Blogging
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Ask Haruki Murakami Questions for Time Blog
Time Blog’s 10 questions: “Each week in TIME Magazine and on Time.com, 10 Questions gives readers a chance to put their own questions to newsmakers, celebrities, and world leaders. Check every week for a new guest.” Today Time asked for questions for Haruki Murakami. Go here to ask yours!
Thursday, May 01, 2008
SWET Weblog Starts Today
Starting today and going on for the next six months, a team of volunteer bloggers will be posting here regularly on matters of interest (we hope) to wordsmiths. One of our bloggers, Peter Durfee, has already gotten started; you can read his introductory post here. We hope you will visit regularly and share your ideas on the topics raised in this weblog.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Please allow me . . .
To introduce myself, as the song goes. I’m Peter Durfee, and I’m posting this (my first contribution to the SWET blog section; yoroshiku) from Tokyo, where I first came as a high-school student in 1985.
I call myself a translator. Nominally this is what my job description has been for the last 12 years or so, but I’ve been in-house at a company called Japan Echo all that time, which means certain things:
- Early on I spent my time soaking up what I could from more experienced senpai, being more of a student than a translator.
- As time went on I began taking on lots more translation of my own, but the variety of work my company took on meant that I was also handling transcription, interviews, writing from scratch in English, and on-site translation that was almost like interpreting—take furious notes as the VIP speaks and get the gist of his comments on the web as soon as possible.
- In more recent years I’ve become a “senior-class” person in the company, which means I do lots more editing of stuff by younger translators and freelancers we use.
So it’s been a job filled with variety, and today I fit mostly into the E and T parts of SWET.
The Japanese government has always been my company’s main client. Japan Echo magazine, our flagship publication, sees a healthy chunk of its print run bought up by the Foreign Ministry, which distributes copies to libraries and researchers via its embassies and consulates. Most people who have heard of the journal think of it as a Japanese governmental publication as a result, so my business card trips the amakudari alarm when I hand it out to people aware of such things.
We are independent and always have been, though, and given the government’s recent tendency to slash budgets for new projects and cut rates for existing ones (we do white papers and websites and so on that are official .go.jp publications in addition to our own magazines), we’ve been branching out aggressively into corporate work over the last five or six years. This switch in the client base will provide some interesting material for my posts in the coming months, I hope . . . It’s interesting to look at the different demands that clients have with respect to the style of the target-language documents depending on whether they want to make a favorable impression on the Japanese bureaucracy and taxpayers or on potential investors and consumers.
That should be enough for a “howdy nicetameetchya” post, so let’s see if I’ve got the settings right in MarsEdit and try to upload this entry.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
New Technology and the J-E Translator (2)
Richard Sadowsky, longtime SWET member, Apple user, and freelance translator, is often on the road in and out of Japan. He works with his arsenal of tools to keep productivity high, and shares his insights with SWET through an interview developed into the “Top Ten Tech Tools for Translators.” Five were described in the first part of this interview, with the remaining five here.
Q: The first five tools you covered earlier generally involved hardware of some sort: electronic dictionaries, noise-canceling headphones, a backup hard drive, a low-tech copyholder, and a portable text-input device. You placed them in categories of: Get Organized, Get Comfortable, and Translate!
RS: Actually I’d like to re-classify those categories, if I may, into: Prepare, Translate!, and Improve.
Q: Can you explain?
RS: Sure. If I tried to get everything in my life Organized before feeling Comfortable enough to sit down and Translate!, I doubt I’d get any work done at all. So, to reframe: Simply prepare, then work. Later, do what you can to improve the process.
Q: What’s with the exclamation point?
RS: Um, importance signifier? The importance of the central goal—getting the job done. . . .
Q: So, what are the next five for the Top Ten list?
RS: Okay. Five more translator tools: an ergonomic keyboard, a large flat-panel LCD monitor, OCR software in combination with a virtual fax system/scanner, keitai email, and a good macro program.
Among the improvements I’ve made in my office setup this year are the addition of an ergonomic keyboard and a 19” flat-panel LCD monitor to my notebook computer. Both are plug-and-play devices that have had an immediate impact on productivity and comfort! I chose a Goldtouch for Mac. 
It’s great. It’s a split keyboard that tents up and can be adjusted for “splay” and “pronation” in any increments you desire. Everyone knows the benefits, so I won’t go into them (avoidance of carpal tunnel syndrome, etc.). 
It sits on a laptop desk on my lap, which leans between an office armchair and the desk. Next to the keyboard is a Logitech Trackman Wheel. I sit with my feet up or one knee under and the other extended and can touch type while sitting back from the desk. If I had to find a drawback to the keyboard it would have to be that 
the Apple Control key is out of the way, so I had to reset a bunch of macros that my fingers had learned to different key combinations, and remap the Caps Lock and Apple Control keys. With Tiger (Mac OS X) that can be done easily in the Keyboard Preference Pane. And as with any new keyboard, it takes some time to get your fingers/brain used to the raised bump on the ‘F’ and ‘J’ keys to locate the home keys unconsciously. All in all, I feel that the Goldtouch was a good choice for me.
Q: How about the monitor? Why did you get that model or want a flat panel in the first place?
Most of the Japanese documents I receive to translate are in Word format, but in some cases they arrive as Excel files, or PDF files that are pictures, not copyable text. Especially in those cases, legibility is an issue. To print and enlarge is one solution, and something that I had to resort to often over the last year. Being able to enlarge text on a big screen, especially when a legible font size makes the paragraph width very wide, is a godsend.
Since my main computer is a 12” notebook (at the moment a G4 iBook, but perhaps something newer this year), I felt it was time to finally increase my screen real estate. Prices have come down so much so that there is no reason NOT to buy a flat panel monitor anymore! For a desktop machine, it’s also possible to buy a second and use dual monitors. One quickly becomes used to whatever screen size one has, and soon wants more. What for? To keep multiple programs open and viewable at the same time, of course.
Q: So, why just a 19” monitor? Why not a 20.1” wide or 24” wide-screen monitor? I hear the Dell 24” wide monitor is very nice.
RS: Yes, larger monitors are available, but I was looking for a good price point as a primary consideration. For 32,000 yen I got a 
BenQ FP93V because its brightness, sharp text display, and design stood out from the rest when I saw it at the Yodobashi Camera store in Osaka. The clear text display was my main consideration, along with price. I also chose it for its design, as my office decor is white and this one would fit in very nicely. 
It won the 2006 iF Design Award (Germany) for product design in the computer category for its Mac Mini-compatible design. A wide-screen version of this model has just come out: BenQ FP93VW.
Q: How do you like the LCD monitor?
RS: I love it. The first thing I did was reduce its brightness to 42 from 100 to lessen eye strain. To get the monitor to work at full resolution with a G4 iBook as a dual monitor (not just in lower resolution “mirror mode”), you have to use the “Screen Spanning Doctor” open firmware hack. The developer (Klaus, in Germany) helped me to get it working. At first it wouldn’t install on a Japanese system, but switching to English temporarily for the install worked! Now I can enlarge those PDFs to a legible size and still have room to work in a word processing document. Plus do lots more. If I want to use the notebook without the monitor, I just unplug it and the menu bar and folders return to the notebook screen without problem.
Q: Just for comparison’s sake, what was your second choice, or other features that you were considering?
RS: Actually I read a lot of user reviews and ratings of specific monitor models in Japanese on sites like kakaku.com (the “kuchi-komi” section related to each product). It’s always important to read reviews because similar models, even from the same manufacturer can get entirely different ratings in terms of quality and usability. But I never could have made a decision without seeing it on display in a store. Some features that one should consider are at least a 3-year automatic warranty and angle adjustability, and in Japan, compliance with the recycling law. Again, I’m happy with the BenQ on all of these accounts.
Q: How is the third tool you chose, OCR software in combination with a virtual fax system/scanner, helpful in getting the job done?
RS: Again, since I’m Mac-centric, the only truly viable option for Japanese character recognition was eTypist. For the Mac it’s v8.0. For Windows v11.0 is available. As I live in Japan, the free virtual fax system I use is D-FAX. With this system, an incoming fax is received as a TIFF file. Multi-page TIFFs I open in GraphicConverter. Sometimes I receive incoming faxes on an eMac that is usually asleep and if I wake it up when the fax line rings, it receives a fax and sends it by email to an account I specify. eTypist can scan PDFs and TIFFs and turn pictures of text into actual, copy-and-pastable text, which is what you need for looking things up in online dictionaries or the Web. 
I also bought a scanner very cheaply at Yahoo! Japan Auctions (CanoScan LiDe 40) that works just fine for actual paper. I was looking for any Canon scanner that had a native OS X driver. It takes some time to learn to use the software, but once you do, it saves a huge amount of time, because you no longer need to decipher and look up difficult kanji. Actually, I bought the (cheaper) upgrade version, but the software never asked for a serial number from a previous version.
Q: Fourth, keitai email. How do you use that for better productivity on-the-job?
RS: Well, actually I have a client who is constantly on the move, and asks me to notify him of a translation I have sent to his computer via a cc to his cell phone. He then can pick it up at a WiFi spot at his next convenience. I sometimes use it in a similar way, asking a client to send email to my cell phone, so that I know immediately when a job arrives. In the summer, when I’m traveling in the States and Hawaii, I’ll have to work out how to keep in contact with my clients to make it a working holiday. This is getting into communications tools, but sometimes it pays to buy a cheap prepaid cell phone when traveling to another country, and use a callback system like United World Telecom. I’ll let you know in the autumn what I manage to do in the summer.
Q: Lastly, you recommend a good macro program? What, precisely, is that?
RS: A macro program is software that you can use to “learn” a sequence of repetitive steps that you always perform on your computer. I use Quickeys for the Mac, a program I’ve been using since its earliest incarnation. There’s also iKey, which the company calls “script software,” or Keyboard Maestro and the like. For Windows, there AutoHotKey and others.
Q: Can you give an example of how you use the software?
RS: I suppose the thing I do most often is copy and paste from the genkō in my word processor to either a dictionary or to Google for lookup. The steps are: copy, switch (open) program, paste, return. . . . For copying into Firefox, Cmd-K highlights the Google search box, so that step goes in. If you do certain sequences of steps with regularity, it is well worth the time spent learning to build and tweak a macro using a system-wide macro program so that you simply invoke the sequence with a single key combination. There’s a lot more you can do with a macro program, but even just for quick lookups, I couldn’t live without it.
Q: Do you have any other productivity tips or something still on your wishlist?
Well, any productivity tool can interfere with getting things done if you spend too much time playing around with it. More important than tools is really cultivating and maintaining a state of mind that you will just sit down and work, get something out of the way to make room for more. Overcome procrastination however possible. As far as a wishlist, aside from the Nintendo DS Lite, I’m thinking of a handwritten kanji input system for my computer. 
I’m not sure what it involves just yet—a low-cost tablet-and-stylus with Japanese software that does the handwriting recognition. That would be a useful improvement. And then, perhaps something that allows me to work while lying on my back, like the Laptop Laidback, or leaning back, like the Levenger Lap Desk.
Q: Can we look forward to an on-going column here, with the next installment to come in the fall after your trip to Seattle, Hawaii, and other places?
RS: Sure! It will be great to share what I learn this summer implementing a “working holiday” lifestyle. I’ll have to leave behind some of the office technologies I’ve just mentioned to go mobile, but the change of scenery will more than make up for it!
Thursday, August 24, 2006
New Technology and the J-E Translator
Richard Sadowsky, based on Awajishima, has been in Japan since 1983, an Apple user since 1987, freelance translator for eighteen years, and a member of SWET for about as long. He works in an ever-changing virtual lounge chair, at home and on the road, the experience and expertise for which he shares regularly in articles. A self-described tech geek, the scent of a new technology puts a gleam in his eye and a tingle in his fingertips. Asked about the latest in tech tools for translators, he zeroed in on the top ten, five of which are described here, with the rest to come in the next interview.
Q: What are the first five tools you think essential for today’s plugged-in, highly productive translator?
RS: Well, I don’t know if these will work for everyone, but the way I would classify my tools is into three categories—those that help me: get organized, get comfortable, and translate. Most of the tools I’ll talk about will fall into one category or another naturally. There’s one hidden factor that maybe doesn’t deserve its own category, but is part of using your tools—the ability to get motivated from them. When you like using your tools, from a simple pen to a high-tech gadget, they add that little something extra that will make you more productive with less stress.
Q: Would you like to start right away with tools that help you translate? What electronic dictionaries or glossaries do you never work without?
RS: Eijiro is my first-line tool. It’s available online free, but I always prefer to have the dictionary on my hard drive. It used to be a packaged CD-ROM sold with manual and all, then just a CD-R, now a download. Caveat: you have to go through a complicated signup process with Nifty.com and get subscribed to a mail announcement list that is difficult to unsubscribe from (especially if you lose your NIFTY ID). Still, it’s worth it and I like to get the bigger, better version every year and a half or so. For the Mac I use Eijiro Viewer. What do Windows users use I wonder? (Try saying that a few times fast.)
Q: Now that my tongue is twisted, tell me how you use Eijiro.
RS: I usually copy and paste something into Eijiro first, which is especially useful for finding compounds or phrases, something that other dictionary lookup interfaces don’t often allow. This gives me either an answer or a good start and then I go to other electronic dictionaries, or straight to Google to search for context. In fact, this brings up the question of whether it’s possible to translate without broadband Internet access anymore. It’s hard to go back to that age of looking things up in paper references. Five years ago all one really needed was basic email, but now I find myself turning to the Web for absolutely any question. This, of course, can turn into a major distraction if one is not disciplined. Sometimes I wind up spending 15 minutes looking for a single term. That’s too much time when you’re right in the middle of translating something. I have to learn to just flag something, move on, and come back to it later.
Q:While we’re on the topic of electronic dictionaries, do you use a handheld electronic dictionary?
RS: I’ve owned two in the past (a Canon Wordtank and a Sony Data Discman) and am jones-ing for a new one for the first time in years… the Nintendo DS Lite.
Q: Isn’t that just a game machine?
RS: Thanks to a recent demonstration, I saw that it isn’t. You can buy a cartridge dictionary for it—the Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten—which is superb. It’s cheaper than other handheld electronic dictionaries, and excels especially in its handwriting recognition, so that you can search by drawing the character! This dictionary just came out in April, 2006. It even has memory quizzes and brain teasers that are great mental sharpeners! And when the Nintendo eventually gives up the ghost in a few years, you still have the dictionary. It doesn’t disappear when the electronics go bad, something that broke my heart with the Canon Wordtank.
The Nintendo DS Lite will set you back about ¥16,800 and the cartridge dictionary is another ¥4,000. Nintendo also has other cartridges, so you can use it for gaming as well, or even WiFi Internet access.
Q: So how much of the Nintendo DS Lite would be for work and how much for play? It sounds like your productive time could be eaten up very quickly.
RS: That’s a good question, and I won’t know until I get it and see. But one thing is for sure—the handwriting recognition will be great for helping remember how to draw characters. If what you draw is not an exact match to a kanji, it gives you a popup selection. After finding what you need, you can then choose from a list of compounds. Because it’s fun to play with, you might just choose a different character to see how it is read or what it means.
Q: What’s next on your list?
RS: How about a Web site that converts Pinyin to English? Does that count? I mean, how often these days do you come across Chinese names that you need to romanize? Especially since you can’t Google them very easily. I just copy and paste into this bookmarked site. It does multiple characters at a time, which is great, but you still have to know where to parse the output. Try this, for example: ????
For the above example, the output is: wen1 zhou1 long2 gang3
You have to parse that into Wenzhou City’s Longgang Town, known as “China’s Printing City.”
And, for Korean place names, another one.
Q: Very helpful! What are other very new, or still most useful, quick-and-dirty online aids for the J-E translator?
RS: Online sites could be a list unto itself, but how about one more for now: Ever forget the word you’re sure you know? Or have a need for a reverse dictionary? Try OneLook.
Q: Using a laptop as your office base, you must have other small devices that make work flow better.
RS: I’m thinking portability here. For concentration purposes: a baseball cap and headphones. A cap or visor will cut down on light that reaches your eyes, 
causing less eyestrain. If you like to listen to music while you translate, headphones are a great investment. If you want to get technical, noise-canceling headphones are even better for blocking out other sounds while you work. I’ve been using a pair of Sony MDR-NC5 headphones for years now, and though they sometimes put too much pressure on the ears, they work as advertised. (There are many types of noise cancelling headphones available these days, including ear canal types.) When you can’t control the external environment, at least you can block it out.
Q: What is third on your list of “never start without”?
RS: Don’t all those links in the first question count? Okay. Number three is backup. You know the truism—there are two kinds of computer users: those who back up their data and those who haven’t lost any data yet. For a Mac user like me, this means an external Firewire drive, because a USB 2.0 drive is not bootable. I have a couple of 3.5-inch desktop drives, but I’m thinking a 2.5-inch portable might be a good investment. These smaller-footprint (2.5-inch) drives cost about the same for 80 GB as about 250 GB 3.5-inch drives these days (as of August 2006), but if you’re going to be traveling overseas for any substantial amount of time, you have to take one with you. Then, I use SuperDuper for my backup software.
Q: Is everything you use high-tech? Or are there any garden-variety items that help boost productivity?
RS: Believe it or not, a copy holder is an essential piece of equipment. In the stationery section of Tokyu Hands they sell do-it-yourself copy holder pieces. These are snap-together pieces of plastic in different shapes and sizes. I clip mine onto the edge of my laptop screen and it brings the paper closer to my eyes. For a desktop copy holder I use a simple Carl C-55E that they call a “genkō-dai.” For ¥300, you can find one in the Konan home centers. But these days I’m receiving a lot of PDF files and for viewing those, a large flat-panel monitor is an excellent piece of equipment. Prices have come down as quality keeps going up. You can get anything from 19 to 24-inch for ¥30,000 to ¥74,000. One of these is high up on my list of next office improvements. But you have to go to a store like Yodobashi camera and do a sight comparison for yourself when it comes to buying a monitor. I’d like to get people’s recommendations.
Q: You filled us in on the “fab four”; what’s the fifth translator tech tool to round things off this time?
RS: A portable text-input device that is smaller than a notebook computer and has much more battery life. I have used an Alphasmart Pro, a Psion Series 5 (one of my favorites), and currently a very retro Palm IIIx with GoType keyboard that I bought used several years ago, but still works with Mac OS X up to System 10.4 because of Palm Desktop 4.2.1. The idea here is to have some kind of keyboard device to type into (for speed, it must be touch typeable, so no thumb keyboards) that you can take with you somewhere and work on when either you don’t want to carry a computer or there won’t be enough battery life for extended periods of time. So you might even get a good deal on a used Palm at an online auction, or get one from a friend that is still in good shape, and then you can go really portable.
Richard, you given us some ideas to spruce up our work area for speed and comfort. We’re looking forward to the next group of five-best items for the tech-enchanced translator!