Health Insurance and Freelance Translators
Translating/Interpreting 
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For any freelancers–translators or others–there’s a good discussion of what various freelance translators in the U.S. do for health insurance on the Honyaku GoogleGroup at http://groups.google.com/group/honyaku/browse_thread/thread/ede45eb284546152?hl=en. (You need to sign up and be a member of the group to see the discussion, btw.)
WIT Life #29: International Recognition to Wipe Away Domestic Woes
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WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Interpreter/Translator/Writer Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03). Recently she’s been watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
For those of you who didn’t tune in to the Academy Awards last night, Japan cleaned up in all the categories in which it received nominations. Going against heavily favored Waltzing with Bashir from Israel, Director Yojiro Takita’s Okuribito (Departures) took the award for Best Foreign Language Film. Since the establishment of this award in 
1957, Japan Read More
WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Interpreter/Translator/Writer Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03). Recently she’s been watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
Today’s news profiled companies that are not only surviving this tough economic climate but prospering in it. The first was McDonald’s, who in America was also one of the retailers along with Walmart that reported positive gains last year. In Japan its success 
is attributed to the revamping of the coffee served there dubbed McCafe. Its taste was reformed last February, and 2008 sales saw great improvement over the previous year (for hot coffee growth of 40 million cups, for cold 20 million cups). It goes for 120 yen, and a survey of customers during the peak 7:45-8 a.m. 15-minute period found that 50 out of 63 customers purchased coffee. One of those 50 asked about its taste responded with a satisfied smile, “It tastes just like can coffee.” Keeping stores open 24 hours and expanding the 100 yen menu McDonald’s also contributed to the store’s success.
Japanese convenience stores have also been seeing their sales grow. This is directly related to the introduction of the Taspo last May. This is a smart card from the Tobacco Institute of Japan issued to adults (20 or older) so that they can use the age verification tobacco vending machines. A recent survey indicated that only Read More
There’s a good discussion on the Honyaku Google Group about why J->E translators seem to be very busy despite the bad economy. I’ve attempted to summarize some of them below, but you can find the full discussion by signing up for the group at http://groups.google.com/group/honyaku/. Definitely worth signing up if you work in (or want to work in) the Japanese-English translation field.
Suggested theories for why Japanese-English translation work has increased:
- Companies are cutting costs by outsourcing work to the market that used to be done in house
- A variant on the outsourcing theory: Many jobs were already budgeted and need to get done, but with layoffs there are fewer in-house workers so more is going to the translators. i.e., It’s a short-terms windfall.
- A variant on the short-term windfall: With more layoffs and fewer in-house employees, using a cheaper translator actually becomes more expensive because it requires more work by in-house employees to fix it up. Therefore, it makes more sense to give the work to higher quality translators who will be more accurate the first time around. (Note: I’m paraphrasing but probably could have worded this better.)
- Patent translation tends to be longer term work and is unaffected
- If you’re a good translator, you’ll continue to get work regardless
- As March approaches, departments in Japanese companies need to use up their budgets so that they don’t get shrunk the next time around
- Spring is just usually the busiest season for translation
- More translation work from U.S. (and less from Japan) because yen is stronger than the dollar and this makes U.S.-based translators relatively cheap labor
- Downturn has forced part-time and less-experienced translators out of the business leaving more work for more established translators
- For finance/investor relations work, there’s a short-term increase because the economic crisis has forced companies to disseminate press releases and other communications to all of their investors/consumers.
Feel free to post more theories and other comments for the benefit of the JET/JET Alum/Friend of JET/JetWit community in the comments section of this post.
Job: Japanese Teaching Job in Baltimore County (MD)
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Via Marc Hitzig JETAA DC who works for the Japan-America Society of Washington, D.C.:
Japanese Teaching Job in Baltimore County
Dear JETAAs & FOJs,
This job announcement just came across my desk. They need a teacher to start in March or April.
Below is a teaching job in Baltimore County, MD. If you are interested please contact
John Neubauer
Educational Specialist
World and Classical Languages Read More
WIT Life #27: Reinventing Valentine’s Day
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WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Interpreter/Translator/Writer Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03). Recently she’s been watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
In the midst of the economic slump and the fact that Valentine’s Day falls on a Saturday this year, Japan’s chocolate companies are really stretching the meaning of the holiday. Because it will not be celebrated on a weekday, they will be losing the lucrative income from “Giri Choco” (obligation chocolate) which is customarily given by females to the males in their office. In order to make up for this, several innovations have taken place.
Chocolate companies are anticipating that many families will be spending V- Day together with “sugomori” or nesting, much like was seen over New Years. In preparation for this, new flavors such as strawberry and marshmallow were designed and Read More
Jobs: 3 Japan-related jobs in Houston area
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Three job listings from an Interesse recruiter via the JETAA Texahoma email list:
1. Entry level position with a toy company, but requires business level Japanese. It is for a toy company. Pay is between $30-50K. You would be training in Japan and then working in either the US or Asia. If you are interested, please email me your resume and reference this email and job #37209.
2. I have a 3-4 month contract position near IAH for $10-12/hour. It is entry level. If you are interested in getting your foot in the door in a Japanese company, this might be a good opportunity. Job #37291
3. I have an entry level steel sales position near Memorial Mall. It requires Japanese language skills but that is all. Job #36546. $35-50K Read More
The question has been raised by a JET alum translator/interpreter:
“Does anybody have an idea what the going rate for telephone interpretation (E<>J) is?”
Please post any responses in the comment section.
Job: Japanese Business News Translator/Editor – Bloomberg – (NYC)
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Via CareerJet.com. (See CareerJet’s job feeds for Japanese-US jobs and Japanese-NY jobs in sidebar on JetWit):
Japanese Business News Translator/Editor
Bloomberg – New York City, NY
Japanese Business News Translator/EditorJob Requisition Number: 22880United StatesNew York – NY… to join our Japanese language service in New York. Responsibilities include the selection, translation and editing…
www.jobcircle.com – February 10 – Save this job
Job: Foreign affairs researcher – Asahi Newspaper (Tokyo)
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Via JETAA DC:
Job opening at the Asahi Newspaper
Yoichi Funabashi is hiring a foreign affairs researcher. Preference will likely be given to those in Tokyo, Japan already.
JetWit would like to extend a big omedetou gozaimashita to professional translator and writer Kia Cheleen (CIR, Aichi-ken 1996-98, ALT 1998-1999) who was recently named Assistant Director at the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia Unviversity. The position was previously held by Miho Walsh, former JET Coordinator at the Consulate General of Japan (NY) who left the Donald Keene Center to become Associate Director at the Asian Cultural Council.
JetWit is happy to see that JET alums are movin’ on up (movin’ on up), to the West Side.
Roland Kelts special on NPR’s Studio360 to air Saturday morning
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JetWit just received the official press release from WNYC’s Studio 360 regarding their exclusive Studio 360 Goes to Japan program, featuring a segment written and hosted by Roland Kelts (Osaka, 1998-99), which will air this Saturday on NPR stations nationwide. Content, including video, will go live on the Studio 360 web site (http://www.studio360.org/) starting at 6 p.m. today (See the full press release below.)
The segment Roland wrote and hosted is focused on Japan’s Youth Culture and its various pathologies, especially the struggles of haken, or temporary workers, amid the imploding global economy.
Additionally, JetWit has learned that Roland is booked for an interview tomorrow afternoon with Nippon Television for their nightly news and entertainment program, News Zero. He will be interviewed by pop idol and actor Sho Sakurai of the band Arashi, and director Takashi Miike, both of whom are in town to promote the latter’s forthcoming live action film version of the 70s anime series, Yatterman. The interview will be about the Japanese pop culture juggernaut. Read More
MyShigoto.com – Jobs in Japan
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I just found out about a new job site for jobs in Japan called MyShigoto.com started by a guy named Daniel Davis. There’s now a box in the sidebar of JetWit with the RSS feed from MyShigoto.com, so you can see the latest listings as well.
Jobs: Two Bilingual IT Job Listings
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Marc Hitzig of the Japan-America Society in Washington, D.C. shared these two job listings with the JETAA DC group list. If you are interested in the positions, please contact them directly and let them know that you found out through Japan-America Society of DC.
Job1: Mainframe Engineer – Bilingual 1245
Job2: Telecom Network Specialist – Bilingual 1242 Read More
WIT Life #26: Yen-pinching
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WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Interpreter/Translator/Writer Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03). Recently she’s been watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
Stories regarding ways to save a few yen just keep on coming. Today’s news polled eating and drinking establishments in the Tokyo area to see what effect the recession is having on them, and 7 out of 12 said that there hadn’t been much of an impact. Whether being hit or not, these days they are forced to come up with a variety of ideas to stay in business and keep customers satisfied.
One spot featured was a tachinomi (stand and drink) place that largely relies on self service. Here you can buy beer and other drinks from vending machines for as low as 150 yen, and small dishes such as sausage can be purchased from a kiosk for 60 yen. This one-man shop saw Read More
