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It all started when my parents bought me my first origami book. While I enjoyed folding along with the diagrams, I also took note of the accompanying English, roughly translated yet somehow charming. My parents and I agree that this is where my love affair with Japan and its language began.
Some years later, I found myself cocking my head at stodgy sentences and nodding approvingly at the occasional snappy dialogue I encountered in translated English video games. As many game aficionados do, I came to appreciate good translation jobs and to be able to point out specific weak points in those that were more poorly done, even with no real background in Japanese.
After a trip to Japan as a high school exchange student, I began studying Japanese in earnest with several Japanese titles from the classic Final Fantasy role-playing series of games. There were no opportunities for me to interact with native Japanese speakers in my life, and I found that the conversations between characters in video games provided valuable insight into how people really talked. I studiously looked up every kanji and slowly but surely worked through the game, picking up on a lot of grammar and some very specialized vocabulary (mahou, kabuto, ryuukishi) on the way. Believe it or not, some of these specialized words showed up on the first level Japanese Language Proficiency Test in 2001, bringing a nostalgic smile to my face.
Fast forward to last spring. I had been working as a full-time in-house translator in the automotive industry for about a year and a half when I read a message on the Honyaku mailing list from a company looking for translators interested in working on video games. I wrote back immediately, and after a little back and forth with the rep, I received my first video game translation job.
Over the next several months, I took on one game project after another, and I began to realize that this kind of freelancing was much more appealing to me than my full-time job. Moreover, I thought it would be nice to start building my freelance career on the side so I could leave my in-house position and work entirely from home once my husband and I start a family in a few years. I joined JAT, created a Website devoted to freelance J-E translation, and registered in a few online translator directories.
It didn't take more than a month for project submissions and requests for quotations to start trickling in; they ran the gamut from individuals wanting their resumes translated to agencies looking to get entire Websites translated into English. I've even done native-speaker proofreading for a Japanese J-E translator and translated a high school senior's graduation address, gratis.
I quickly learned I had to set my own rates, ballpark my turnaround time, figure out payment methods for clients worldwide, and know when to say no--all while juggling a full-time job and steady work from my original video game agency. Yet I rarely feel like I've bitten off more than I can chew; since freelancing is still very much a side-job bonus for me, I'm not afraid to quote the deadlines or rates I require--and I'm not concerned if I lose the occasional project because my conditions can't be met. I expect this may change when I leave my in-house position and freelancing is my only source of income, but for the time being, I'm content to take things slow.
I still try to find time to relax with a video game between jobs occasionally, only now I get to experience the added thrill of seeing my work in action. I hope I won't be grimacing at any clunky work I hesitatingly recognize as mine.