Fudschijama

English: Mount Fuji, Japan (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is always amazing how superficial knowledge and wrong information prove to be so much stronger than the "real" thing.
This picture shows an entry in a German-Japanese dictionary, published 1972, calling the highest mountain in Japan "Fudschijama".
I have seen this on English sites too, even official sites of the American government!!!

However, no Japanese ever calles the mountain by this name.
It is "Fuji-san", where "san" is the character for MOUNTAIN - and NOT the honorific "Mister".

In Germany there are probably MANY more people who know the "Fudschijama" than those who know its real name.
This kind of artificially created 'misunderstanding' is NOT helping to improve communication between different cultures ...

Free ebooks

Good evening
Last year in February my first book (printed) was published.
After that, I wrote and published 3 more e-books. Those are commercially available (Amazon, via Smashwords.com practically all worldwide distributers of such materials), but it turned out, that they "do not sell" - at all!
A Japanese colleague bought ONE copy of the book about Japanese acupuncture and a Lady I knew from my days in junior high school bought ONE copy of my "life story".
That's it.

Therefore I decided to make those via my website available for free*:
(* I WOULD be glad, if people could bring themselves to offer a little "donation" (about 2-300 Yen) AFTER reading those. I mean, if they enjoyed the material.)

http://www.einklang.com/Books.htm

None of the those books are any sort of academic/scientific work or literary masterpieces.
Only the things a 3rd-class craftsman/phsical laborer has to say - as long as there is theoretically some "freedom of speech".
In particular I would like people to have a look at the little work about Japanese and Chinese acupuncture.
That is just my personal opinion after 30 years of practice.
I believe, the Japanese form of acupuncture is much better suited for most of the world's population = non-Chinese people, that the so-called "authentic Chinese acupuncture".

奴隷制度

最近 "crowd sourcing" と言う「手法」が流行っているようだ。それをやっている会社は恐らく物凄いいいお金を儲けるでしょう。
しかし、そう言う会社/システムのために働く翻訳者はいかにも「奴隷」として使われる。
例を挙げましょう：
https://www.trans-pro.net
一端いいなあと思って私も登録したが、実際仕事の連絡を見るととても賛同できない。
翻訳言語            日本語 ⇒ ドイツ語 翻訳
翻訳分野            論文・学術・研究開発
文字数              663文字
金額                 5,744円（税込）→　つまり　8.6円
翻訳者支払金額    1,861円（税込）→　つまり　2.8円

元々8.6円は安物（！）
だが、そのオンライン会社は3/2を取って、翻訳者＝実際仕事をしている人に1/3にしか支払わないのは少なくとも私個人の感覚では妥当ではない！
定期的あの会社から仕事の「案内」が来るが、一度も受けたことない。

しかし、どうやら喜んでそのような「破格的」な料金で仕事する人がいるようです。
翻訳者という生物は絶滅するしかないようだ。

悪質業者

先日長取引ある翻訳会社から特許の日独訳が依頼された。お客さんは最初から「時間がない」と「日本語を点や改行まで忠実再現して欲しい」と言ういかにも翻訳の事が分かっていないような特別注文が付けられた。
過去30年フリーランス翻訳者として特許も多数こなしたので、後弁理士の世界になるまでちゃんと出来たと思う。
しかし、納品してから間もない内そのお客さん　＝　神戸市にある：　「天野特許事務所」からクレイムが来た：
翻訳は何時も（「何時も」ってどういうことかが不明）のものと違うからお金を払わないといいだした。
しかし、何処で何が気に入らないか一切示さない。三歳の餓鬼みたいで、ただ「嫌だ嫌だ」と騒いでいるのみ。
特許事務所は言って見れば「法律の専門家」だ。
特許に関して「異議申し立て」を申請するならば、***必ず***何処で何が可笑しいかはっきりと示す必要があるのは当たり前。

間に入った翻訳会社は一所懸命和解を求めましたが、天野特許事務所は何時までも理不尽の事を言い続けたため、裁判の手続くをとることにした。
裁判になると色々と面倒から、今度天野特許事務所から「お金で解決しよう」との案がでた。翻訳会社も矢も得なく承諾した。

最終的未だ私の翻訳は何処で不備があったか何一つ聞いていないのに、こちら本来貰う報酬の1/3（訳7万円）を損した形になる。

「お前の小品が悪いから金払わない」と言って、欠点も示さず、返品もしない（恐らく私の訳文を変更もせずそのまま使って大儲けしているだろう）身勝手なお客さんのため、こちらがあれだけ損しなければならないのは筋が通らないと思う。
翻訳者は奴隷じゃないよ。

天野特許事務所は悪質業者だと判断するしかない。

Looking for an interpreter ...

English: Active nuclear power plants in Japan. Deutsch: In Betrieb befindliche Atomkraftwerke in Japan. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The other day, a German gentleman asked on a certain mailing list, whether somebody here in Japan might be interested and/or willing/capable to work for ONE MONTH as an interpreter (Japanese-German) for an on site engineering supervisor WITHIN a nuclear power plant. Meaning within an area, where the workers are exposed to a certain degree of radiation, even thogh that is considered "safe".
Naturally, nuclear power plants are located AWAY from human settlements .. for "safety reasons".

Given these conditions, there cannot be that many people capable/willing to work there.
The very polite German person who initially asked, made the JAPANESE person in charge contact me.
From that person I heard totally different, very surprising conditions regarding timing and location.
That person offered payment for 8 hours/day; NO payment for Saturdays/Sundays; a marginal (10%) increase for overtime etc.
Possibly THOSE are the usual conditions for professions like welders, electricians etc., but NOT for interpreters!
In the business world of interpretation that offer is/was preposterous.

For my own reasons, I wrote back, I BASICALLY accept the conditions, but still have a few questions.

That was on a Friday evening.
The person in charge replied after the weekend:
"Since you did not answer my question (whether I accept the conditions) with YES or NO, I will look for someone else."

That Japanese person is supposed to be ASKING EXTERNAL EXPERTS FOR HELP, not ordering his personal slaves.
As such, I personally believe this is a VERY rude and arrogant attitude.
(This refers to the Japanese person. The German manager was very polite and business like.)
Not only in Japan, but also in Germany or any other part of the world.

Maybe giant corporations like this one (the request came directly from them):
KSB Service GmbH, (Germany; KSB Aktiengesellschaft) have so much money, they believe they can BUY people and treat them like dirt.
Or maybe this particular Japanese person sees himself as one of those medieaval feudal lords ...

Related articles

• More than one in three wild boar in Germany are too radioactive to eat

Trials and their "evaluation"

I have been writing about this before.
Some company contacts me regarding a possible "cooperation" (meaning, they want me to work for them), BUT ask me to do a little "trial" first.
This happens all the time, but there was one particularly interesting one the other day.

The company, "A.C.T. Fachübersetzungen GmbH" contacts me and asks, whether I would like to work for them.
The person in charge, a German lady, then sends me the "trial material" for Japanese to German translation with the words, "this a not too technical general text (instructions for a headlight)". Naturally, the lady cannot read the original material.

Having a look shows that this is supposed to be a part of an easily comprehensible user manual.
HOWEVER, the Japanese original is VERY strange in several places. So strange, that educated Japanese could not make sense of some portions.
Ok. I do the translation. After more than a month(!), the company tells me, that my translation is "not good enough".
BEFORE I got that verdict, I accidentally noticed, that someone (= the reviewer!) had to ask SEVERAL TIMES(!) the Proz.com community for help to understand the original.If educated Japanese cannot understand the text and the reviewer (also a lady) needs to ask several times for help ... this can hardly be "a not too technical general text". (I did not have to ask for help ...)

When I asked the company, whether they can show me the corrected text ...............
No answer at all.

Maybe I am prejudiced, but if that company and its reviewer have so much confidence in their absolute superiority (and MY inferiority), they should be confident enough to show where I was wrong.

If they cannot do that ... I can only assume, that they are afraid, their judgement might be proven wrong.

Somehow I pity the customers of that company.

Connectivity

The other day (do not remember how far back that was) I apparently applied to a job ad on Proz.com.
After quite some while, I received a "generic" from a company called "Text United GmbH" reply telling me the following:

"Dear fellow translator,
Please follow the instructions below carefully in order to be available to us and, hopefully, establish a collaboration with us. You will be eligible to receive projects from Text United as soon as you complete a short registration process.
You can do this in 3 simple steps:
1.       Register on the Text United website (www.textunited.com, please use the “Professional translator? Join” link in the upper right corner)
2.       Download and install our free App
3.       Fill in the basic information, relevant rates and language combinations (in the App)
NOTE: We need all of your information (language combinations, rates, phone number(s) etc.) entered into our App in order to be available to allocate you to jobs. Otherwise we will have only your name and surname and cannot work with that."

To which I then replied:
"Well, I have been working as a freelance translator over a period of 30 years for a few hundred agencies.
NO company has EVER required the installation of a company specific tool just to offer me work.
This shows clearly, that there IS NO need for such a tool. All other companies do just fine without it. (not even the Chinese!)
As a professional the person in charge should know that I have signed NDAs with all the companies/agencies I work for.
These NDAs usually include stipulations that forbid the presence of any sort of file sharing software on the service provider's computer. These NDAs are legally binding.
Since I have absolutely no idea what exactly your "free app" will do and only your word that it is safe ...
I cannot and will not risk everything I build in 30 years."

Or is it me? Am I just plain stupid and missing the point entirely?
Would every other (freelance) translator just jump to this opportunity?

Probaly I a paranoid, but to me this seems to be both suspicous and dangerous.