

25. Making Entertainment Translation Entertaining!

26. 開業10年と自分のSDGs

27. Using the “Funnel” Approach to Write a Clear and Effective Four-part Introduction

28. NPO JAT の誕生（2000～2001年）

29. Philology, Etymology and Classics

30. 「和漢辞典」

31. Godiva vs Hershey

32. How Many of Those Now Working from Home Will Want to Go Freelance?

33. Reflection on Teleworking

34. The Gifts That Legal Translation Has Given Me

35. Brain Mapping

36. 仕事が仕事を、本が本を呼んで20年

ガイド

1. 表紙

2. 目次

3. 本文

TRANSLATOR PERSPECTIVES

翻訳者の目線

2021

Japan Association of Translators

特定非営利活動法人 日本翻訳者協会

Translator Perspectives　翻訳者の目線

© 2021 Japan Association of Translators

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

By definition, each individual author has said permission as pertains to the essay he or she authored.

本書の無断複写・複製・転載を禁じます。

2021年9月発行

発行者　日本翻訳者協会 （Japan Association of Translators）
〒150-0002　東京都渋谷区渋谷2-7-14 VORT青山5F
Vort Aoyama 5F, 2-7-14 Shibuya
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0002 Japan

Printed in Japan.
ISBN 978-4-906408-24-5

印刷所 有限会社創文社

Translator Perspectives

翻訳者の目線

Japan Association of Translators

特定非営利活動法人 日本翻訳者協会

Introduction

There was some concern (e.g., Will people write for it? Do we need to assign a topic for the year? Will anyone find it interesting? Is it sustainable?) when JAT first considered the idea of compiling an anthology of translator thoughts, but the Board was a can-do Board—a why-not Board—and the anthology got its go-ahead. That was ten years ago.

Over the past decade, the anthology has evolved in a number of ways. For one, authorship is now restricted to JAT members. JAT membership represents the industry/profession's best, so there is no need to look outside and draw in people who have other media outlets anyway. For another, the anthology team has abandoned the idea of editing/altering submissions. If there are potential clients reading, what they see is what they get. For yet another, we have moved increasingly to digital publication. We still do a limited press run for people who want paper, but digital is far and away the main medium. Content has also shifted as the profession copes with—adapts to—technological innovations and changing circumstances.

In all of this, the anthology content has remained resoundingly relevant. This is testimony to the range of people who have written for it. Some are regulars, some are sporadic. Yet all bring fresh insights, suggestions, and stories detailing what they have noticed so that all readers can share the experience and consider new ways to improve their game. It is the authors who make the anthology valuable, and we are immensely grateful to them, one and all.

This year—year ten—is a year of transition. Fred Uleman and Akiko Endo, the two mainstays, what might be called the stagehands helping our authors star on the anthology stage, have decided to retire from the crew. Their excuse: We've had a ball doing this, but it is time for us to move on and time for the anthology to grow some more. This means new people are needed to keep this production running smoothly. It is not a big job now that there is no editing, but it is just as essential as the authoring is. Collect the essays, get them to the printer, show authors their galley proofs, and then distribute the product. If you would be interested in keeping this going, please drop Peter a note at anthology [at] jat.org.

Thanks again to all of the authors, Board members, and everyone else who has made the past ten years so rewarding. We look forward to doing new things in the new decade.

The anthology team

はじめに

日本翻訳者協会が翻訳者の声を反映できる媒体の発刊を考えたとき、いろいろ不安なこと、心配なこと、考えなければいけないことがありました。投稿してくれる人がいるだろうか、毎年テーマを決めるべきだろうか、興味をもって読んでくれる人はいるのだろうか、そして一度きりで終わってしまうのではなく、続けられるだろうか、などなど。協会の理事会は「できる！」「やってみないと分からない」と積極的だったので、発刊に踏み切りました。それは10年前のことでした。

この10年、アンソロジー「翻訳者の目線」はいろいろな点で進化してきました。投稿できるのは会員のみとすること。理由はある程度名が通った人で、他のメディアで発信できる人にわざわざ投稿依頼をしなくても、JATの会員は業界の代表でありプロ集団であるという誇りがあったからです。また、提出された原稿を校正、編集するという作業をしないことにしました。クライアントとなりうる方が、翻訳者のありのままの姿を読み取れるという観点からでした。もう一つ、紙媒体ではなくオンラインでという希望者が増えたのも、時代に沿った動きでした。電子出版はいまや主流となりつつありますが、紙媒体を希望する方も多いため、紙媒体を完全に廃止するのではなく、部数を制限しました。投稿内容も、技術革新や変化しつづける翻訳・通訳業界の環境にどのように対応するかに変化しました。

アンソロジーはこうした中、エッセーの内容は業界に深く関係するもので、分野が異なる投稿者の声を反映しつづけています。毎年欠さず投稿してくださった方もいれば、時折投稿して協力してくださった方もいます。だた、どのエッセーも著者と読者間で共有したい新しい見方、助言や提言、体験談など読む者を奮い立たせるもの、考えさせられることなどで溢れています。アンソロジーが価値あるものとなったのは投稿してくださった著者のおかげです。深く感謝いたします。

今年は10周年という節目で、変遷の年でもあります。アンソロジーの「裏方」として、JATのこの事業の中心となっていたウレマンと遠藤の二人は、今年をもってアンソロジー委員を「引退」する事となりました。「とても楽しく委員を務めさせていただきましたが、後輩に道を譲り、今後のアンソロジーの発展と進化を見守り、期待します」とのことです。アンソロジーを続けるためには、新しい人材が必要です。編集や校正は不要ですが、エッセーを集め、印刷に回し、ゲラ刷りを投稿者に送付し、印刷会社とのやり取りをし、最終版に目を通し、最終チェックをし、ウエブサイトに掲載、紙媒体を配布するなど、作業はそれほど複雑ではありませんが、やることはいろいろあります。興味がある方は、ピーターさん宛（anthology@jat.org）にご一報頂ければ幸いです。

ここにいままで投稿してくださった皆様、理事会、そしてこの10年間支援してくださった方々に感謝いたします。新しいチーム、アンソロジーの発展を大いに期待しています。

アンソロジー委員会

Taking a Step Back

David Andrews （アンドリュース デビッド）

It has been some five years now since I took a step back. Let me explain. My career as a translator started simply as a way to enable me to continue studying the Japanese language, something I began back in my second year of college and fell in love with from the very first class. I started translating professionally right out of graduate school nearly 25 years ago, working first for one company in-house for many years, and then for the same company remotely for many more. At first, building up knowledge and learning the lingo in my chosen specialty, patent translation in the automotive field, was hard work that involved many hours each day spent either talking with specialists or with my head stuck in books on patent law, automotive technology, or various specialized dictionaries. I loved it.

Over the years, experience rendered the need to reference dictionaries all but obsolete; for the most part, the information was in my head. It felt good to make it to that point. Translating had become like cutting through butter with a hot knife. Despite this, or very possibly because of it, I also enjoyed the occasional job that was just far enough outside my comfort zone to push me back into the dictionaries and reference materials. I was learning again! Hooray!

I did this for many years until one day, about five years ago, I began feeling like something was missing. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but the feeling was big enough to give me pause. At the same time, shifts in the industry were making the job less fun. After much deliberation, I decided to take a step back from translation. I didn't stop altogether. I just cut back. At the same time, I began teaching at a university.

Teaching was not entirely new to me. In the 80s, I worked as a substitute teacher at a high school. In the evenings, I would drive, with Rush blaring from the stereo of my Ford Bronco, to the local karate dojo where I taught Tang Soo Do. After college, I taught English to Japanese businessmen and women, and after graduate school, taught presentation skills to high-up executives at several major corporations. I'd found teaching greatly rewarding, so I thought it would be a good place to start in my search for what was missing.

My university students reminded me of what it is to love studying language, of the feeling of elation and gratification I got from those “Ah-ha” moments of clarity, when I finally understood something that I had struggled to understand. I realized that in my quest for professional success, I'd become so caught up in the day-to-day grind, pushing for deadlines and paying bills, that I forgot why I'd gotten into translation in the first place.

Despite having lived in Japan and studied its language for more than half my life, I still encounter words and expressions that are new to me. Frustrating? Not in the least. Fascinating is more like it. For me it's the road, not the destination, that I enjoy most. As Rush so aptly put it all those years ago, “the point of a journey is not to arrive,” and for me, learning the language is a wonderful journey.

By taking a step back from translation as a profession, I have been able to rediscover my love for the language and enjoy translation even more.

多領域連携―A Multi-disciplinary Task Force

浅野あさの 元子もとこ

10年前、英国のある学校の校長が日本のジャーナルのインタビューで、これからの時代は個人が複数の専門領域に関わる時代と語っていた。[1]確かに現在、多領域連携は通常である。幸い、タスクチームに加えていただく機会に恵まれた。国際医学誌の英文アブストラクトと公式日本語版を用いた英日対訳パラレルコーパスの文字列を用意して、検索可能なシステムを試作し、ディスコースコミュニティを志向する人々の支援を目指すプロジェクトである。

システムの構築には、情報学、ディスコースコミュニティ目線の調整については医学、支援に資するかどうかの判断については専門英語教育のそれぞれの専門家がタスクチームの構成員となり、各々の強みを活かしてプロジェクトに貢献する。必要に応じて、対面が叶わなくてもリモートで話し合う。

そしていよいよ、バージョン１に満たない試作段階のシステム[2]を、これからディスコースコミュニティのメンバーになろうとする人々―医学部医学科の１年生―に使ってもらうことになった。使ってもらう間、システム構築班は、途中で予期しない事態が生じないか、システムの動きを見守る。その他の構成員は、ディスコースコミュニティの作法をこれから学ぶ人たちから思いがけない質問が飛んで来ることに備えて待機する。

その日が無事に終わって、システムを使用した人々からのフィードバックを恐る恐る開けてみる。この分野に限っていえば、電子辞書よりよいかも、機械翻訳よりよいかも、という意見が多く、プロジェクト構成員の顔が少しほころぶ。

当然ながら、今回、システムを使った人々は、ディスコースコミュニティ・モデルに初対面である。システムで見つけたことばが、大学受験を経験したばかりで、英語に関しては少なくとも6年の研鑽を積んできた彼らにとって、明らかに馴染みのないものであることが判明し愕然とする。

meanは数字とセットで使われ「平均」という名詞で使われると知って驚いた

case が「症例」や「患者」という意味で使われるのは全く知らなかった

findに「認められる」という意味があることに特に驚いた

meetを「会う」という意味で用いている例文が見つからなかった

subjectは「教科」ではなく「例」という意味で使われることを知れてよかった

受験英語で覚えてきた意味と論文中で使われる意味との間に、とても大きなギャップがあるものもあり、驚いた

彼らの率直なコメントを読んで、驚いたのはプロジェクト構成員のほうである。ディスコースコミュニティ・モデルに初対面とは、その作法どころか、ことばのひとつひとつについても、初めて出会うということなのだと、こちらも初めて理解する...そして、そのような状況を知らなかったこと、きちんと向き合えていなかったことを恥じる。

システムの試作を通じて、思いがけず大きな気付きと省察が得られた。[3]プロジェクト構成員による、一連の有機的なはたらきによるものといえるかもしれない。これについては、いみじくも、10年ほど前に多領域連携により共同執筆されたことばが現在にも当てはまるであろう。[4]

「...現場は、英語[の専門家]と専門[分野の専門家]の分担と連携の上に成り立つ協同作業の場であり、両者が互いの存在を認知し尊敬しあう場でもある。そこには対峙・分離とは違う両者の新しい関係が見えてこなければならない。」

長足の進歩を遂げる科学とともに歩むジャンルテキスト、そしてジャンルテキストを扱うディスコースコミュニティも進化する中で、多領域連携のありかたもまた、問われる。これからを担うさまざまな分野の人々とともに成長することができるように。

1. Spence, J. (2011). EJ Interview 2. English Journal. ALC PRESS INC. ⏎

2. 中野愛実, 宮崎佳典, 浅野元子, 藤枝美穂, 野口ジュディー, 石川有香, 若狭朋子 (2021)医学系論文抄録の日英対訳表現を活用した医学英語教育支援システムのプロトタイプ試作　外国語教育メディア学会中部支部第96回支部研究大会 ⏎

3. 浅野元子, 中野愛実, 宮崎佳典, 石川有香, 野口ジュディー, 若狭朋子, 藤枝美穂 (2021) 論文抄録英日パラレルコーパスを用いた医学英語教育支援システム構築の試み 第24回日本医学英語教育学会学術集会 ⏎

4. 福井希一, 深山晶子, 山本英一, 幸重美津子 他 (2010)　「第3章ESP教育の現状 5.」大学英語教育学会（監修）寺内一 他（編）『21世紀のESP—新しいESP理論の構築と実践』（pp. 114—123）大修館書店 ⏎

Translating a Book: More Like a Marathon than a Sprint

Tony Atkinson （アトキンソン トニー）

I recently completed my first real book translation! Sure, I've translated a few books before but one was a pedestrian corporate history about a manufacturer of barcode scanners and another was a vanity publishing project on a new theory of gravity that didn't end well (that's a story for another time). While many of the pharmaceutical translations I've done have been War and Peace length, they often come with short deadlines, they aren't read by more than a handful of people, and they're certainly not read for pleasure.

I was approached by a client in mid-March 2020 to be part of a team that was bidding to translate the biography of Professor Shinya Yamanaka: 山中伸弥先生に、人生とiPS細胞について聞いてみた. The team also included a checker (native Japanese speaker), an editor (native English speaker), and a proofreader (native English speaker). Our bid was accepted a month later, and soon after, my client sent me a proposed schedule for the project.

By late April we had agreed on a style sheet for the English text, and in May my client asked me to translate several sample pages for review and feedback. After discussing the feedback and making any required changes, I then completed one-third of the translation by the end of June. My client checked the translation during July, and gave me more feedback. During August, I translated the second third of the book, and again sent it off for checking. At each of these stages, I had the opportunity to discuss the checker's suggested changes, and in nearly all instances they led to improvements in the translation. My client also forwarded our translated and checked text to the publisher for review, again by a native Japanese speaker, which also yielded some much-needed modifications. By mid-September, I had finished the final third of the translation and submitted it for checking.

Editing began in October, which led to another round of discussions between the editor, the checker, and translator on how to improve the text. In December, the manuscript was sent to an independent checker, and then to the author and his staff for review. Questions from these parties were then finally resolved among the three of us. Towards the end, there were also other translations to be done: two new prefaces for the English edition, a publishing blurb, the text on the obi, or belly band, additions and revisions to the footnotes, information for donors, a glossary of technical terms (which ultimately wasn't used), publishing information, and suggestions for the title.

In January 2021, proofs were made available for review by me, the checker, and the editor. Three rounds of proofreading took us to the end of February. Sample copies of the book appeared by early April, and I finally held a copy of the physical book—The Winding Road to Discovering iPS Cells: The Life of Yamanaka Shinya—in my hands in June 2021. More than one year from proposal to publication!

It was an immensely satisfying experience, working with diligent and skilled professionals to bring this book to a new audience. I certainly hope it attracts more readers than most of my work. Was it a profitable exercise? Absolutely not; for the amount of time we spent on bringing this book to print in English, the monetary reward was just a fraction of what we could normally earn in commercial translation.

Would I do it again? Yes, in a heartbeat.

Bound to the Pages, Not the Words

Stephen Christenson （クリスチャンソン スティーブン）

A decade before the idea of translation as a career path would enter my mind, I was enrolled in a college course entitled Newspaper Japanese. The textbook was a two- or three-centimeter-thick, spiral-bound stack of photocopied newspaper clippings, lovingly prepared by the professor for the dozen or so souls brave or unwitting enough to sign up.

The course design was simple: For each day of class, we were assigned a chunk of pages. We were to translate all the articles found within, bring the translations to class, read them aloud, and discuss.

Each night, I waded through the assigned articles one by one. I looked up nearly every term in every sentence, wrote the English glosses out on a piece of scratch paper, and attempted to reassemble the word salad into something comprehensible. I felt like I was barely hanging on, always white-knuckled and with mind jumbled.

My copy of the spiral-bound text is long gone, but I do still have my typed translations, diligently backed up over the years. When I revisited them recently, I decided they weren't quite as embarrassing as I'd feared. Not devastatingly so, anyway. As long as the article didn't stray from a straightforward journalistic style, I generally managed to tease the meaning out. Idioms, vernacular, and other unexpected flourishes stopped me dead in my tracks, but those, I'd later find, were merely a matter of further exposure to the language.

What might have helped me take a leap forward at the time, though, is a pointer or two about mindset. I look at my words now and think back on my process, realizing how rigid I was. One sentence in the source always meant one sentence in translation, no matter how long or contorted it became. Every detail had to be presented in the same order, or as close as I could manage. Passive voice abounded.

I, who had only recently discovered how nouns could be prefaced by modifying clauses in Japanese, was awkwardly shoehorning their relative English counterparts into otherwise perfectly acceptable segments. And to top it off, every 一方 became an “on the other hand.” Every様々 was a "various" and every など an "etc." Every set of 鍵括弧 was slavishly reproduced as scare quotes.

Some of it makes me cringe, but I don't berate myself. As I thumbed through definitions and puzzled out grammar, I was putting in good work, laying a foundation I'd later appreciate.

But if I could go back, I'd tell myself not to sweat the individual elements so much. Sometimes the best word for the job doesn't show up in the dictionary entry. Not every word in the source needs a distinct counterpart in the target. It's okay to break sentences up, combine them, and reorder them, too. The translator needs to zoom out and evaluate the sentence, paragraph, and page as a whole, because clarity is as much a pillar to good translation as accuracy.

And if I were already making the trip back in time, I suppose I'd urge my past self to jump into translation a bit sooner, too. He had no idea how much he was going to enjoy it.

沈まない流木（Driftwood that Floats）

クレアリー 寛子ひろこ

フリーランスで翻訳を始めて、気づけばすでに20年目（！）に突入していました。だから会社務めの人たちはコロナ禍でリモートワークを新しいライフスタイルみたいにいうのを聞くと、どうも居心地がよくないような…。

ソーシャルディスタンスで人間関係が希薄になったっていうのも、そうなのかな。スマホを手にした時に、私たちは孤独な檻に自らすすんで入っていったんじゃなかったっけ…もっと、自由になりたくて。

私たちの自由は今、試されている気がします。例えば、直に人と触れ合うことが、もはや「選択肢のひとつ」だし、それを選択しないことはパンデミックの今、尊重されます。あえて選択するなら、それは「特別なこと」です。

私は去年、アメリカから日本の故郷に戻り活動の拠点を設けました。国境を越えての移動は、以前なら当たり前のようにしていたことだったけれど、今回は片道切符。つまり「特別なこと」。

私たちが自由を求めて入ったあの檻、内側にしか鍵がありません。翻訳の仕事で言葉を選ぶとき、私はその鍵を開けて言語の海に身を投じます。そこには自由があります。無限の可能性があります。でも、おぼれたらまずいから、簡単には沈まない特別な流木を見つけて、しっかりとしがみつきます。

世界の流れはよく見えないし、私たちは不自由に自由。そして、選択を迫られています。きっとこの状況は特殊で、狂ってるけど、私たちはそこに生きている。それぞれに「特別なこと」があって、それにしがみついている。

これからやってくる新しい日常は、檻の外に展開する実感のわかない世界なのかもしれないけど、私は鍵を開けて流木を探しに行きます。そのときのために、しがみつく力を養っておかなくちゃ。

あなたの「特別なこと」って何ですか？

Translating about Cyber Mercenaries

James L. Davis （デーヴィス ジェームス）

Cyberattacks against government agencies and corporations appear in the news with unsettling frequency. In 2020 a Japanese think tank issued a report with this title:

サイバー傭兵の動向

――サイバー攻撃代行の現状と課題――

Given that a 傭兵 is a “mercenary,” the term サイバー攻撃代行 probably refers to individuals who are paid to conduct cyberattacks on behalf of someone else. The word 動向 is typically associated with something that changes over time. In the business world, 動向 is frequently translated as “trend,” but in this report the author describes how and when these サイバー傭兵 began to appear in different countries around the world. Thus, “the rise of ...” or “the emergence of ...” would be a good fit for this particular report. The use of 現状 and 課題 indicates that the author will describe what is currently known about these attackers and some issues to be addressed going forward. If we put everything together, the title could be rendered:

The Rise/Emergence of Cyber Mercenaries:

The Current Role of and Future Prospects for Cyber-Attackers-for-Hire

The following paragraph appears in this report:

イランではサイバー軍の設立（2009年）以前に、民間の IT 技術者が有志のハッカー集団を形成し、2010年頃より米航空宇宙局や米国の金融機関への侵入やホームページの書き換え等を行っていた。彼等はイラン政府の依頼・指示に基づいた攻撃を行うようにもなり、イランの情報部門に対してサイバー戦の訓練も提供している。米国政府も2016年３月に、イランのイスラム革命防衛隊の支援を受けたハッカーによる攻撃を受けたことを公表している。また彼等は外国関係機関の他、イラン国内外の反体制組織へのサイバー攻撃を行うなど、国内治安維持に関わる依頼もイラン政府から受けている。

The first sentence includes the word 有志. Many people are familiar with 有志 from the term 有志連合 (“coalition of the willing”), which was used in the context of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. In this instance, however, 有志のハッカー集団 refers to a “group of volunteer hackers.” The entire sentence could read, “Prior to the establishment of an Iranian military cyber force in 2009, IT specialists from the private sector formed a volunteer hacker group. Since 2010 members of this group have broken into the websites of NASA and several U.S. financial institutions and have defaced webpages.”

In the second sentence the words 依頼 and 指示 suggest that the group in question was operating under contract to the Iranian government, rather than being a government entity operating under orders. The term 情報部門 probably refers to “intelligence agencies” in general, rather than the name of a specific agency. In the third sentence the author of the report indicates that hackers received support from the イスラム革命防衛隊, but the hackers were not part of the IRGC itself. These two sentences could be translated as follows: “These hackers carried out their attacks in accordance with requests and instructions from the Iranian government. They also provided training on cyber warfare to Iranian intelligence agencies. In March 2016 the U.S. government announced publicly that these attacks had been carried out by Iranian hackers with the support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

The fourth sentence contains the word 機関, which in this context includes companies, government agencies, and universities. In this situation, “entities” would be a good choice. The term 国内治安維持 could be rendered, “maintaining domestic security.” The entire sentence could be translated, “In addition to their attacks on foreign entities, these hackers were also directed by the Iranian government to support the maintenance of domestic security by conducting cyberattacks against groups, both domestic and foreign, that oppose the regime.”

New forms of cyberattacks continue to emerge. This suggests that translation opportunities related to such attacks will continue to grow.

On Willing Suspension of Disbelief

Charles De Wolf（須田すだ 狼庵ろうあん）

“Every word has its history,” as linguists are fond of saying, quoting Jacob Grimm: “Jedes Wort hat seine Geschichte.” For translators, that thought may well appear daunting, as it reminds us that when we use a word or phrase in target language X to translate a word or phrase in language Y, we need to consider all or at least some of the semantic “baggage” that it carries. One may out of ignorance or indifference resort to expressions that are anachronistic, culturally incongruous, or both, but then, “knowing too much,” one may also lurch in the opposite direction, forgetting that we sometimes need to engage in willing suspension of disbelief. One surely ought to be able to speak of the protagonist of The Tale of Genji as “having left in such ill-humor”（心やましくて立ち出でたまひぬるは...）, without being laughed out of the room for somehow suggesting that Murasaki Shikibu is referring to an ancient and medieval medicinal theory from the West.

Puttering about as I do with Classical Japanese texts, I nonetheless find myself wary of words that smack too heavily (at least to me) of the modern mindset. I think, for example, of familiar terms from psychology.

It is easy enough to rule out contemporary buzzwords. We would surely agree not to resort to: “His Lordship spoke gently to his consort, well aware of her anger-management issues” or “the Minister's residence had clearly become a socially toxic environment.” There is, however, likely to be far less agreement about such terms as “depressed/depression” or “nostalgic/nostalgia.”

In the 12th chapter of the Genji (Suma), the Suzaku emperor expresses to the lady known by the sobriquet Oborozukiyo his regret that she has yet to produce for him a child. He is clearly thinking of a would-be heir:「今まで御子たちのなきこそ、さうざうしけれ。」 Arthur Waley renders this as: “It is so depressing not having had any children.” Both the meaning and the tone seem to me to be off the mark.

We can be sure that René Sieffert would not have considered using nostalgie in his own rendition of the tale, firstly because semantically it is much too new (he avoids terms that would not have been used at the time of Saint-Simon, i.e. in or before the last decades of the 18th century), secondly because he likewise eschews words of Greek origin. Maria Teresa Orsi shows no such compunction in translating the Genji into Italian; in fact, la nostalgia appears well over one-hundred times. In Waley's work, by way of contrast, its English counterpart is entirely absent.

In the fifth chapter of the tale (Waka-Murasaki), the incorrigible protagonist seeks to adopt the niece of the lady known as Fujitsubo, his father's favorite, whom he, Genji, has impregnated. Genji longs for the woman and sees in the ten-year-old girl who so resembles her a source of comfort. Her ladies are appalled at his machinations, her nurse complaining to his servant Koremitsu: 「...今は、かけてもいと似げなき御ことと見たてまつるを...」 “…but for now we see this is as most unbecoming…” In a recent translation, this is rendered as: “But at the moment their relationship is completely inappropriate.”

Here, I confess, my ability to suspend disbelief fails me. Instead of a Heian-period nurse, all I can imagine is that well-known lawyer from Arkansas.

20 Years of Freelance Translating: Making the Most of Happenstance

Cathy Eberst （エベースト キャシー）

I generally attribute my career to an awful lot of circumstantial luck and a desire to push myself to see how far I can go (in terms of balancing multiple jobs and meeting crazy deadlines).

I started freelancing in 2001. I was living in Ishigaki at the time. I had joined the Honyaku Mailing List in 1998 and signed up to agencies whose names came up in discussion.

In 2003 I joined JAT and I bought a copy of ALC's Honyaku Jiten. I worked my way through the list of agencies, starting with Hokkaido. One agency in Hokkaido faxed me documents to translate. The Tokyo section of the list was extremely long so I closed my eyes and stuck a pen on a couple of entries and registered with the agencies I landed on. I still work with those agencies!! One of them later told me they thought they might be able to hear the sound of the sea if they called me and that this had prompted them to start sending me work.

In 2006 I moved to Osaka and attended my first IJET (in Kobe). Shortly after that I started letting agencies know that I enjoy translating legal texts and so they started sending me more.

In 2007 I moved to Hong Kong. At around this time all contact with agencies moved to email. These days only one agency (from my Ishigaki days) phones me. When I visited that agency for the first time in 2009 they asked me if I can translate anything other than contracts. This motivated me to actively brand myself as a legal translator.

Shortly after returning to Osaka in 2008, I started volunteering for JAT. I incorporated in 2009. In 2011 I moved to Tokyo. In 2012 I started using Felix and set up my own website. My first direct client came to me later that year via my website. That client still sends me work but we still haven't met. In fact, I haven't met a lot of my clients.

In 2014 I started attending seminars aimed at the legal community. This led me to pick up a few clients. After my contact at one client left, her former colleagues continued to send me work and she contacted me again from her new employer. The same thing has happened with translation agency coordinators who moved to other agencies. Having a contact form on my website and a LinkedIn account have proved invaluable as employees are often not allowed to take business cards or contact information with them when they leave.

Volunteering for JAT and meeting translators working in other fields has led to introductions (thank you!!!). I also have a number of small law firm clients that pass on their clients when they need translation. Along the way I even picked up a very good agency client via Twitter and have had agencies contact me following seminars I have presented for JAT and JTF. Oh, and being British means that I get the requests that require British English.

Obviously, this is not the full story. I also had two kids, got divorced, survived five years as a single mum, and got remarried. And I spent just under a year working full time organizing tech events for the Nikkei.

Even after 20 years there are still ups and downs in my work flow, I still haven't worked out how to say “no” without worrying that work will dry up, and I do worry about how good machine translation is getting. But I still enjoy translating, thanks to happenstance!!

On 掛け持ち作業 (Kakemochi Sagyō) and
the Value of Translators

Laura Egan （イーガン ローラ）

I work in-house at a manufacturing company, and a little over a year ago, my boss said something to me that I still haven't forgotten. He asked, “So, what do you want to do when machines replace the need for translators?”

Right after the COVID shutdown, staff changes, and some trials of smartphone-based translation earpieces, this was a fantastic way to make me paranoid and wary for a good long chunk of time that at any moment they were going to stop by my desk and say, you can go now. It wasn't a great work environment, and those bad feelings were created so easily.

I'm still early in my career, to the point where I just finished a degree in library science in case this whole translation thing didn't work out. But despite my boss's words, I've remained at full employment through the COVID shutdown as well as more recently when we've had to run lean due to supply chain issues.

This could be for any number of reasons, but one term that comes to mind is 掛け持ち作業, holding two positions or doing two tasks concurrently, or put simply, multitasking.

While translators do often have a field of specialization, even within that we perform a wide variety of tasks. Perhaps we primarily interpret from Japanese to English but are occasionally called on to reverse direction. Maybe we primarily do subtitles, but also take on marketing materials or creator interviews. We might be used to working in Excel but we'll give a CAT tool a go when asked by a client. Or maybe we just enjoy doing translations of any sort that come our way.

One thing I've always liked about translation (and libraries) is that the field gives me an opportunity to learn about a wide variety of topics. Learning something new may be challenging and frustrating, but in the end I always value the experience. Since at my work there isn't enough translation volume to fill up a full eight hours a day, I've also learned to receive in packages, do data entry for accounting, and manage a system for keeping track of our kaizen improvements. 掛け持ち作業 indeed!

In the meantime, I've taken on a project outside of work to transcribe interviews for market research, editing the output from an automated transcription sent through automated translation (read: translating the audio 90% from scratch). Surprisingly the trickiest parts are sometimes correct, but it boggles the mind sometimes what the machine comes up with for the simplest of sentence fragments.

In such a way, much like librarians, translators have gone past being providers of words and data to being sources of information that are actually useful for creating knowledge.

With data being so widely available in this Information Age, especially as a new translator, it's often hard to see the value of your work. But as human beings who have the power to recognize context, nuance, and wear multiple hats at once, we are still far and away beyond what a client can get if they employ machine translation. As the saying goes, knowledge is power, and the knowledge that the service we provide has value should empower us to recognize our importance and fight for our worth.

JATとアンソロジーと歩んだ10年

遠藤えんどう 安岐子あきこ

この10年は短いようで、長かったように感じます。11年前にアンソロジーたるものを出版する計画があるのを知ったのは、JATに入会して初めてIJETに参加した時でした。アンソロジーだのIJETだの私には馴染みがない文言で、JAT入会を熱心に進めてくれたクリス・ブレークスリーしか知人という知人がいないJATという協会が主催するIJETに参加するのは結構勇気が要りました。ただ、小学校・中学校と過ごした広島での開催ということで、IJETや他のイベントに期待できなくても、小中の友達に会えるから、と参加に踏み切ることにしました。

クリスとは1989年私がマイアミで南フロリダ日本協会の専務理事をしていた時に出会いました。クリスがある日、日本語で話をしてくれ、と私の事務所に駆け込んできて、事情をきくと、地元の経済開発局の面接で日本語が堪能だといったものの、だれに証明してもらうかで、私の名前を出したということでした。思えば事務所に頻繁に出入りしていた彼と日本語で話したことがなかったのです。初めて日本語で話をし、日経を声をだして読んでもらい内容を説明してもらうという方法で日本語のテストをしました。その時クリスの日本語のレベルの高さを知り、「外人」でもこれだけできる人がいるんだと感嘆しました。それから2，3年経済開発局のクリスと仕事を一緒にし、そのあと何をしていたかは、風の便りで聞くだけでしたが、日本に帰国して、日英の翻訳を頼まれた時にSNSで探し出し、25年ぶりに東京で再会しました。翻訳は断られたのですが、JATの会員担当理事をしていた彼から薦められてJATに入会しました。

広島のIJETは一日も欠かすことなく出席し、イベントは二次会のお好み焼をスキップしただけで、すべてに参加し、いろいろな方と出会い、良い経験をさせてもらいました。ネットワーキングがどれだけ大切かは皆様もご存知と思いますが、人に会うたびに新しい分野が開け、新しい仕事が舞い込んできました。その点でJATに入会したことでいろいろ学ぶことが多くありました。

JATの研修会などに多く参加して（IJETは広島以来、３年前にオハイオであったIJETを除き全て参加）、片手間にやっていた自分とは違い、翻訳を本職としている翻訳者の考え方、姿勢などを学びました。なんでも翻訳できると思うのではなく、自分はどの部門で他の人にも劣らないスキルがあるのかを見極めることが大切なことも学びました。またJATに入会して、すぐに自覚したのは、日英の翻訳は英語が母国語の人で日本語の理解力が高い人に任せるのが一番だということでした。いくら英語チェックをしてもらっても自分の英語力には限度があるからです。一方日英翻訳を依頼する場合、英語力、理解力、専門分野によって翻訳の優劣の差が多いことにも気が付きました。内容自体は正確でも、質の高さ、スタイルが翻訳者によって随分異なることに驚いたものです。

チェッカー、レビュアーという仕事が存在することもJATを通して知り、いまでは仕事の８割を占めています。

日本協会ではフロリダニュースという月刊誌を編集長兼記者、配達、雑用係として7年間つづけた経験があり、帰国後も出版社の仕事や、大学関係の仕事で出版には深くかかわっていたので、JATのアンソロジーの話を聞いて、自分にもJATで何かできることがあるかもしれないと思い、初版からボランティアしました。

アンソロジー編集では、初版から数年、印刷屋に回す前に相当な時間とボランティアの労力を使い投稿されたエッセーをチェックし、何度も投稿者に書き換えや、校正をお願いしていました。が、他人の手が入ったものは、それぞれの英語力、日本語力を誠実に表すものではないという考え方から、投稿された原稿はそのまま、その人のありのままの能力、スタイル、人柄を伝えるものとして、一切手を加えることなく印刷に回すことになったのは数年前からです。

毎年何らかのテーマを選び、そのテーマに従ってエッセーを書いてもらうというアイディアもありましたが、日々気になっていること、伝えたいことを書けば良いというスタンスで現在に至っています。

電子版だけにするという話もありますが、紙媒体は広告、自己紹介としても使えること、そして会員以外の人に伝えたいことがあるなどの理由で、紙媒体でも出版をつづけることに賛同する方も多いのが現実です。

これからの10年、アンソロジー「翻訳者の目線」がどのように発展するか楽しみです。

Lone(ly) Wolf in a Gaping Niche

Vernon Fischer （フィッシャー バーノン）

“I want YOU to do it.” The professor didn't know me well. Hired recently by his department at a medical university near Tokyo to provide “native grammar checking” I had come to dread him as the surgeon most likely to appear with on-the-spot demands for grammar advice. Now he was insisting I grammar-edit his revisions to a manuscript sent back by reviewers.

My editing experience consisted of helping a half dozen Japanese grad students in the Applied Linguistics and Japanese Language departments at my alma mater with their master's theses. As a double major spanning those departments I could “read their minds” to help articulate what they wanted to say. But for this, with zero medical background and feeling criminally unqualified, I had tendered an estimate (in vain) from a professional editor in Tokyo.

Alas, I timidly requested a copy of the reviewers' comments. Three sets arrived! A high-value report, but returned for major revision three times! His grammar was nearly faultless, but the logic was fuzzy and circular. Too intimidated to tell the professor he had bigger issues, I re-purposed a five-category needs analysis framework I had devised while editing at my university. Via email, I downplayed the importance of structural grammar by pitching it as only one of five “toolboxes” of analytical systems, alongside functional grammar, lexicography, micro-logic/micro-organization, and macro-logic/macro-organization.

Then I went to work absorbing the papers referenced in his manuscript. For unfamiliar terminology and concepts I read more widely. Eventually I sat down with the professor and told him all the items listed in his obligatory “study weaknesses” section were not weaknesses, and that the most serious weakness in his study had gone unmentioned. Surprised, he asked what that might be. At that moment, when he lowered his head acknowledging my point, I found my strength. I confidently assured him I could rewrite the paper and get it published.

After crafting a concise introductory thesis statement, I corrected errors in the Methods description and replaced all points in the Discussion section to target an audience of published authorities in the field. I redrew new conclusions to reflect the clarified thesis and actual study data. Finally, after writing responses to the reviewers, I discovered there was a 4th set of reviewer comments I hadn't seen. In that latest set, one reviewer had demanded the paper be completely rewritten, accusing the authors of learning nothing from reviewer feedback.

My revision was published without further comment in that specialty's highest-impact English language journal, winning the professor a prestigious award in Japan. Eight years later I continue to expand my collection of similar stories where my participation as a combination translator/editor has been the essential enzyme for catalyzing the interactive learning all researchers experience throughout the lit review, writing and revision processes.

Now, still driven by an insecure need to differentiate my work, I compulsively code every edit using my 5-code needs analysis framework, imagining a mentor or colleague looking over my shoulder. The coding process provides project management and quality control effects, helps manage client expectations, and leaves a searchable trail of coded worksheets for research and teaching. A bottom-line benefit may be the job security that comes from showing Code 4 and Code 5 edits to the boss.

In conclusion, I have shared this narrative to say that from where I sit, atop my lonely stack of coded worksheets, I see a gaping thirsty niche in medical academics for embedded, salaried “bi-linguists” having skills to bridge the chasm between Japanese researchers and their English-speaking peers. And oh, how I would enjoy swapping stories!

翻訳の機械化が進めば、発信する翻訳者の時代が来る

長谷川はせがわ 祐子ゆうこ

技術開発では、技術がある性能を超えると急速に利用されます。いま、機械翻訳がその臨界点を越えようとしています。

数年前まで「あんなもの使えない」と言われていたものが、「それなしには生活できない」ものに変わろうとしています。

翻訳作業の機械化は今に始まったことではありません。辞書は紙の辞書から電子辞書に、原稿は手書きからPCに、原稿の文字カウント作業・用語の統一はワードの機能に、調べ物は本屋からインターネット検索に。

技術の進歩で、1人の翻訳者が処理できる分量は増えていきました。現在、フル稼働しているプロの翻訳者が1日に手掛ける量の目安は、英日（原文が英語）では1500～2000ワード程度、日英（原文が日本語）では3000～4000文字程度とされています。

処理できる分量が増えれば増えるほど、翻訳される情報が多様化すればするほど、翻訳市場の規模は大きくなります。機械化が進めばさらに拡大する、と予測しています。

AI（人工知能）による機械翻訳の精度が向上したいま、ポストエディット（PE）と呼ばれる仕事もできました。PEは、機械が訳したものを、人がチェックして直したり、機械が苦手とする意訳の修正をすることです。

PEについては様々な意見がありますが、浸透してきていることは確かです。PEの導入は分野によって、進んでいるところと進んでいないところがあります。直訳調になりやすい分野は進みやすく、より意訳が必要な分野はなかなか進んでいない（人間の翻訳者が訳した方が速い）です。ニュース翻訳はかなり難しい。

AIに対しては、ディープラーニング（深層学習）をさせ、性能を上げていくという取り組みがされています。

そもそもAIがあれほど注目されるようになったのは、ディープラーニング（深層学習）が飛躍的に向上したためです。

ディープラーニングは、翻訳精度の向上と親和性が高いとされています。翻訳するAIに対し、適切な訳語をディープラーニングさせていくことで、精度を上げていく。

そのうえに、世界では今までになかった新しい事象が沢山生まれています。翻訳するＡＩに対して、全く新しい事象についての訳語を学習させることも必要になってきます。

では、機械化が進んだ後は、人間が翻訳しなくてよくなるのでしょうか？

いいえ、翻訳者が主体的に「何をどう訳すか」を取捨選択し、発信することが重要になってくる、と予測しています。

今の日本の情報環境で、主要国の衝撃的な災害、アメリカ大統領選挙など、明らかに日本の政治経済社会に影響のある出来事、グローバル企業の合併、巨大IT企業の新技術や新商品について、伝わるのが見落とされるということは考えにくいです。それらは「訳される必要がある情報」であることは明らかで、日本にスピーディーに伝達される体制が整っています。

しかし、海外では主流になってどんどん進んでいるけれど、日本では事情があって誰も知らない事象があります。

また、日本の事象のなかには、海外に知らされなかったら大変なことになるけれど、事情があって知らされていないということもあります。

どんなことが日本や海外に知らされるべきか。それを判断していくには、先見性、深い専門性が必要。時にはエシカル（倫理的）な判断も必要です。

そして、翻訳者の世界にも多様な知見を持つ人が必要。翻訳される題材が多様になれば、社会にプラスの影響になるでしょう。

私は、翻訳の仕事をもっと参入しやすく、稼げるようにできないか、と考えています。

翻訳者の得意分野・スキルと案件のマッチングはとても難しい。さらにコロナ禍で企業の業績悪化に伴い、企業から依頼される案件数が見通せない状況にあります。

かたや世界にはまだまだ日本にとって必要でありながら知らされていない外国語の重要な情報が、翻訳会社も知らないところに眠っています。

いま自分が目指すことは、どんな情報がどの層にとってニーズがあるのか、自分は何をどう訳すか、主体的に考えて発信する翻訳者になることではないかと考えています。発展する機械翻訳を恐れるのではなく、正しく知り、うまく付き合う。

こう書いていくと、自分は「翻訳者」というより「翻訳ライター」だな、と思います。

How the Pandemic Can Bring Translators and Academics Together

David Heath & Stephen Crabbe （ヒース デビッド & クラベ スティーブン）

We are translation researchers and practitioners. David works full-time at Kanto Gakuin University; Stephen at the University of Portsmouth. We both started our careers as professional Japanese-to-English translators more than 20 years ago and continue to work in the industry. Over the last few years, we have been looking for ways to bridge what we see as a gap between practicing translators and the researchers and other academics who make up the translation-studies (TS) community. We feel that closer interaction could ultimately help to raise translators, in the eyes of society, to what we believe is their rightful place as fully fledged professionals. We also feel it can bring real-world experience to the training of would-be translators at university level. We have been sharing these messages with fellow JAT members through the pages of Translator Perspectives since 2016.

This year, we would like to focus on the benefits of TS conferences—and the ease of taking part—in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. We have felt for several years that fellow JAT members could benefit from attending TS conferences as, in our opinion, some of the research presented is potentially of great value to practicing translators. Just as importantly, many academics who attend TS conferences need and want input from industry professionals and would value opportunities to speak with them in a conference setting. However, our experience of TS conferences focusing on Japanese suggests that only a relatively small proportion of attendees are industry professionals. One barrier from the perspective of freelance translators may be the cost in terms of time and money. (Having both been freelancers, we are fully aware that time is money.) After all, TS conferences are held around the world, so the chances that one will be held in one's home area on a convenient date are potentially slim; taking part has traditionally incurred costs associated with taking time off and travelling. But this barrier has partly disappeared during the pandemic as some TS conferences have shifted online. Plus, our experience during the pandemic suggests that some organizers of TS conferences are willing to reduce participation fees—presumably because they no longer need to pay for physical facilities, equipment, and supplies. We suspect that we will see a gradual return of physical TS conferences as governments push to revive socioeconomic activity. But at the same time, we suspect that organizers will keep offering the option of attending remotely.

Information on TS conferences is only a Google search away. One online list of TS conferences around the world is offered by the European Society for Translation Studies ( https://est-translationstudies.org/). (Just Google “European Society for Translation Studies” and “Conferences in Translation Studies”.) So if you are a JAT member who would like to experience a TS conference and potentially offer your insights from Japanese translation practice, we encourage you to take the plunge. It is now easier than ever. And if you have any contact with TS academics, we hope you will encourage them to attend JAT events such as the next IJET conference (https://ijet.jat.org/).

翻訳の仕事はどのように獲得するか

樋口ひぐち 勝規かつのり

翻訳の仕事を獲得するといっても、初心者から中堅、ベテランまで、実力と経験によりいろいろな方法が存在するのを20年以上翻訳業に携わってきて、かなり幅広く認識できるようになってきた。その中で多くの翻訳志願者がまず知りたいと思うであろうことに少し触れることにする。

翻訳初心者の頃は実力判定のために英語の資格試験を始め、翻訳力を認定する試験も受けて、一定の力が付いたと評価された後、翻訳会社のトライアルを受け、合格するようになった。さらに、いろいろな機会を捉えてすでに活躍している翻訳者とつながり、翻訳を依頼されるようにもなっていった。

この時期は、トライアルというのは一つのハードルであるが、トライアルを実施する翻訳エージェントもいろいろあり、一度不合格であったからといってがっかりすることはない。エージェントと翻訳者の間にもやはり相性というものはある。良ければ長いお付き合いになるだろうし、翻訳者として吸収していけることも多々出てくる。

しかし、トライアルに合格したといってもすぐ仕事が依頼されるかというと、ビギナーの間はそういうことはまずない。合格してから1年経って仕事の依頼があったというケースもよくあるようだ。現実に私も複数回経験しているし、他からも聞いている。

したがって、実力をつけてトライアルに合格して仕事を獲得する以外に、いろいろ他のルートを開拓する必要が出てくる。翻訳者の勉強会や懇親会に参加させてもらうことも良いだろう。その中には現役で活躍中の翻訳者がいたり、エージェントの人がいたりし、面識を得るチャンスがあるかも知れない。認めてもらえれば、仕事を回してもらえる可能性は十分にある。

今述べたのは、翻訳の仕事をしたいけれど、翻訳業務を必要とする会社に属しているわけではないし、翻訳会社に務めているわけでもないという、翻訳の現場から遠いところにいる方向けの助言である。

私は、今書いたような道筋をたどって中年になってから翻訳業に就いた個人翻訳者である。若い頃からこの仕事に関心のある方は、そのほかにもいろいろな可能性があるわけだから、迷ってしまい、現実と自分の希望のギャップに悩むことも多いかもしれない。

ただ、一つ言えることは、翻訳は業務としては成り立ち、ビジネスの分野でも翻訳者は必要だが、単独でそれだけでポンと翻訳者というものは存在するのではないということだ。翻訳が好きで翻訳が得意なので翻訳者になりたいというのは短絡的な考えの域を出ていない。それなら、できる仕事は他にもたくさんある。翻訳の力を生かしつつ他の業務を主とする行き方のほうが、組織内ではつぶしが効くであろうし、人生行路を考えた場合、安全航行ができるであろう。

さて、翻訳の仕事を獲得する直接的な方途について触れ、それ以外にも道はいろいろあることを述べた。翻訳の力を生かす道はいろいろあり、翻訳者になるというのはその一つである。私が今翻訳を仕事にしているのは、もちろん稼ぐためであるが、これだけ続けているのは、「好きだから」ということに尽きる。

Never Lose Sight of the Big Picture

Julian Holmes （ホームズ ジュリアン）

A few years back B.C (Before Covid), I was in Tōkyō making the rounds of my customers and paying my end-of-year respects to oil the tracks for new work the following year.

With one particular customer, I arranged for a late afternoon meeting on a Friday. By chance, this coincided with their in-house year-end party in the evening, which they kindly invited me to. I felt quite chuffed to learn that I was to be the only outsider in attendance.

I am primarily a technical writer—at least 90% of my workload is technical stuff. I do accept work in other areas which I take on to keep my gray matter nice and nimble. However, it's industrial-strength technical work that pays this translator's bills.

One thing I always do when I translate is to make up for deficiencies in the Japanese. And linguistic atrocities come in all shapes and sizes: typos, incorrectly annotated numbers and units, misplaced particles, a plethora of vagueness and ambiguities, myriads of inconsistencies and illogical syntax, litanies of superfluous and repetitious content, etc., etc. Wiping up after and translating other people's written mess is impolitely but very succinctly referred to by my peers and friends in our business as, ahem, ‘polishing a turd'—a phrase not exclusive to technical translation. I'm sure that a lot of you are nodding in agreement here while sipping on your Martinis in your own translator heaven.

In tech translation, though, there are probably more of these deficiencies because a lot of the documents, at least in my fields of expertise, are written by engineers. Have you ever heard the well-worn joke that if you ask a 100 engineers why they chose the sciences, they'd reply that they're no good at 国語? Well, remember that these are the people who write a lot of what I and others like me translate.

At the party, the chief manager came up to me and thanked me for my hard work in the last big project. It was around 900 pages or so of heavy text about car electronics, semiconductor stuff, and was spread over four months. The project was all the more challenging because the documents had been written by four or five engineers and readied for translation at various stages of development—I think I even got the last document first and the product overview last of all. This was what is called in Holmesy speak a “royal clustermess.”

The project manager did pick me up on one thing, though. “Holmes-san,” she said. “You know you made a few small mistakes, always the same mistakes, but a few mistakes all the same. It looked as if your mind was somewhere else at times.” Taken back a bit, I apologized and told her “Well, if I had, you really should have pointed this out to me during the course of the project.” “Please don't take this the wrong way,” she said almost apologetically. “We're all human. We all make mistakes; especially, the client in this case. They made lots. But, you went the extra mile to iron out those problems and deliver us a polished translation.” She added “Thanks to you, you made our work easier and we were able to deliver the last installment to the client on time yesterday. They were very pleased with the overall quality of the translation.” “Hiroko-san (name changed), I might have been concentrating too much on all those problems in the Japanese.” I replied, and then added “時々、木が多すぎて森が見えないんです。” (my way of saying, ‘Sometimes you just can't see the woods for the trees'). Her face lit up as she said “素晴らしい表現ですね。とても合っています。” We both smiled and proceeded to have a really nice 'n friendly conversation.

So, the moral of this story? Always bear in mind not be sidetracked by peripheral or incidental problems and stay focused on the main thrust and content of the document in-hand.

“Now, where exactly did that haystack go?”

Repackaging your Skills

Brian Hyman （ハイマン ブライアン）

Successful translators and interpreters tend to have the following skills.

- Proficient and comfortable working in two languages

- Understand the cultural background to the languages being used

- Familiar with the subject matter

- Understand what is meant as opposed to just what is said or written

- Able to read between the lines

- Readily admit what they don't know

There are other things you can do with the same skill set.
(Translation marketed in other forms)

You can accompany clients not as an interpreter but as a member of their team. You can attend meetings with a client without the other party being aware that you're familiar with their language and culture. Operating as a member of the team can often be far more effective than just being an interpreter. It is less important whether the other party is aware of your language skills than that they are beneficial to your client. Think of it as working with the client instead of just for the client. Interpreters aren't neutral. They are generally employed by one of the parties. Sometimes hiding your skill can be the most important skill.

You can listen to the requests made by two parties and draft a compromise in a way that it is likely to be accepted by all. Don't be afraid to tell the truth. Overconfidence of clients is a common cause of failure, and they are often grateful for the advice when it is communicated to them diplomatically.

You can represent the interests of your client in another country using your understanding of both cultures and the industry they are in to improve communication and increase your client's probability of success. This requires trust from the client in situations they don't fully understand.

You can read through proposals or promotional materials designed for another country and advise about their suitability and how they could be improved. Nuances in the other language may not be obvious to the client but may seriously affect the outcome of their activity.

Your clients' success is your success. Your skills can be used in many ways to help your clients succeed. By marketing and applying your skills in various ways, you can branch out into activities other than pure translation. They can be more interesting and rewarding if you can find clients that appreciate the ways in which you can work together.

Most translators charge per word or character whether it be source or target. There is a maximum amount that you can earn this way. It is reached when you:

1) are charging the highest rate your clients will pay,
2) translating as fast (efficiently) as you can, and
3) working as many hours per day as you can.

By repackaging your skill set, there are ways to move away from the typical per-page or per-hour model.

I have found that one good way of doing this is reaching a commission-based agreement with the client. Instead of an hourly amount, you invest your time to help the client succeed in return for a percentage of the sales. As initial sample orders can require a lot of time and communication, there is often little compensation for what can feel like a lot of time and effort. However, if successful, repeat orders tend to be quick and simple with very little need for communication and therefore result in much higher compensation for relatively little work. This can be much more scalable than translation. It can also allow you to be involved in multiple projects at the same time to further increase your income.

The Risk of Erring on the Side of Caring

Jennifer Igawa (井川いがわ ジェニファー）

Translating often comes down to a matter of choices: what word, phrase, or even syntax best expresses the original meaning, including the intended purpose, of the source in a manner that reads naturally in the target language. But what does one do when there is an error in the source text? How faithful to the original task should a translator be?

I was recently asked to translate the transcript of a documentary film. In the film, a 79-year old woman was recalling something she had learned in a night school science class about the human intestinal tract. She expressed that she had not known that there was 「クロレラ」 in the human gut. My first reaction was that surely she didn't mean cholera! What is this 「クロレラ」? Could she mean chlorella, the freshwater alga that is native to Japan and used in health supplements? Is that something that naturally exists in the human gut?

I consulted a specialist in the human gut biome to help me get a grip on this topic. In fact, chlorella is not naturally found in the human intestinal tract. Had the woman learned incorrect information? Had she simply confused what she had learned with the ubiquitous health supplements that contain chlorella? She did indicate how she really didn't know much about the topic. A dilemma soon arose: should I translate as is or try to cover-up for the error? While changing the wording would not be detrimental to the message of the film, it could save face; I didn't want this person to be perceived negatively. Yet, such a maneuver is beyond the role of a translator, who should remain as faithful to the original as possible. The challenge was to show the innocence of the error without changing the word.

The source text is

「理科の時間にな、教えてもらった、こんなにすごい細菌て凄いねんな、とかね腸内細菌。クロ・・・クロレラ言うたか、何や言うてた先生な。 それがおるから今の便に出る奴は便に出て、栄養になるのは小腸。」

It is clear that the speaker is expressing doubt in the accuracy of her memory (「何や言うてた先生な」). Furthermore, the full text clearly shows she is genuinely proud of her newfound knowledge.

The final translation is:

We learned in science class about the bacteria in our guts. It's amazing. The teacher said something about...chlorella? Anyhow, because there are bacteria in our guts, …

The key word here is “anyhow”. The nuance I wanted to show was not that the name of the bacteria was important, not that the woman had made a mistake, but that the woman was excited about her learning and was proud to be able to talk about it.

In the end, there is no error in the source text at all. The woman's original meaning and intended purpose is clear. And I narrowly escaped erring on the side of caring and being unfaithful to the original text.

Origins of the Rules from Clients for Patent Filing Translation

Steven W. Johnston （ジョンストン ステーベン）

Patent translators are often working within a framework of rules provided by the client, whether the client is an agency, law office, patent attorney, or assignee company. When I was working as a freelance translator, the origins of the rules themselves were almost never explained. Later, while working in-house at a law firm, I got to see some of these rules being formulated and revised, so I will describe here some of the origins of such patent translation rules.

Some patent translation rules as based on statutory law. An example would be the use of "means for ..." as means-plus-function element in claims per Section 112(f) of US patent law.

Other patent translation rules are based on case law, that is to say, actual rulings by courts. An example would be the translation of "など" into "such as". I've heard that this is based on Catalina Marketing v. Coolsavings.com (CAFC, 2002), in which it was determined that "such as" "introduces an example of a broader genus rather than limiting the genus to the exemplary species". Thus "such as" is equivalent to "etc." Note that case law changes from year to year in accordance with court decisions, and thus rules based on case law may become outdated more readily than rules based on statutory law.

Some patent translation rules are based on USPTO requirements, such as for formatting. An example of this would be the dividing of a drawing into FIG. 1A, FIG. 1B, etc. when required by the USPTO rules for illustrations.

Some patent translation rules are based on English grammar. An example of such a rule is proper usage of the definite and indefinite articles in patent claims. Another would be the omission of the indefinite article before an abstract/uncountable noun, an intangible medium, or first mention of a plural element. Errors in definite-indefinite articles can easily result in an indefinite patent claim.

Patent translation rules are sometimes merely for consistency. Finding an unfamiliar word often will send a Benrishi reviewing the translation to an English dictionary, where it is all too likely that some obscure definition will be found that does not match the context. This can result in a wasteful series of communications between the Benrishi and translator. Sticking closely to terminology used previously in similar patent translations avoids this problem.

Some rules are formulated to create a commercially useful translation for stopping infringement. An example of this is the frequent use of "configured to" in patent claims, to avoid "for" (danger of means-plus-function interpretation) and to cause direct infringement at a manufacturing factory.

Sometimes a patent translation rule is based on speculation by a patent attorney attempting to anticipate future patent law. The patent attorney thus might request terminology that is not based on existing case law, but rather anticipated case law, in an attempt to avoid future loss of the patent right as the case law changes.

A Dream, Persistence, and Patience

Marian Kinoshita （木下きのした マリアン）

I can remember wanting to be “bilingual” since I was in kindergarten. The second husband of my great aunt (and namesake) was from Russia and their common language was French. I loved listening to them chat back and forth in their secret code as they sipped their gin and tonics during cocktail hour. It was pure magic, and I longed to be part of the conversation. Then in 4th grade, a volunteer dad visited our school once a week to teach us a few phrases in German. I was hooked. Not on German per se, but on the possibility of being able to communicate in a different language.

A decade or so later, I traveled to Nagoya as an exchange student to learn Japanese, starting with「私の名前はミャリヤンです。」(A few years later, I moved to Osaka and was redubbedマリアン。) I fell in love with the language, the country, and the food (of course!), and inched toward fulfillment of that childhood dream. Four decades later, I concede that becoming a full-time translator was less “magic” and more majime effort demanding persistence and patience—my persistence and everyone else's patience.

Assuming you, Dear Reader, are happily poised to plunge into commercial translation, I offer a few humble tips:

- Gain general business experience by working in a Japanese company for a few years.

- Develop relationships with agencies and project coordinators, as well as contacts who could someday turn into direct clients.

- Join a group of professional translators (like JAT!) for self-improvement and camaraderie.

- Say “yes” to any work you can handle. Test the waters, try various fields, carve out your own niche in a few areas that pique your interest. Or, develop an area of specialization (finance, pharmaceuticals, etc.) with potential for steady work and higher-than-average rates.

- Incorporate your business, become an official entity—this helps clients approve you as a vendor and forces you to assume a more professional stance (even if you still work in your pjs at home).

- Develop a business style which defines your company and incentivizes loyalty among your clients; offer flexibility on rush jobs, zeal throughout multiple revisions (fully invoiced!), retention of client-specific glossaries, and a can-do persona.

- Work with a like-minded partner to provide mutual editing and other daily backup, ensuring higher quality and quicker deliveries.

- Build a team of trustworthy colleagues with whom you can share work or collaborate on projects, allowing you to cover multiple specialties and expand your client base.

- Leap out of your comfort zone and join the JAT Board! It is a fun and fulfilling way to contribute to the industry, help your fellow translators, and gain new experiences.

- Finally, always remember that as a translator you must (often) please many parties; the client may therefore not always choose—or be free to choose—the “best” translation as the final version. Keep your pride in check and move on.

＊Here, “editing” refers to its irritatingly broad meaning in the J-to-E translation industry: checking the English against the original Japanese, proofreading for grammatical mistakes and typos, and editing for style.

Staying in Touch While Staying Apart–Keeping
B Language Ability Intact

Paul Koehler （ケラー ポール）

A curious thing happened last September. I returned to the United States after living in Japan for almost eight years, and last September marked the point where I had been back longer than I had lived in Japan. It was a conscious choice and I still don't regret it, but it has come at the price of not being able to use my B language (in my case, Japanese) as much as I did in Japan. It became painfully apparent to me during my visit to Japan in 2018, when a Japanese friend said that my Japanese had gotten worse. I've been so used to hearing the opposite (honest or not) that it was a shock, but I appreciated the honesty. The pandemic has forced most people in the world to keep physically distanced, and you can imagine how much of an impact this has on people in our profession.

Or does it? Gone are the days where contact with the outside world is limited by technology, and bandwidth allows for video communication as a normal occurrence instead of a luxury limited to corporations. However, I miss the impact of watching my reading and speaking Japanese ability improve within hours after arrival, and that simply isn't possible right now.

Thanks to a colleague's advice, I have found a VPN service which enables me to watch many TV channels in Japan live, even more than I had when I lived there. Say what you will about the quality of programming, but the chance to watch and listen in real time is something I missed. Hearing about sobering news like coronavirus clusters (virtually unspoken of in the States) or this year's cherry blossom forecasts are a nice way to keep informed. I also make an effort to speak with friends in Japan when I can.

Why is this important? Among other reasons, it is our duty as translators to keep as up-to-date with both languages as we can, and while culture and language can change in ways that make things unrecognizable to us, we need to do what we can to convey these aspects in our documents. Just as I missed the second Abe administration in Japan and caught up with increasing polarization in the US, we need to stay on top of things. Fortunately, the ability to do so has become easier thanks to the impact of technology.

I still have a airline ticket on standby to go to Japan, and I plan on taking advantage of it as soon as I can. However, until that day comes, I will use the resources I have available to keep my B language ability intact and make sure I keep not only my strength as a professional, but also my connections with the place that I still consider a second home. I look forward to visiting as soon as I can.

第二外国語の習得がもたらす英語原文の理解度向上

宮原みやはら 健たけし

「第二外国語を学習すると、英語が上達する」。多言語学習者界隈で聞かれる話だ。上達といっても色々だが、私はよくfatigue（疲労）という単語を引き合いに一例として理解度向上を説明している。金属製造業界に馴染みがなければ、fatigue crack（疲労き裂）という英語をみたとき、もしかしたら「fatigue？何だそれ」という人もいるかもしれない。英語だと業界によっては仕事で使うだろうが、病院でなどtiredを通り越した疲労感の表現を求められなければ生活で縁もなく、tiredやexhaustedの方が口から出るだろう。一方、フランス語ではje suis fatigué（I'm tired）のように簡単な表現であるから、学習の早い段階ですでに目にして知っているはずの単語だ。このように、同じ単語でも頻出度の違いから、第二外国語を学習していることで意味を取れるものがある。しかし、翻訳に限っていえば、その場で単語の意味を知らなくても辞書等で調べればいいじゃないかという人もいると思う。それもそうだが、翻訳についてさらにいえば、第二外国語の知識を基に曖昧に書かれた英語原文を理解できることもあるのだ。

具体例を挙げてみよう。

While Customer is in default, he or she is responsible for all negligence. Customer is also liable for performance in the case of chance, unless the damage would have occurred even if performance had been made in a timely manner.

という英語原文がある（実際の文から多少変えている）。ユーザーが購入製品の保証契約を結び、その支払いに不履行があった場合のユーザーの責任を説明している。皆さんはどのように訳すだろうか。その会社の製品や、同社の顧客対応フロー、さらに前後の文脈を理解したうえでこの文を読んでも、performanceが何を言及しているのかいまひとつはっきりせず、私は英語原文に何某かの曖昧さがあることを疑った。

この会社はドイツ企業で、同社内の翻訳部で英語を書き起こして、それを原文に、日本語のほかにも中国語やスペイン語など10言語以上に翻訳している。多言語に展開しやすいよう、ドイツ語を原文に翻訳を進めていないのだ。ともかく上の英語原文ではよくわからないため、ドイツ語文を請求したところ届いたのが次の文だ。

Während des Verzugs ist der Kunde für jede Fahrlässigkeit verantwortlich. Der Kunde haftet auch bei Zufall für die Erbringung der Leistung, es sei denn, dass der Schaden auch bei rechtzeitiger Leistung eingetreten sein würde.

ドイツ語が分からない人でさえ、見比べると、英語はperformance、ドイツ語はLeistungという単語が2回出ていることに気がつくだろう。Leistungは厄介で、確かにperformanceと訳される単語であるが、achievementやservice、benefit、payment、power等にも訳される。もちろん文脈から、そのどれなのかは読み取れるものだ。だが、ドイツ語文を知って英語を読み直すと、Leistungを単純にperformanceと訳すだけではいまひとつ意味が取れない。また、1つ目のperformance（= die Erbringung der Leistung）はdie Erbringung（履行/提供）に相当して読めてもしまい、するとこのder Leistungに相当する単語が欠けることになる。2つ目のperformance（bei rechtzeitiger Leistung）も何なのか。保証契約の話なのだから契約に基づく販売会社による契約内容の履行かと思いつつも、ユーザーの支払いの遅滞についての話が先行することから、まさかpaymentかと先方に確認したところ、やはりユーザーが適時に行ったpayment（= performance of payment in a timely manner）を指したかったと回答があった。BGB（ドイツ民法）にはよく似た英文訳があり、それは広義の給付（債務）を指しているが、これとDeepLを参考に書き起こした英文ではないかと疑った。確認の末、最終的に

「保証契約の支払い滞納中、顧客はすべての過失に対して責任を負わなければならない。不慮の事故についても、顧客は支払責任を負う。ただし、保証契約の支払いを期日通りに行っていたとしても損害が生じたであろう場合を除く。」

とした（厳密には違うが）。performanceのまま債務の履行としても良かったのかもしれないが、ユーザーの債務が何かを再確認するため読み手に文脈を読み直させることは避けたかった。ちなみに、この文が出てくる項では、Leistungがservice、performance、paymentと3通りの意味で使われていた。

グローバル化が進む現代において、英日翻訳を主とする翻訳者が、非英語ネイティブが書いた英語原文を訳すこともあるだろう。そうした英語原文でもわかりやすいものはあるが、先の例のようにもう少し書きようがあったのではないかと思われる原文は少なくない。一方で、訳者が英語原文を書いた人物の母語にも精通していれば気付けることも多い。英語圏でない会社から英語原文の英日翻訳を頻繁に受けているのなら、その国の言語を学んでみるのも、ある種の英語原文の理解度と、ひいては翻訳の質向上につながるといえる。

映像翻訳・稀少言語と英語と日本語・通訳・取材とレポート作成 – いろいろ思うこと

西川にしかわ 雅子まさこ (Masako Nishikawa-Van Eester)

日英以外に或る稀少言語の翻訳・通訳をしていると、望む望まないにかかわらず、いろいろな体験をすることになる。日本語ネイティブでその言語の使い手がほとんどいないようである。代わりがいないのだ。

突然未明にテレビ局に呼ばれ、様々な映像を延々と視聴しなんとか字幕用の訳をつけた後で、もう朝、ということになる。街頭インタビューなど入っていると、皆が皆ニュースキャスターのように明快に話し、言いたいことを上手に説明できるわけではないから、訛りや方言、個々人の話し方の癖、聞き取りが大変なのだ。その次は、その関連で、こうこう、こういう現象にあたりをつけてインターネットで調べて文書にまとめて欲しい、と依頼される。延々とインターネットで調べ物をする。文書を作成する。特殊なジャンルで、日本語の専門用語が、わからない。四苦八苦してまたインターネットで調べる。できあがったのでその旨を報告したいが担当ディレクターが会議中らしく、電話をしてもなかなかつかまらない…。ようやく連絡が取れ、家に帰れることになる。帰宅後、家事をしてから少々寝る。しかし仮眠で終わってしまう。

その日の夕方、別の局に呼ばれる。こうこうこういう状況で、知りたいことがあるから、適当にあたりをつけて、今からあちこち電話で取材をしてもらいたい、とのこと。欧州にかけるので、向こうはオフィスアワーが始まったところである。インターネットで調べて、話が聞けそうな研究所や団体・組織事務所にいきなり電話でインタビューをする。相手にしてみれば迷惑極まりない奴で、しかも日本のテレビ局なんです、と言われると無下に拒めない、という困惑ぶりが声音に表れて漂って来る。大汗をかきながらなんとか数か所で話を聞き出すことができ、和訳をして話をまとめ、報告書に仕上げる。

ディレクターが「なんとか使えそうですね。」と言い、ネタの提供ができたのでやっと帰れる、とわくわくしていると、この件に関連しての法制度等々について、わが国と欧州諸国の相違点をまとめてください、と言われ、帰宅時間の予定が立たなくなったことに絶望しながらも、今度はEUの公式ウェブサイトに飛び、 例えば、EU Directive（EU指令）についての情報を漁ってみる。頭の中は、もう帰りたい、帰って寝たい、しかない…。何人か手配してもらえたら、手分けや交替でもっと早く上がれるのに、とにかく代わりがいない。EU Directive を読んでいくと、各国の足並みはどれぐらい揃っているか、確認するために、結局いちいちを英語版でも読んで再確認する作業も入ってくることがある。これも英語と日本語しかできないと、ターゲット言語との比較にならないのだ。

こんなことばかりやっているうちに朦朧としてきて、もう朝だか昼だか夜だか、それが同じ日なのが翌日なのか、わからなくなってくるのだった。

近年は、在宅作業で済ませてもよい、という案件が増えた。自宅で居ながらに、使い慣れた自分のパソコンで、送られてきた映像データを視聴して、ある程度は自分のペースで効率的に仕事ができるようになった。また、「今から○○時間以内で、○○についてできるだけ調査をして、報告書をご作成ください。」というような依頼も増えた。英語と日本語の情報を取っ掛かりに使いながらも、そこでは見つけられないが、クライアントが是非とも今、入手したい、という情報をいかに迅速に見つけられるか、日本語に置き換えて説明できるか、が重要なポイントになっている。

一時期、来るもの拒まずで何もかも引き受けて、その結果自分のペースで生活できなくなってしまったこともあり、今はできる範囲でお受けしている。

さて、今でも時々、「翻訳者になりたいのですが、適性というか、どんな人が向いているのでしょうか。」というご質問をいただくことがある。それにお答えするにはまず、山ほど質問をさせていただかなければならないのだが（何語と何語と何語でなさるのですか、和訳のみですか、文芸翻訳ですか実務翻訳ですか映像翻訳ですか、通訳も同時に対応可能ですか等々）、しかし、それに対するご返答を全ていただいたとしても、私に言えることは「体力があること、イライラしないこと」ぐらいなのである。

Making Entertainment Translation Entertaining!

Jennifer O'Donnell （オドネル ジェニファー）

When you directly translate Japanese media such as novels or manga into English it can become really boring. What reads witty or exciting in one language can easily become dull or dry in another. Or, worst of all, it becomes utter nonsense for the situation or character! A Japanese high school girl might say「いただきます」but an English high school girl would probably never say, “Thank you for this meal”.

This is why funtional equivalence is so important for making entertainment translation entertaining.

Eugene Nida coined the terms formal equivalence and functional equivalence. Formal equivilence is when you translate meaning on the lexical and grammatical level, making the translation more literal. While funtional equivalence focuses more on translating the overall sense, emotion, and intent of the source, which makes the translation more natural for the target audience.

So a functional translation of「いただきます」for a high school girl might be “This looks so good!” or “I'm starving!”

Making a translation entertaining in English is easier said than done. It becomes a balancing act between conveying the meaning while also making it sound natural. Sometimes this means moving away from the original and re-crafting the text to improve flow and to fit the scene or characters.

Let's take the first three lines from the novel All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka:

戦闘開始から十分間、兵士は恐怖に溺れる。

想像してみるがいい。

鋼鉄の死が飛び交う場所だ。

This was translated by Joseph Reeder and Alexander O. Smith as:

“When the bullets start flying, it's only a matter of time before fear catches up with a soldier. There you are, steel death whizzing past in the air.”

They merged the sentences together, conveying all the original meaning and intent in a fluid and visually exciting way. The whole novel is an excellent example of how functional equivalence can make a translation a thrill to read.

Challenges arise with seemingly untranslatable cuturally specific terms. Words like 寝巻 or お塚 conjure very different images to Japanese audiences compared to “nightgown” or “mound” to English audiences. There are times when it's more entertaining to maintain the original word, and expound upon it in English for those who are unfamiliar.

Japanese popular media, however, is riddled with interconnecting memes and references. The majority of fantasty, for example, often references the video game series Dragon Quest in one form or another. And online communities have a language all to themselvs.

Take the slang term「リア充」. This word is often used by netizens to refer to someone who is satisfied by “real” life, and direclty translated would mean “real is enough”, but that doesn't make sense in English. A functional equivilance would be “normie” or “sheeple”, which is more understandable to the Western netizens.

Entertainment translators need to trust their instincts and follow the research rabbit hole when they think a word might be a reference, meme, or slang. That's when their understanding of the target audience and English popular culture comes into play to find the appropriate equivilant translation.

Intent, target audience, and entertainment should always be factors when deciding what culturally specific language to maintain and what to drop. There's never a ‘one translation fits all' scenario and it always varies between texts and translators. But every piece of entertainment translation can really be an entertaining experience!

開業10年と自分のSDGs

佐倉さくら 花奈美かなみ

今年の8月1日で、私は翻訳者として開業してから10年を迎えます。今は翻訳だけでなく通訳サービスも提供しています。翻訳は日本語からスペイン語またはポルトガル語、その逆、そして英語からスペイン語またはポルトガル語が主な組み合わせです。通訳は日本語―スペイン語が基本ですが、時々ポルトガル語もやっています。

翻訳者として独立したのは6年間ほど都内の翻訳会社で働いたあとです。初めはマニュアルの翻訳チェックをしていましたが、徐々に翻訳案件が来るようになりました。私の専門分野はこれ、というより、英語―日本語のペアの翻訳に比べて案件数の少ない日本語―スペイン語と日本語―ポルトガル語のペアが専門分野と言えます（ここで分別していたら、仕事がありません）。

私はひとり親なので、開業当初は「来月の給料はあるのだろうか」という不安に駆られ、育児も家事もそっちのけでデスクから離れることなく、クライアントの提示してくる料金でなんでも引き受けていました。その結果、納期が被ってしまうこともあり、徹夜で翻訳することが多々ありました。1年間もそんな生活を続けていると税金も増え、体重も増えてしまいました。その一方で、仕事は一週間以上途絶えることはないことにも気づき、引き受ける仕事は選別して詰め込まないほうが、良いこと尽くめだと悟りました。

当時は沖縄に住んでいて同業者は周りにいませんでした。日本語―スペイン語と日本語―ポルトガル語のレアな組み合わせの翻訳依頼は、インターネットを通じて本州と海外からいただいていました。沖縄にはそのような言語ペアの通訳者もいないので、翻訳の取引先から通訳案件も時々入ってくるようになりました。

開業してから5年、東京に戻ってくると通訳案件が増え、勉強したことがあった通訳の手法を思い出しながら本格的に通訳にも携わるようになりました。会議通訳が年に1件ほどで、ほとんどはテレビ局でニュース番組を製作する際の通訳でした。

それから4年が経ったころ、コロナが世界を襲いました。観光関連の翻訳案件は減りましたが、テレビ局での仕事は増えました。そして同じころに増えたのが、当時週に一回だけ出勤していた厚労省関係の労働条件相談の電話通訳の出勤日数です。これが原因で、当日にいきなり依頼が来る報酬の高いテレビの通訳の仕事に行けなくなりましたが、仕事は安定してあった方がいいに決まっています。

コロナが始まった年の売り上げは100万円以上減りました。振り返ってみると、テレビ局に行く回数が減ったからなのか、観光関連の翻訳案件が減ったからなのか、わかりません。役所関係のコミュニティ翻訳は変わらずありましたし、外国人の証明書類の翻訳もありました。それに、沖縄の頃から時々やっていたナレーションの仕事も、少しですが増えました。コロナで国際協力機構の授業がオンライン形式になり、そのナレーションに携わりました。

でもやはり、コロナが世界に与えた影響が大きいから売上が減ったのだと思います。その代わりに得たものは時間です。なんでも通訳・翻訳屋さんとしてあらゆる分野の知識を増やすべく、私は勉強を続けています。この短い人生でどれだけの分野のエキスパートな通訳・翻訳者になれるのかが楽しみで仕方ありません。

スペイン語でも日本語でもポルトガル語でも英語でも、まだまだなところがあるのですが、だからこそ上を目指していけるのだと思います。

危機を乗り越えるには、自分がどれだけの分野に自信を持って携われるか、だと思います。自信がないのに仕事を引き受けてしまうと、恥ずかしい目に合うだけでなく、プレッシャーによるストレスも大きく、その分野の次の仕事が来なくなる可能性もあります。

世界には持続可能な開発目標（SDGs）があるように、自分にもSustainable Development Goalsがあってもいいと思うのです。どの業種でも、生き残るカギは自己啓発ではないでしょうか。

自分は世界のために何ができるか、まだまだ模索中ですが、実は私の一つの憧れはSDGsのバッジをつけて通訳をすることです。

ここでSDGsの17のゴールを今一度確認したいと思います。

1. No Poverty, 2. Zero Hunger, 3. Good Health and Well-Being, 4. Quality Education 5. Gender Equality, 6. Clean Water and Sanitation, 7. Affordable and Clean Energy, 8. Decent Work and Economic Growth, 9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, 10. Reduced Inequalities, 11. Sustainable Cities and Communities, 12. Responsible Consumption and Production, 13. Climate Action. 14. Life Below Water, 15. Life on Land, 16. Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, 17. Partnership.

翻訳と通訳は17のパートナーシップ（持続可能な開発のための実施手段を強化し、グローバ ル・パートナーシップを活性化する）に貢献しています。

開業して10年ですが、これからも目標を高く持って自分を開発しながらキャリアを持続していきたいです。

Using the “Funnel” Approach to Write a Clear and Effective Four-part Introduction

Lee Seaman （シーマン リー）

I began doing J-E translation over 30 years ago and now translate, edit, and write for Japanese pharmaceutical companies, medical communications agencies, and university researchers. I experienced consistent pressure from machine translation and more recently AI, which made me look for ways to stay in business.

One option was to help clients increase my authors' readership, which required me to learn how readers decide what to read. I found that most readers first scan titles, then browse promising abstracts, and finally select a few articles to read in detail.

I can help the author to increase readership by providing clear orderly sections for the Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. In particular, although specialists in the author's field may jump directly from the Abstract to the Methods and Results, most readers rely on the Introduction to give them the general context of the paper. If the Introduction does not provide that context, they may give up and move to the next paper. So I looked for a system for writing effective Introductions.

My favorite is the “funnel” approach. It provides a clear, well-organized four-part Introduction that will tell readers whether they should read the rest of the paper. I call it a “funnel” because it is very wide at the beginning of the Introduction and gradually narrows down like a funnel to the specific topic of the paper at the end. I work in med-pharma, so my examples below are about diabetes, but the system can be applied to a variety of scientific papers.

This “funnel” approach is adapted from Tom Lang's How to Write, Publish, & Present in the Health Sciences (American College of Physicians, 2010). It uses a Background Statement, a Purpose/Problem statement, an Activity statement, and a Forecasting statement. They can range in length from a single sentence to one or more paragraphs.

The Background statement provides the general situation for readers of the paper and is quite broad: “Type 2 diabetes is widespread, and its prevalence is increasing around the world. This condition is characterized by elevated blood glucose and has numerous negative effects on long-term health.”

The Purpose/Problem statement focuses more closely on the situation to be resolved. It explains the reasons for doing the study: “Metformin is highly safe and effective in reducing blood glucose but is associated with gastrointestinal discomfort that many patients find intolerable.”

The Action statement briefly describes the research methods: “Because of this substantial unmet need, we worked to develop an anti-diabetes drug that provided the same level of safety as metformin but with fewer adverse gastrointestinal effects.”

The Forecasting statement tells readers what to expect if they continue to read this paper: “In this article we describe a randomized double-blind study of our product ABC123 in comparison to metformin, with particular focus on gastrointestinal events in both groups.”

When I apply these four points in my translation and editing work, I find that the original Background and Purpose/Problem statements are often insufficient or absent, and sometimes the Action and Forecasting statements also do not contain necessary details. Sometimes I can find the additional information later in the paper, or with a quick internet search, and add it in a marginal Comment. Based on the response from my authors, they generally appreciate this “value-added” service.

With the current AI-induced turbulence in translating and editing, many freelancers are turning to techniques for value-added services in order to survive and thrive. The “funnel” approach to writing an Introduction can be one of those techniques.

NPO JAT の誕生（2000～2001年）

佐藤さとう エミリー綾子あやこ

今から20年前、21世紀が始まった頃、皆さんは何をしていましたか。すでに翻通訳などの仕事は始めていましたか。それともまだ学生もしくはもっと若かったでしょうか。その頃のJATの思い出話です。

私は2019年の『翻訳者の目線』で、JATは1985年、東京近郊の翻訳者が集まる場として発足し、90年にIJET（英日・日英翻訳国際会議）が始まり、90年代後半にインターネットの普及に伴い会員が増えて組織の規模も拡大し、「それとともに団体としてのJATのあり方も問われるようになった」と書きました。

問題は、JATに法人格がない、つまりJATが法的に存在していないことでした。当時は法人格がなければ銀行口座を開くことができず、そのために会員数の増加やIJETの開催により毎年増え続けていたJATの資産は、当時のBob Oliver会計担当理事の個人口座に置かれていました。法人格を得るためには、公益法人制度（財団法人や社団法人）しかなく、設立のためには（確か）1000万円以上の資産が必要だったのです。

ところが1998年、特定非営利活動促進法（NPO法）が制定・施行され、特定非営利活動[1]を行う団体が法人格を得るハードルがぐっと低くなりました。この法律の施行後まもなく、JATと同業の団体である日本翻訳家協会(JST: Japan Society of Translators)がNPO法人となったことを知って[2]､JATでも検討しようということになり、会報担当理事を務めていた私が調査を仰せつかりました。

JSTにお話を伺ったり[3]、自分でも調べたりした結果、NPOは設立の費用がほとんどかからない、団体として各種契約が結べる（前述の銀行口座開設を含め）、社会的信用が高まる（イベントの後援や助成を得やすくなる）、税制上の優遇措置もある等のメリットが確認できました。

そこで2000年（平成12年）9月29日、理事会がJATのNPO法人化を決定。約3か月後の12月18日に特定非営利活動法人設立認証申請書を所轄庁の東京都に提出し、翌2001年の3月27日に東京都から認証が下り、東京法務局に登記申請をして4月6日に無事法人として成立しました。その年（平成12年度）のNPO法人の累計数は約3800でしたが、2021年度5月末現在には約5万に達していて、日本のコンビニの店舗総数（約5.6万）よりちょっと少ない程度だそうです。

このように日付だけ並べると、トントン拍子に進んだように見えますが、今思い返しても、準備作業は大変でした。設立申請時に提出する書類は十数種類ありましたが、その中でも一番手間がかかったのが定款です。作成にあたっては、東京都のNPOガイドブックを購入し、そこに掲載されているひな型に文章を埋め込み、修正を加えていきました。今であれば、設立に必要な書類の作成や、所轄庁や法務局への手続きなどを請け負う行政書士や司法書士をすぐに探すことができるでしょうが、当時はまだそういうサービスも見当たらなかったので、自力で準備を進めました。書類を作り終えても、形式上の不備や誤字脱字がある限り受理されないと聞いていましたので、見直しにも時間をかけました。結局、都庁の担当者と2回程度面談してアドバイスを得た後、書類提出にこぎつけることができました。

法人登記を終えた後、「これで、JATがさらに活動を広げるための新たな基盤ができた、あとは皆さんどうかよろしく」と、私は理事を辞任しました。でもその2年後、今度は監事に就任し、NPOを維持していくのはなかなか大変だと思い知ることとなります・・・

1. JATの場合は、1)社会教育の推進を図る活動、2)学術、文化、芸術又はスポーツの振興を図る活動、3)国際協力の活動 ⏎

2. JAT創立メンバーでJST会員でもあったウレマン フレッドさんから伺いました。 ⏎

3. 当時JST理事でJAT会員でもあった故矢野浩三郎さんと、JST事務局（理事）の叶谷渥子さんにお世話になりました。 ⏎

Philology, Etymology and Classics

庄子しょうじ 昌利まさとし

2021年は、深層学習について12回シリーズで学ぶことができた。AIを脅威と見るのではなく、そもそも何であるのか？どうやって利用できるか？などをこれからも探っていきたい。

さて、ここ最近は、Health Communicator/Practitionerを目指している。幸いJATやAMWAの会員の方から色々なアドバイスをいただき、ゆっくりではあるが近づいてきていると思う。改めてこの場を借りて関係諸氏に感謝したい。医薬関係の学びを始めたことで、自分の原点でもある英語文献学への興味を再発掘し始めている。しかし、それを英語という狭い枠で捉えるのではなく、古代ギリシャ語・ラテン語、そしてその文化・歴史・哲学等を学び、また当然、医療用語の原点や医療の原点も併せて見ることができれば、こんな贅沢な学問はないのではと思い至った。さて、善は急げということで、大学探しを始め、近い将来、ヨーロッパかアメリカの大学でClassicsを学びたいと思う。

古代中国を中心とした東洋医学そして古代中国の思想とともに、古代西洋の医学や思想、言語を学ぶことで、東西の融合、そして医療だけではなく、自分の人生を見つめ直し、人生最後に備え、さらに社会にも何か還元できるような研究成果が得られればと思う。確かに医療従事者などによる語源の書籍もないわけではないが、今一つ医療に偏りすぎていてつまらない。また、今現在日本で行われている医療は従来型の西洋医学で、患者本位の統合的な医療、予防、緩和ケアの導入が喫緊の課題でもある。自分は、もっと広い視野でClassicsに関する研究ができればと思っている。

深層学習、翻訳、Health Communication、古代言語の研究が今後自分のなかでどう交差していくのか分からないが、少なくとも自分は言語そのものに興味があることを改めて認識できたことに感謝したいと思う。

「和漢辞典」

富井とみい 篤あつし

何年か前から、このAnthologyで度々紹介させていただいてきた「和漢辞典」が、ほぼ4年の歳月を経て、このほどやっと完成しました。

この辞書は、
漢字から意味を引く漢和辞典

ではなく、
意味から漢字を引く和漢辞典

という全く新しい「和漢辞典」です。ただし、ただの「漢字」ではなく、「高位の漢字」です。

外国語に関しては、英和と和英、独和と和独、仏和と和仏というように両方向の辞書がありますが、日本語の場合には、漢和辞典だけで和漢辞典はありません。もし、この「和漢辞典」がその隙間を埋めることができれば、望外の喜びです。

ライフワーク

「ライフワーク」などという言葉は、やたらに使うモノではないということは承知しています。しかし、「日本で初めて」という先の見えない大きなプロジェクトに取り組むときは、つい、「ライフワーク」と思い込んでしまうものです。
それはそれで悪くはないのですが、実は困ったことに、過去に「ライフワーク」と称して取り組んだプロジェクトが二つあったのです。一つは33年ほど前に出版した『科学技術和英辞典』で、もう一つは2016年3月から2017年5月の2年間、Kindle版に連載した「技術翻訳 奥義と裏技」20冊シリーズで、特に前者は、当時は、日本で初めての大型辞典と称されていました。また後者は、筆者がその時点までに出版していた約40冊の著書をすべて解体し再編集した、平成の廃藩置県よろしく、大型のシリーズものでした。
当初、「3年で20冊」と考えていたのですが、当時、時の政府が大方のエコノミストたちの反対を押し切って「2年で3%」の物価上昇政策を掲げたことがあります。それに便乗したわけではありませんが、わがほうも、男気を出して、当初、考えていた「3年で20冊」を急遽「2年で20冊」に変更してスタートしました。その後2年間は、散々な目にあいました。一方、敵は、いまだに達成していないことは、ご承知のとおりです。

基本辞書

この辞書は、旺文社の「国語辞典」（漢和）を使わせていただき、「国語辞典」が「漢和」になっているのに対し、この辞典はその編集方法を逆にして「和漢」の形式にしてあります。内容は、「辞書本体」、「四字熟語」、「諺」の三つから成っています。「四字熟語」と「諺」は専門書から、さらに大幅に増補しています。また、「諺」には、一部、対応英語が添えてあります。
収録語数は、この辞書の性質上、「国語辞典」すべてを採用する必要はなく、平均的日本人の語彙力を勘案し、「国語辞典」の、ほぼ半数位になっています。

対象読者

対象読者は、日本人、外国人を問わず、下記の人たちです。
〇　語彙の貧困さを認識している人で、自分の書いた日本語が、ひらがなと易しい漢字のオンパレードということを感じている人
〇　何とか語彙を充実させ、高位の漢字を使えるようになりたいと思っている人
〇　時には、四字熟語や諺を使って、文面に彩色を付けたいと考えている人
上記のように「感じている人」「思っている人」「考えている人」がすべての読者になります。

辞書の使い方

まだこの辞書をお持ちでない方に辞書の使い方を説明しても、失礼ながら河童の水練かもしれませんが、具体例を挙げて、簡単に説明していきます。次のような例を考えたとしましょう。
「表面は丁重のようであるが、内心は相手を小馬鹿にして見下していること」
このように長い日本語を、引き締まった、高位の漢字で表現したい場合を考えてみます。
いろいろなアプローチの仕方がありますが、この「和漢辞典」では、文全体を「人を見下す」と当りを付けてみます。そして、「見下す」から調べていくと、みくだす（見下す・表面は丁重）⇒　表面は丁重に見せかけ、内心は尊大で相手を見下すこと⇒　慇懃無礼として、「慇懃無礼」という漢字が出てきます。
もし、「慇懃無礼」では、気に入らないと思われる場合は、「見下す」の代わりに「内心」とか「尊大」などと別の言葉をkeywordとして引いてみると、納得のいく漢字に到達することがあるかもしれません。
この例のように、漢字交じりの32文字という多量な情報から、わずか四字の引き締まった、より「高位の」漢字に置き換えることができます。
これにより、落語の「寿限無・寿限無」にはさよならできます。

編　集

最終の編集は、JATの会員の渡辺 恵子さんにお願いしました。編集が終わり次第、しかるべき方法で上梓する予定でいます。

Godiva vs Hershey

Fred Uleman （ウレマン フレッド）

I did the first part of my growing up in Pittsburgh, where both pickles and ketchup are Heinz. And much of the chocolate was Hershey's. However, my dad also liked chocolate and there were always a couple of bars of Baker's Chocolate around. True, the Baker's Chocolate cost more, but it was better. And then I did some more growing up in college before coming to Japan and continuing to grow up. This is an on-going process.

Along the way, I lucked out with some very good clients who furthered the process, including showing me how to think about some things, including both being willing to pay for value when it is important and positioning myself as value that is worth paying for. Part of this was deciding that I did not want to do anybody-can-do-it work. And then pricing my services appropriately—which means pricing them so that people would only ask me to do things that are important to them. Like going to Europe with groups of businessmen, not because I was the interpreter or the tour conductor or anything but just so I'd be there and could take care of whatever might happen. Like 30-page policy speeches that have to be translated, client-checked, put back into real English, and ready for distribution in two days or so. And like a lot of other things.

Of course, this cuts both ways. When sending thank-you gifts to people, send stuff that indicates you think they are important. Not waxy Hershey's chocolates from Don Quixote but Godiva from the Godiva shop, for example. Godiva costs more. But the fact that everybody knows it costs more means it has more value—is worth more—as a gift. Perception counts. (I am reminded of the Johnnie Walker story. Johnnie Walker Black Label used to be the prime gift in Japan. But then the non-Japanese brewers complained about the high tariffs, the Japanese government lowered the tariffs, and Johnnie Walker slashed its prices and lost vast expanses of market share because it was no longer a prestige brand. Perception counts.)

What does this mean for us as translators? It means perception counts. How are you perceived? As someone who will work for bottom-feeder rates, presumably because that's the only work you can get? Or as someone who charges premium rates, presumably because you provide a premium product? And while some of this is product, much of it is packaging. Are you a “this is what it'll cost you” person or a “please throw me some crumbs” person? I know the market has changed somewhat since I moved off the front lines, but I suspect this principle still applies. Translation is translation but the translation business is still a business. Part of how you get where you want to be is assuming—and projecting an image conducive to other people's assuming—you are already there.

How Many of Those Now Working from Home Will Want to Go Freelance?

A.T. Welford （ウエルフォド）

One of my favourite aspects of being a freelance translator is being able to work from home (WFH). It isn't for everybody, so having a mindset that suits it seemed to be an advantage most people could not replicate.

Now the pandemic is testing this notion. Millions have had the opportunity to try WFH and to experience the practical and mental challenges. Around two in three say they prefer it to the office. So how many of them will now want to go freelance and steal the bread from my mouth? There's no clear answer to that but we can briefly scan the factors that will influence people's future decisions.

Firstly, many like not having to commute but others miss the time it gave them for less demanding activities. Now, as well as practicing time management more carefully in their work, people have had to reshape their daily schedule, especially those with children staying off school. Time gains may have been swallowed up by childcare, nursing, housework and so on, not to mention making coffee and lunch.

Setting up a home office—organising a comfortable, quiet and well-lit space, setting up a computer and peripherals with a decent internet connection and appropriate security, etc.—has been an unexpected challenge for many. Once done, though, they know what they might need to buy and whether they would need a bigger home or rented office space for freelancing.

Success in WFH as an employee strongly depends on relationships both with family and with management and colleagues. Reportedly, more trusting work relationships and extrovert personalities have made for happier and more productive shifts from the office to the home. This indicates that WFH suits many people who nevertheless would not want to freelance.

We must consider the immense changes in technology and modes of working over the last decade. First, while video meetings aren't a new thing, they are now much more accessible and familiar. In the pandemic their use has expanded greatly from the purely social into the professional sphere. Clearly, they can satisfy people's needs for daily personal interactions. But who would the new freelancer interact with through the day apart from clients, and how can these interactions compare with relatively informal workplace conversations or participation in office meetings?

Social media and other communication channels continue to develop at pace. Using them to maintain relationships over distance is a critical part of WFH life but not necessarily easy. We are all aware of the pitfalls of text communication, but socialising by whatever means always takes care and effort. Many people will be rightly concerned that work isolation might bring social isolation.

Work-tracking technology is also developing. Some workplaces are trusting staff to manage themselves provided they produce good results. Others have taken a draconian attitude to monitoring WFH, which may discourage some people from going further. Having the self-discipline to keep focused on work is critical in freelancing. The more practice people have in supervising themselves, the better they will understand how suitable freelancing might be for them.

The overlap between freelancing and the tech-driven gig economy continues to cause great confusion and disruption, with conflicts over pay levels, schedules, assessment systems, equipment costs, sick pay and so forth. The balance of power between employers/clients and staff/vendors is ultimately a political question, but people hearing horror stories of the gig economy will surely be wary of freelancing.

Many more people will have opportunities and pressures to work from home all or some of the time in the future. Many are now experienced in managing the space and equipment of a home office. The millions now reconsidering how they want to spend their working lives can better understand the reality of freelancing.

Inevitably, more will feel the inclination and confidence to go it alone. As ever, though, becoming a successful freelancer will depend on a diverse range of skills and attitudes that not many people can fully master.

Reflection on Teleworking

Peter Winchcomb-Wada（ウィンチコム和田わだ ピーター）

I work for a major Japanese IT vendor, and just before the first emergency declaration on April 7, 2020, management instructed everyone who could do so to start teleworking from April 1st. I had to make some changes to my system to enable remote access, but after going to work on April 1st, the next time I went in to the office was July 2nd, and the time after that was October 14th to interpret for the CEO, which is just easier face-to-face.

Coincidentally, my company had been running trials of teleworking from January of 2020, meaning for us the switch was probably smoother than for a lot of people, as the infrastructure and necessary systems were already in place, so it was possible to provide everyone with remote access fairly painlessly. There were some minor network issues early on, but they managed to overcome most of them pretty quickly.

Of course, some people were (and still are) unable to telework all the time, mainly people who handle purchase orders and other paperwork that requires stamping by higher-level management or with the company seal, which is kept locked in a safe. But a year down the track, we're in the middle of trials for 100% digital seals which will hopefully make it possible to handle even them remotely.

I moved from the city out into a semi-rural area in August, which means I now have my own office/study. To make teleworking easier I did a little shopping to improve my home environment. The first thing I got was a wireless keyboard and mouse as I had a 10-year old notebook that I had planned to dispose of, but later converted it to use it for remote access. Notebook keyboards have always been uncomfortably small for me, so the wireless keyboard made things easier. In July I brought my Microsoft ergonomic keyboard home from the office.

I also got a new office chair, a nice mesh one so I don't get hot in Summer. I later got a new desk and a 32-inch monitor to give me more desktop space (on my computer). I also got a Logicool wireless headset, that I found out is not 100% compatible with all meeting systems but generally does the job. For some reason WebEx will not recognize the microphone, so I can listen but no one can hear me if I try to say anything. But I also have a pair of wired headsets, so I just use one of them instead.

On the home front, over the last year or so, our two cats have been spending more and more time in my office. Our two-year old calico follows me around our apartment, and if I am working on my computer she'll come in and sleep on my desk or even my keyboard. I think she finds the slope of my ergonomic keyboard comfortable. It is cute, but can be a bit inconvenient when I am working. So lately I have also been using my wireless keyboard so she cannot get in the way.

I have a bay window, and both our cats like to spend time there, probably because even in mid-Summer I tend to have the window open in the mornings to enjoy the nice breezes we get. In the afternoons I usually close the window and use my air-conditioner, but by then the ledge is nice and warm, so the cats tend to stay there and oversee my work. As my company has declared workers will never be returning to the office full-time, I think I'll be spending my foreseeable future with my cats.

The Gifts That Legal Translation Has Given Me

Shiori Yamamoto (山本やまもと 志織しおり）

As a professional paralegal and legal translator working at a law firm, mainly translating contracts and other legal documents, there are some important gifts that the endeavor of legal translation has given me.

Firstly, the daily work of legal translation has given me an avenue to develop my intellectual interest in U.S. contract law and theory.

There are interesting U.S. legal philosophers whose philosophies are a joy to study, such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Benjamin Cardozo, Karl Llewellyn, and Roscoe Pound. Recent contract literature includes the vast academic contract theory empire created by E. Allan Farnsworth, whose readings are a joy to attempt to read little by little. Also interesting to read are the writings written by Fuller & Perdue, Charles Fried, and Ian McNeil.

Legal studies in the U.S. include pragmatism, legal realism, critical legal studies, law and economics, law and literature, feminism, justice theories, and relational contract theory.

Secondly, through legal translation, I have the opportunity to think how contract behavior and thinking differ between Japanese and western people based upon their cultural differences.

The difference between Japanese and western contract behavior and thinking is a matter of particular importance for me working at a law firm. Not only do the legal rules in Japanese and U.S. contract law differ as a matter of the law, the fundamental approach of Japanese and westerners towards transactions based upon contract are said to differ. A starting point literature on this subject would be Takeyoshi Kawashima's Nihonjin no Hoishiki.

Notable rules which underscore the differences between U.S. and Japanese contract law include the U.S. statute of frauds, parol evidence rule, entire agreement clause, all of which steer the parties to the transaction to write down everything that they have agreed upon into the contract (this is often called “objectivism”, or kyakkan shugi).

Further interesting readings on the difference between U.S. and Japanese contract law would be the writings by Farnsworth dealing with the duty of good faith and fair dealing as well as preliminary negotiations. Japanese contract law, which is civil law, has its own equivalent of the “culpa in contrahendo” theory developed formerly in Germany, so it would be fascinating to pursue how the process of preliminary negotiations actually work in and differ between Japan and the U.S.

Thirdly, the endeavor of legal translation has given me the opportunity to develop practical professional skills acquired by my own extensive experience of translating thousands of legal documents and contracts to date, which is a marketable hands-on type of skill which has become deeply and naturally ingrained in me.

In this unstable period of time such as the pandemic where the future has become unforeseeable, having this type of deeply ingrained practical skill, which has become as natural to me as breathing, is an extremely valuable source of confidence in me. This skill that I have acquired gives me the gift of not only securing my position as useful personnel at the workplace, it also gives me the fundamental confidence as a human being so that, although I am required to abide by instructions of my superiors and attorneys who give me instructions, it gives me leeway to proactively provide my own opinions on matters of interest to me.

This gives me the fundamental confidence as a social human being which is reflected in my attitude of tackling whatever I need to do, which gives me great relief and joy in whatever I aim to do in the course of my daily life.

Brain Mapping

Daisuke Yanase (柳瀬やなせ 大輔だいすけ）

What a strange, demented feeling it gives me when I realise I have spent whole days before this inkstone, with nothing better to do, jotting down at random whatever nonsensical thoughts have entered my head.

徒然草 or Essays in Idleness by Yoshida Kenkō, translated by Donald Keene

My problem is that I cannot stop the flow of nonsensical thoughts.

I have had hard times with my wayward memory, which retains minute details of trivial things, such as the name of a minor character in a minor movie, but fails to remember much more important things, such as the name of a restaurant I am supposed to be in. When friends wonder why I keep an accurate memory of jokes exchanged years ago, I quip that I carry a roll of flypaper in my skull. It seems that my flypaper has been sprinkled with glue in a haphazard manner.

As a non-English speaker, I remember the books in which I came across some quaint English words, such as “stipendiary emolument,” for the first time. This may not be surprising, but what is more interesting is that even today I remember some words of Nadsat, a synthetic vocabulary used in A Clockwork Orange, a black humor novel written by Anthony Burgess. A devotchka is a girl; to tolchock is to beat up someone. In these cases, the strength of memory of a word appears to be in proportion to the amount of effort that I spent to decipher it.

For all I know, it may not be glue but a sort of fertilizer called curiosity that is unevenly distributed over what used to be likened to a blank slate in a newborn's brain. As one grows older, many cognitive inputs are sown. Some die at barren spots, while others take root at fertilized spots and thrive, revealing the distribution of fertilizer just like a flower garden differing from person to person, as it were. This is my pet theory of personality.

Sounds deterministic? Yes, it does. Then let's imagine how much is determined and how much is left to our discretion. We are born with an immune repertoire, a set of diverse immune cells that can recognize and fight millions of different pathogens and foreign agents. Although I don't know what proportion of these immune cells are actually activated during our lifetime, I think many of them remain unused after all. By the same token, most part of our “speckled slate” may remain unexposed to external stimuli throughout our lives. Therefore, it is entirely up to us whether to stay in a familiar, well-inhabited territory or to embark on an expedition into terra incognita within our brains. Of course, this is all my lay speculation, and neuroscientists would offer authentic, evidence-based explanations instead. Nevertheless, I am content with my working theory, and let it spur me on to map my brain with more new stimuli.

Having written this much, the phrase “to embark on an expedition” rekindled my pent-up wanderlust. Early in the pandemic, I had to give up my plan to visit Plattsburgh, NY to admire Rockwell Kent's illustrations. Subsequent prolonged home confinement added another destination to my wish list: High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA, where Francis Criss' masterpiece Alma Sewing is exhibited. I am sure a long postponement will make my brain more fertilized for long-awaited stimuli.

仕事が仕事を、本が本を呼んで20年

矢能やのう 千秋ちあき

開業が2001年12月だから、今年で20年になる。長ければよいわけではないとはよく耳にするが、経験3年以上という翻訳者募集条件もあることを考えると、続けてきたこと自体が、ひとつの指標になるだろう。

翻訳とひと言でいってもさまざまだ。自分としては、時折「何がご専門ですか」と尋ねられて返答に窮する。この場合の専門とは、翻訳エージェントに登録する際の分野である。業界誌、翻訳スクールや系列のエージェント、翻訳連盟の分類では、IT、特許、医薬、工業などとなっている。ほんやく検定などの試験でも同様だ。私には、そうした意味での「専門分野」はないが、大企業の役員のスピーチや地方自治体の首長の書簡などを受注している。名刺にはビジネス、交通、環境、社会問題、心理学と入れてある。

また、「翻訳支援ツールは何を使っていますか」という質問にも答えられない。Tradosは買ってみたし、Felixを使っていた時期もあったが、マッチ率に合わせて1文1文訳すのがどうにも合わず、離れてしまった。

ツールを使わずとも英訳は需要があり、2008年9月のリーマンショックもエージェントを増やして乗り切った。2004年に恩師が倒れたのが最初の危機、2008年はリーマンショック、そして2011年は東日本大震災と、数年おきに事業の継続が脅かされてきた。それまで同業者と特に交流をすることもなく、ひとりで仕事をしてきたが、3度目の危機であった2011年にFacebook、Twitterを始めてみた。ここでは業界誌に載っているような人たちが毎日投稿していて、心底驚いた。それなら直接話を聞いてみようと、翻訳者の集まりに出かけていくようになった。すると、なんとまあ、隣の芝生がまぶしいことか。訳書を何冊も出している人たちが語らっている姿を目の当たりにして、2013年1月に「出版、夢だよな」と口から出た。

このとき、「夢だって言っていて、叶うために何かやっているの？　やってないなら、叶うわけないよね、やってみれば？」とある人に言われて、目から鱗が落ちた。それまで10年ほど翻訳をしていたが、英訳がほとんどだった。和訳を始めたのは夢を実現するためだ。

いざ和訳の世界に入ると、英訳とはまったく様子が違うが、母国語方向に訳すのはとにかく楽しい。そこで、これまでの英訳中心の仕事は平日の9時から5時で終わらせるくらいにし、土日は和訳の勉強に費やすようになった。

英訳ではネイティブチェック込みの訳文を求められることも多かったが、和訳では自分自身がネイティブの立場である。そこでネイティブの日本語を求められると、簡単ではないことが分かった。「が」と「は」の使い方、文章の小さい区切りと大きい区切りをどう訳し分けるかなど、無限に広がる言葉の世界を目の当たりにして、立ち止まるほかないことがある。英語の元原稿も、世の中にはこれでもかというほど難しい英文もあり、一点の曇りもなく著者の意図を理解できただろうかと考えあぐねることもある。意味は理解したかもしれないが、次はそれを過不足なく日本語で言いあらわせているだろうか。どこまで行ってもきりがない。

2020年、2021年は新型コロナウイルス禍で開業してから4度目の危機がやってきた。けれども、「出版、夢だよな」が叶ったのも2020年。11月に『きみがまだ知らないティラノサウルス』『きみがまだ知らないトリケラトプス』『きみがまだ知らないステゴサウルス』がハヤカワ・ジュニア・サイエンスから刊行されたのだ。

震災の後にTwitterで実名と顔写真を出して毎日呟くようになった。この原稿を書いている時点で23.2万件呟いたらしい。こうしていると、何かしらお誘いがくるのだ。2021年は7月に同業者松本佳月さんのYouTube “Kazuki Channel”に呼ばれて話をしたし、8月には「日本通訳翻訳フォーラム2021」でも1セッション担当することになった。さらに、JATで出版翻訳の分科会を立ち上げたことも忘れてはならないイベントだ。

これまでの自分の足跡を辿ると、本が本を呼び、仕事が仕事を呼んでいる。次の10年もそうであると信じているが、さて、どう展開していくか楽しみだ。