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Bob Oliver is well-known to many members as a long-time JAT treasurer. David Atwool talked to him about his translation work and his experiences in JAT.
What originally brought you to Japan?
Like many Americans of my generation, I first came here as a GI. That was in 1966. I fell in love with Japan and I’ve been here ever since. After I came out of the military I spent a year at Keio as a sort of self-powered exchange student.
How did you get started in translation?
By accident, really. Around twenty years ago people started asking me to translate things, so I did. I’d like to stress that translation has always been a side job for me. My primary source of income is the university teaching job I’ve had for the last 36 years.
I understand you have worked part-time as an in-house translator for many years. What do you think are the pros and cons of translating in-house?
The main disadvantage is the pay. I wouldn’t work in-house if it were my primary source of income, simply because it’s not very lucrative, but it’s OK for supplementary income. Hourly rates for in-house work typically range from 1,500 to 5,000 yen. That’s less than an aggressive person working through agencies will make, and much less than someone working for direct clients. The basic problem is that there is a glass ceiling. At 5,000 yen an hour, if you work full time you will make as much as a bucho, which is just not acceptable to most companies. The company can justify paying more to an outside supplier, but not to an employee.
But there are advantages to in-house work. For a young person starting out, it’s a fantastic learning experience. You tend to deal with the people who wrote the material or people who are just one step removed, so it’s easy to get feedback. On an important job, there may be a lot of negotiation between you and the writer. You’re in a situation where you are surrounded by technical people, and this tends to rub off on you. You learn new things every day and gain a lot of field-specific knowledge.
Another big advantage is that you have free time. It’s hard to keep an in-house translator busy all the time. When there’s no work to do, you can study and still get paid. And when there is work, there’s no pressure to produce a certain number of words per hour, so within reason you can pretty much work at your own pace. That’s very important for a beginner, but it’s nice even for an experienced translator, because you can be a perfectionist. On top of that, it’s fun to get out of the house, work as part of a team, go to the bonenkai, and so on.
In short, I don’t recommend in-house work as a career. You can learn a lot, but you can’t really get ahead. People who stay in-house too long hurt themselves, because they don’t take advantage of what they’ve learned to gain more income. But an in-house job can be ideal for someone starting out or just looking for supplementary income.
Are there any essential skills or personality traits for in-house work?
It doesn’t suit prima donnas. You need to have good interpersonal skills in a Japanese working environment, and that means being able to go with the flow and play by the rules of the workplace. Freelance work offers more freedom to tell people what you think.
You specialize in automotive translation. How did you get started in that field?
That was accidental too. I’d been interested in cars since I was a kid, but I didn’t have any background in the field. A couple of decades ago I started working part-time for a printing company whose primary customer is Isuzu and I acquired a lot of field-specific knowledge on the job.
What kind of documents do you translate?
Mostly technical reports and manuals – especially corrections and additions. Occasionally I work on owners’ manuals, which are fun because the conversational tone allows for more creativity, but most of the material I work on is for mechanics and service people.
Over the last 20 years there has been an enormous shift from paper to CD-ROM. It’s far simpler to amend a CD-ROM than a 1,000-page paper manual, so the volume of work has increased.
What are the biggest challenges in automotive translation?
I guess the problems are the same as those for translators in any field. You are dealing with two very dissimilar languages. Often the original writers are not very interested in writing – they are more focused on getting their hands dirty and doing the actual work. So much of the translator’s skill involves knowing what’s been left out in Japanese and needs to be said in English, or vice versa. If you translate only the words from the source document, something may well be missing from your translation.
Another challenge is that the automotive field will change very quickly in the near future, with the increase in hybrid cars and, beyond that, fuel cell vehicles. Hybrid engines are opening up a whole new sub-field. Emission control technology is another growing field, because new regulatory requirements are being introduced all the time.
Automotive translation encompasses many things: mechanics, electrics, electronics, chemistry, and so on. But this can be an advantage for the beginner, since you get a good background in a broad range of fields. Better still, there’s not too much depth in each area, since car makers focus on building engines and assembling vehicles. The super-technical work is handled by subcontractors, so the documentation that comes to a car manufacturer is at a level that is relatively easy to understand.
Do you have any advice for aspiring automotive translators?
As I mentioned, an in-house job is a good place to start. Set yourself a goal of, say, two years and learn as much as you can. Ultimately you’ll need to get out, because in-house work is a dead end. After that, you get better by just doing more work in the field and taking it seriously. You’re always a little bit smarter after you’ve finished a job than you were when you started it. Sometimes translating is like getting paid to study – and you can’t wait to translate the next page to find out what’s going to happen!
You’ve been a JAT member for twelve years and spent nine of those as JAT treasurer. You must have seen a lot of changes in that time.
When I first joined JAT it only had 70 or 80 members. So in those days treasurer was a manageable job for a volunteer, even though I had no experience in that kind of role. As the membership doubled and quadrupled it got a lot more difficult. Eventually JAT hired a paid administrator and that gave me a chance to step aside from the role.
I feel that JAT is a very worthwhile organization and I’m glad I was part of keeping it running. The downside was that a very small core of people did almost all the work. One year I was president and treasurer as well as helping organize the IJET conference. The people who were really active in the organization tended to think, “If I don’t do it, who will?”
There was quite a shakeup when Paul Flint and the other new directors came in. I have nothing but praise for them, they’ve done a wonderful job. I think the old crew had become set in its ways and it was good to have some new blood.
In retrospect, I think we made a mistake when we halved the dues to 5,000 yen. It resulted in an enormous increase in membership, but it brought in a lot of amateurs – people who were not really committed to translation. I’m glad the new directors had the courage to put the dues back up to 10,000 yen.
Another good move the new directors made is only holding meetings when they have a speaker, and charging for them. We had become too set on holding meetings every month. The quality of the meetings has gone up now.
What do you think are JAT’s strengths?
One reason JAT is such a strong organization is that we have always taken good care of the money. I recall the treasurer of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan – an organization with a membership of businesspeople and other fat-cats – once asking me how much we had in our treasury. When I told her it was about 6.5 million yen she was dumbfounded. She said, “When we have a meeting, we have to subscribe it to raise the money to pay the speaker!” That made me realize just how good a job we had done in managing the finances.
Another thing we have always been very good at is running the IJET conferences. And that links back to the sound money management – because we always have a surplus to work with, the preparations can proceed smoothly and we never have to worry about going broke.
I was involved in organizing four IJETs: 7, 9, 11 and 13. The most important thing is to create a situation where people run into one another. The sessions are a vehicle for doing this, but what happens between the sessions is often more important than what happens during them.
IJETs need a lot of organization: registration, money, food, rooms, program and so on. I got a tremendous sense of pride out of being involved in organizing successful IJETs. To tell the truth, there were a couple where I didn’t even attend the sessions. I just sat in the corridor watching everybody and thinking, “Wow, I helped make all this happen!”
We don’t have to worry about the money for IJETs, but we do need a core of people to organize them. I really recommend getting involved in one. It’s great fun.
How do you see the future of JAT?
JAT does have some problems. Sometimes I think people don’t understand what they have joined. Some members are not serious translators and seem more interested in learning English. Others seem to think JAT is a kind of employment agency and they get disappointed when they find out that it’s not. Some people seem to think the organization should be an advocacy group. They want to write a pamphlet to hand out on the street to tell people why they should hire a native English speaker to translate into English. Others think we should set up some kind of accreditation system.
I believe we should keep things simple. JAT is a loose organization of translators that allows people to throw ideas back and forth. It’s important to remember that it’s not just an organization for native English speakers. Roughly half of all members are native speakers of Japanese, and some are native speakers of other languages such as German and French. So I don’t see a role for JAT as an advocacy group that just pushes the interests of one part to the membership. Nor do I think we have the resources to get involved in issues like accreditation.
We should always be prepared to try new things to see if they work. The current board has done a great job of that. But we have to recognize that our resources and abilities are limited and take care not to over-commit ourselves. Above all, I believe JAT should remain a forum for translators to exchange ideas.
David Atwool is a Tokyo-based freelance translator who specializes in corporate and government communications.