i've recently been applying for jobs translating/localizing videos games from japanese to english (and vice versa), but my lack of professional experience keeps me from getting hired... my bad luck thus far has led me to start working on unofficial rom translations to build up my experience points
i recently re-translated the original NES bionic commando game and will soon be starting work on a few more games. it's interesting to note how many things were changed between the original japanese and official english scripts... if i get around to it, i'd like to start a blog detailing these differences from games i'll be working on.
anyone on the board translate professionally? any advice or experiences you can share?
I don't do translation work, but I might be able to help point you in the right way:
Aeon Genesis is responsible for some of the best free rom translations out there. If you are looking to build your resume, contact them and see if they can use your skills as you build up a resume. http://agtp.romhack.net/
Here's a few companies that are working on localizing japanese doujin games. You might want to get in touch with them to see if there is work available. This would give you a chance to work on smaller indie games before getting into the business of localizing games from major studios in Japan.
In your line of work, I would think that translating some visual novels would be a good place to prove you know what you are doing. Check the Visual Novel Database for games that aren't translated yet, then set to translating something: http://vndb.org/
ThePatrick on GameFAQs professionally translates and is very friendly. I'm sure he'd respond to a PM on the subject. I'm not sure what exactly he does, but I know he deals with Japan directly and I'm sure he'd be able to offer some insight on the subject.
I've never done translations professionally, but I've done tons of translating for people. Mostly car repair manuals and other car-related literature (A lot of Hyper Rev books). I did get offered a job for translating law materials as a side job while living in Japan, but I turned it down because I would be bored out of my mind. For me I think it would lose its fun factor if it was a job.
I did meet some freelance translators during my years in Japan, so I think that is a good route to go. They couldn't find work so they just started up their own thing and just advertised the hell out of themselves. They'd get weird jobs, but jobs are jobs. From making English-friendly restaurant menus to foreign porn DVD descriptions.
Check out Hiragana Times magazines. You might find something in there.
Last edited by hashiriya1 on Thu Nov 22, 2012 5:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Not a professional, but I aided a fan translation of the party chat in Dragon Quest IV on the DS, for Chapters 5 and 6. I haven't really checked up on that effort in a long time.
Anyway, I've given a bit of thought to translation work before, and ultimately found that translation of literature is most interesting to me, but I've also found that patent translation is generally the most lucrative area of translation. There are a number of companies in Japan that will train people for this. The major downside of this field, for me at least, is that it's a very formulaic field of translation; It's essentially like word association, rather than any sort of expression. Obviously, there's a lot more demand for translations of patents, pharmaceutical documentation, etc from major corporations, than there is for translations of expressive forms of media.
I know there's one person near me who has his own business translating patents or something, and I found out about him through my university's careers office. If your school is near you, or even if you have another school near you, and they have a career center, you might want to try stopping in to see if they can put you in touch with anyone who does translation professionally in your area. Even if it's not the area of translation you're looking for, I'm sure you could learn some things that would be helpful to your personal endeavors.
Good luck.
