Designed to foster, recognize, and reward excellence in commercial, non-literary translation between Japanese and English by new translators, the fifth annual awards will be given in 2009. A 400-member-strong organization of professional freelance and in-house translators and interpreters, JAT is dedicated to promoting the interests of individual translators and interpreters working between Japanese and English worldwide.
FIFTH ANNUAL JAT CONTEST FOR NEW AND ASPIRING TRANSLATORS
Sponsored by: Japan Association of Translators (JAT)
Purpose: To cultivate new talent in commercial, non-literary translation
Qualification: Anyone with less than three years of commercial translation experience. (JAT membership not required. Except for the winners, entrants in the past contests are welcome to enter again.)
Categories: Japanese-to-English and English-to-Japanese
Entry fee: Free
Awards (each category):
The First Place winner in each category will receive a free trip to IJET-20, to be held on February 14 (Sat.) and 15 (Sun.), 2009 in Sydney, Australia, including registration fee, round-trip ticket, and hotel accommodations (3 nights), plus a one-year membership in JAT. Each Second Place winner will receive a one-year membership in JAT.
Judges
Japanese-to-English: Malcolm James, Ken Wagner, Lee Seaman
Sep. 1, 2008 - Source texts available for downloading from the JAT website
Sep. 28, 2008 (24:00 Japan Time)- Submission deadline
Nov. 23, 2008 - Five finalists announced on JAT website
Dec. 25, 2008 - Awards announced on JAT website and by direct e-mail to the winners
Feb. 14, 2009 - Winners invited to IJET-20 in Sydney, Australia in February, 2009
CONTEST GUIDELINES
About the Source Text
The material to be translated will be content intended for the general public educated in the source language. Refer to Previous JAT Translation Contests for the source texts used in the previous contests.
Download the source text for the JE contest here Download the source text for the EJ contest here
Submissions must be sent as an MS Word .doc file or a plain text file by file attachment with your entry form.
Your file should only contain the translated text. Do not write your name or comments.
Name the file as follows:
CONTEST E your name (e.g. CONTEST E Maria Sharapova)
Submissions will be confirmed by return e-mail.
Only one entry per person is allowed in each category.
Copyright
All submissions become the property of JAT and will not be returned.
JAT retains the copyright to all submitted entries.
JAT reserves all rights to publicize the winners' names, winning entry, photo and/or likenesses, and background information on its web site, mailing list, and electronic or printed publications.
Judging
Entries will be judged in three stages in accordance with the evaluation criteria provided by the judging panel. The ID numbers and translations of the five finalists will be announced on JAT website on November 23, 2008.
The decision of the judges is final. There is no appeal or contesting of the results.
Awards in Detail
JAT will pay the following:
Round trip economy travel from home to IJET by the most direct route.
If traveling by train, "economy" includes a seat reservation, but excludes first class and sleeper fares.
If traveling by personal vehicle (e.g., car), base mileage allowances (as defined by the relevant tax authority) plus parking expenses (for a maximum three nights at the hotel where the winner is staying) shall be paid.
Hotel for three nights standard accommodation at or near the IJET venue.
Receipts are required for all reimbursements.
Travel arrangements and details will be discussed with the winners in advance of purchase.
Disqualification
The following are cause for disqualification.
Incomplete application
Entry received after the deadline
Entry under someone else’s name, or work done by someone other than the contestant
For the next in our release of full videos of several presentations from IJET-19, we're pleased to continue the series with the following presentation from Fred Uleman:
Title: Translation Workshop
Speaker: Fred Uleman
Abstract:
This is not a presentation in which I will give you the right answers. Rather, we will all be working on a short passage (a company president talking about how he turned things around) and will arrive at, if not the right answers, at least some interesting ways to approach the job, together. I will try to have a sample translation or two as starting points for the discussion, but these will not be my translations and I expect us to disagree with much of what they did. This is a discussion to bring out useful mental tricks that you can then use in your own translation work. Please come prepared to participate.
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(Note that these videos are available for members only. The password required to view the videos can be found on the JAT mailing list.)
Stay tuned for more presentation over the next few weeks and months!
JAT Director Chris Blakeslee, an economics and finance specialist, has written a thought-provoking article that frames everything a translator does in an economic perspective. Use the formulas he provides to find out whether it makes more economic sense for you to hire an editor or to use a bookkeeper, and enjoy the JAT nijikai beer knowing you are actually being paid for it!
The JAT Annual General Meeting was held on May 17, 2008 at the Forum 8 in Shibuya. All four voting items were passed by majority vote. For details, please see the official minutes.
For the next in our release of full videos of several presentations from IJET-19, we're pleased to continue the series with the following presentation from Atsushi Tomii:
The JAT board is pleased to announce that starting today, we'll be releasing full videos of several presentations from IJET-19, for our far-flung membership to enjoy. We hope that these videos will be a good resource for those who couldn't make it to Okinawa (or who could but couldn't make it out of bed in time).
We're kicking off the series with the following presentation from JAT director-elect Chris Blakeslee:
Title: Raising Productivity with Speech Recognition
Speaker: Chris Blakeslee
Abstract: When the translation industry made the leap a few decades ago to computer-based word processing, it left its typewriters behind. The next big leap, to speech recognition, does not require leaving our keyboards behind. Not only will I introduce you to this awesome technology, I will convince you to give it a try, or another try if your first attempt (like mine seven years ago) did not work out so well. My presentation includes a rarely attempted live demo, the equivalent of a trapeze artist performing without a net. As an added bonus, I'll unveil my productivity-boosting, zero-gravity cockpit layout. Get ready to strap in!
(Note that these videos are available for members only. The password required to view the videos can be found on the JAT mailing list.)
We'll be announcing more videos as we continue post-editing over the next few weeks and months, so stay tuned!
