Fall 2019 Meeting Report

The fall meeting of the Ohio Honyaku Group was held on Saturday, November 2, 2019, at JASCO (Japan America Society of Central Ohio) headquarters in Dublin, Ohio. A total of 8 members attended.

The meeting started with a brief explanation of upcoming JASCO events by executive director Ben Pachter. JASCO hosts a number of events for bringing Ohio’s Japanese and American communities together and also works closely with Japan-related businesses in central Ohio. Detailed event information is available from the JASCO website.

First, the group discussed JSOX auditing, standards, and the internationalization of testing, and members mentioned their experiences in dealing with auditors.

Next, it was mentioned how some outside organizations have been sending unsolicited e-mails to our group members using our mailing list. As a result, the group will probably move to Bcc of group announcements. However, in the past, not using Bcc enabled members to contact each other directly, but this can be fixed by providing a private membership list. We may also ask these organizations directly to remove our members’ emails. Still, we decided that we will get input from members about this issue before taking any action.

The first presentation was a slideshow of a member’s business trip to Japan and visit to a factory in Niigata city, located about two hours from Tokyo by bullet train. He talked about the charm of the Japanese-style inn (ryokan) where he stayed, which was located next to a zen temple. He also showed us photos from his sake factory tour. In the end, we were reminded about the great food in Japan and how some places in Japan can truly take us back in time.

The next presenter brought the book The JET Program and the US-Japan Relationship: Goodwill Goodmine by Emily Metzgar for discussion. The book covered the history of the JET program and followed up on past participants, many of whom ended up working in the State Department, Foreign Service, non-profit organizations, or in education. She talked about how its original intention of improving the English skills of Japanese has not been a clear success, but it has helped groom the next generation of leadership in Japanese-American relations. Another member mentioned how he was impressed with the strong support system for JET participants, both before and after their program participation.

The next presentation discussed Jim Breen’s freeware Japanese dictionary and its history from an article by a JET alum. Jim Breen’s dictionary marked the first comprehensive database dictionary. It was cited as instrumental to their Japanese study by several members, and the dictionary was praised for its lack of errors and large number of example sentences, which is unusual for online freeware dictionaries. This dictionary still has a large following today, and it retains its old-style layout with low-res photo of Jim Breen.

This was followed by a presentation on incorporating machine translation (Google Translate) into work using a technique called “chunking” (breaking into smaller parts for handling). It was noted that, however, use of machine translation and Google Translate is prohibited by some clients for confidentiality reasons.
In this technique, a large Japanese sentence is broken up into independent clauses for machine translation, and then the translator performs part editing/part translation work. While the neural machine translation used by Google boasts higher accuracy than previous versions, it also uses guesses that often result in errors.
The advantages of this technique are 1) Elimination of certain errors, particularly omissions, 2) Less typing (less labor intensive, less time), and 3) Higher productivity.

The next presenter provided members with examples of actual e-mail communications with scammers and typical red flags. Some of these red flags include senders who do not provide information about themselves or the purpose of the translation, requests for payment by check (wire transfer is preferred, PayPal is acceptable). The scam works by sending “payment” by check and asking for a refund before the check has fully cleared (just because the amount may appear in the account does NOT mean that the funds have fully cleared). We also talked about the Ore, Ore scams proliferating in Japan that target the elderly.

This was followed by a talk about the book African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan, which was the true story about how an African came to arrive in Japan in the 1500s and eventually become a samurai under Lord Nobunaga. The book was exceptionally well-researched and even included old drawings that likely depicted this African samurai. The presenter noted that this book was a non-fiction book that reads like a novel. Many members showed intense interest in this book, which intertwined Japanese culture and history.

The final presentation talked about whether translation is a profession that can be recommended as a career for current college graduates. The short answer was that the lifestyle of the freelance translator offers tremendous freedom about where to live and when to work, but that is offset by the gradual erosion of rates over the 20+ year career of the presenter. He used data to point out how the salary of experienced in-company translators has hardly changed over the years, and other members mentioned how bilingual employees often change to different work to avoid the lack of upward mobility in translation. We discussed current rates paid by companies, what they charge, and strategies to maximize income by the freelancer, short of finding a different job.

The Ohio Honyaku Group meets quarterly to discuss issues of importance to translators and interpreters of Japanese, and we welcome all current and future Japanese language professionals. The meetings are lightly structured and new topics for discussion tend to arise spontaneously as we chat. If you live in Ohio or a nearby state, or if you happen to be visiting the area when we are meeting, please join us!

The next meeting is scheduled for January 18, 2020 at JASCO headquarters.

For more information, please visit our website at http://www.ohiohonyaku.com/.
Contact us at inquiries@ohiohonyaku.com.

Report prepared by C. K.