SWET Forums

Review: How to Succeed As a Freelance Translator

2008-12-06T10:04:52+09:00

I recently had the opportunity to read Corinne McKay’s How to Succeed As a Freelance Translator, and I’m really glad I did.

I’ve been doing freelance translation for a number of years now, but this book made me wish I had read it before getting started. It would have helped me get off to a better start—and definitely would have helped me avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made.

A lot of the advice contained in this book you can get from working translators for the asking (for example, on SWET-L, Honyaku, or the JAT list), but this is the only resource I know of that gathers all of those useful tidbits of information into one convenient book.

McKay starts out with an overview of the translation business in the first chapter, and then follows it with practical advice on how to start and build up your business, maximize productivity, set up your office, make use of speech recognition and translation memory software, set and negotiate rates, and keep your clients satisfied. The book is written in general terms, so there is not a lot of advice specific to working as a translator in Japan, but it provides a great starting point for further exploration. (For information specific to Japan, take a look at Tom Gally’s Getting Started as a Translator: Gleanings from Honyaku.)

How to Succeed As a Freelance Translator can easily be read in a single day, but that one day’s worth of reading can really help you get off on the right foot for the rest of your career in freelance translation.

Creative Writing on the Web

2008-07-07T03:18:54+09:00

Whether I go to the 30 second writing clinic or a page like Hitotoki or any of dozens of others, I can get a booster shot for my writing during my daily Web surfing. Do you have a favorite Web site for writing on the fly and getting creative work flowing?

Acclaimed literary series Four Stories returns to Osaka - 6/15

2008-06-11T13:48:20+09:00

The acclaimed literary series Four Stories, which runs in Boston (USA), Osaka, and Tokyo, kicks off its summer 2008 season on June 15 in Osaka, with readings from the following published authors:

• Hans Brinckmann, Dutch-born ex-banker living in Tokyo and London, and the author of The Magatama Doodle, Noon Elusive, The Ballad of Hope Hill, and the forthcoming Showa Japan
• Deborah Iwabuchi, translator, author and long-time Japan Resident who has translated Crossfire (with Anna Isozaki) and Devil’s Whisper by Miyabe Miyuki, Beyond the Blossoming Fields (with Anna Isozaki) by Junichi Watanabe, Translucent Tree by Nobuko Takagi, Love From the Depths (with Kazuko Enda) by Tomihiro Hoshino, and others.
• Sarah Mulvey, instructor at Nanzan University in Nagoya and candidate for a Masters in Creative Writing (U. of Lancaster), where her thesis is “One Way to Tokyo - Experiences of Western Women in Japan”
• Owen Schaefer, Canadian writer living in Tokyo with work appearing in the expatriate anthology Jungle Crows, Dimsum Literary Journal, the Tokyo Advocate, and McGill Street Magazine; and winner of the New Brunswick Writers’ Federation prize for poetry

Each author will read in English from his or her fiction or nonfiction prose for 15 minutes, under the theme “Life among the Locals: Tales of expat writers in Japan”

The Four Stories experience: like a 19th-Century salon, only 150 years later?same socializing, same witty banter, corsets optional.

Venue:
Portugalia: Osaka’s hippest Portuguese bar and grill
Sunday, June 15
6-8pm (venue opens @ 5)
Nishi-Tenma 4-12-11, Umeda, Osaka
[Just north of the American Consulate]
06-6362-6668

Admittance free and open to the public

More information, plus free MP3s and pictures from past events, @ http://www.fourstories.org

Comments on “The Age of Spiritual Machines”?

2008-04-12T13:32:53+09:00

Recent discussion on SWET-L about what the future holds for machine translation and the need for humans to do related work turned to Ray Kurzweil’s The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. Anyone familar with the book have any comments on the prospects for human translators as machines evolve?

Also of interest in the discussion was this BBC article from earlier this year and a much earlier article in Wired, Why the future doesn’t need us.

Support SWET with your Amazon.co.jp purchases

2008-03-28T22:14:10+09:00

SWET has recently joined the Amazon.co.jp Associate program, which helps us raise money to support our activities. If you see a book here that you think you might like to buy, please consider ordering it via our Amazon search page.

Thank you!

Review: Effective Onscreen Editing

2007-09-26T06:11:35+09:00

Have you bought the online edition of this book? What do you think? Do you know other books that address the same topic?

Review: The First Five Pages

2007-09-26T05:29:11+09:00

Ginny Tapley reviewed The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile for the SWET Weblog.

Have you read this book? How is it? Do you know other books about the same topic?

Free Book: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

2007-04-01T13:54:48+09:00

I recently finished reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and thought I would make it available to anyone else who would like to read it.

My standard offer applies: Will send the book to anyone in Japan for free, but you have to pay the cost of shipping when the book arrives.

Free Book: The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

2007-03-02T00:30:01+09:00

I recently finished reading Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream and thought I would make it available to anyone else who would like to read it.

My standard offer applies: Will send the book to anyone in Japan for free, but you have to pay the cost of shipping when the book arrives.

Free Book: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

2007-02-12T17:44:17+09:00

I have a copy of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini that I have finished reading and would be willing to send chakubarai to anyone living in Japan. It’s quite good and can be yours for only the cost of shipping. Please let me know if you are interested.