This is a guest post written by a Gengo translator.

Almost six years ago, I found myself fresh out of college stepping off a plane in Tokyo to start my first “real” job as an English teacher. I believed that, within a year, I was going to teach myself enough Japanese to be able to speak intelligently on any topic, in any situation, and at any time. However, it didn’t take me long to realize that I was in way over my head.

No matter how long you immerse yourself in a language, there’s always something new to learn—a word, phrase, idiom, proverb, cultural notion you are not familiar with, or a novel usage of a word or phrase that your brain just cannot quite parse.

However misguided my learning attempts may have been, they did set me up to discover and understand the true beauty of a fine translation. Over the past four years, as I slowly began improving my translation skills, I came to realize that one of the keys to translation is the struggle between the source and target languages. As a translator, you have to spend a good portion of your time digging deep down past the surface of a source text before you arrive at its heart and soul, then you have to climb back out without dropping any of the nuggets you uncovered.

I realized this after reading Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84. Feeling a little more comfortable with my linguistic abilities, I translated the first few chapters and compared them to the official translation. My translation was an utter disaster and focused on linguistic minutiae while the official one focused on spirit.

At the beginning of my language-learning path, I had assumed that anybody who reached a certain level in a language should be able to translate. I had no idea of the depth of skills actually demanded by translation, and I took the opportunity to recalibrate my goals: I was going to learn the art of translation.

The problem though, was that I had no idea where to begin. I knew people studied translation at colleges, but I didn’t have the time nor money to quit my job and go back to school. So, I started looking for ways to improve on my own.

One resource that really helped me to be more methodical and consistent in translating is The Routledge Course in Japanese Translation by Yoko Hasegawa. It not only serves as a great introduction to translation studies and techniques, but covers many of the challenges faced specifically by Japanese-English translators and is loaded with great exercises. I would recommend this as the hands-down best resource for anyone new to Japanese-English translation.

Another great and inexpensive way to get started is to try translating a section of a book, paper, or article that has already been translated and comparing your translation to the official one.

For those interested in more specialized fields, I took SunFlare’s Law & Contracts online translation course. The center also offers a field-specific qualification test called the TQE that really helps when trying to find work as a freelancer.

Lastly, there is nothing better than having a close circle of fellow translators with whom you can exchange ideas, insights and example translations. I recently attended my first Gengo translator gathering, which was a great opportunity to network and get to know other translators who deal with many of the same issues. Translation forums like ProZ and Translators Cafe, as well as the Gengo community, are also great places to go for more resources and support.

Good luck to all beginner and aspiring translators, and happy translating!

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