On April 17, 2021, JATLAW will hold a panel discussion with Gwen Clayton and Cathy Eberst, moderated by Carol Lawson. The panelists will discuss strategies for surviving the current and future pandemics. Audience participation will be welcome and encouraged.
Please be sure to include your email account when registering. The seminar will be on Zoom (download Zoom Client for Meetings from here) and we will send the Zoom meeting details to registrants by email on April 15th. Please follow the instructions in the email and access Zoom on the scheduled date and time. Please contact the JATLAW committee if you do not hear from us on the 15th.
* The panel discussion will NOT be recorded.
The deadline for registering for this seminar is 15:00 JST on Wednesday, April 14th.
JAT members: JPY 1000
Non-members: JPY 3000
Gwen Clayton
I am a freelance translator working from Japanese (and German) into English. After graduation I qualified as a solicitor and worked in law firms and in-house in London, Tokyo and Zurich, but I switched to freelance translation in 2008. The core of my translation business is legal and business translation, but I have also translated articles and books on fine art and butterflies. My clients include banks, law firms, a national museum, a government agency, academic researchers, charities and translation agencies.
In between translation assignments I teach on the Diploma in Public Service Interpreting course at London Metropolitan University and regularly give talks on Japanese legal translation. Last year during lockdown I focused on improving my German, enrolling in a course on German Literature at the Goethe Institute. In February I took (and passed) the Institute of Translation and Interpreting membership exam for German, having become a MITI for Japanese in 2014.
I have greatly benefitted from the new networking opportunities presented by Zoom and similar technologies since the start of the pandemic. Last year my DPSI teaching took place online. Within the ITI Japanese translators’ network, J-Net, we have exchanged Japanese cooking tips and started an online Japanese book club, as well as taking part in professionally-oriented training sessions. I have enjoyed events with the Japan Foundations’ Bilingual Public Speaking Club, joined two new mentoring programmes and helped organise online careers and networking events for Japanese graduates of Oxford University. I am based in London.
Cathy Eberst
Born and raised in the UK, I came to Japan in 1998 after studying Japanese and Business Studies at university. I have lived in Oita, Ishigaki (Okinawa), Osaka, Hong Kong and Tokyo. I started freelancing in 2001 and incorporated in 2008. I focus on legal and business translation. My clients include law firms, corporations, and translation agencies. I occasionally teach one-day seminars on legal translation for translation schools in Tokyo.
Even before the pandemic, the translation industry had been experiencing some changes, including increased interest in machine translation among translation buyers and consumers. At networking events I frequently found myself having to explain the drawbacks of machine translation.
The pandemic presented a number of challenges and, as the world moved online, a number of opportunities, as well as a chance to reflect and take stock. Rumour has it that we should expect pandemics to occur more frequently. Based on what I have learnt over my career and during the past 12 months in particular, I would like to share my ideas for surviving the end of this pandemic and preparing for future pandemics both in our professional and personal lives.