Frequently asked Questions about The Kanji Foundry
Is The Kanji Foundry an agency?No. It's a one-man translation company which specialises only in Japanese to English translations in the fields of pharmacology, pharmaceuticals, patents, medicine, medicinal chemistry, medical instruments, biotechnology and Good Manufacturing Practice.
Is it as expensive as an agency?
No. It offers a very competitive rate for Japanese to English translations at a level of quality expected from the best agencies. I've worked for quite a few well-known UK and European translation agencies and I know how much they charge.
What do I do if I want a translation in areas other than those in which The Kanji Foundry specialises?
A very good place to start looking for a UK-based translator or interpreter into and out of Japanese is J-Net. It's the Japanese language specialist group of The Institute of Translation and Interpreting which is one of several organisations representing the interests of professional translators and interpreters in the UK.
What if I need translations of documents into a variety of European languages?
An agency is your best option. They range greatly in quality and price but I couldn't recommend one over another.
What if I have a general enquiry about Japanese translations?
You can contact The Kanji Foundry here with any enquiry at all related to its business. If I can't help you, I'll try to put you in touch with someone or an organization who can.
What about business card translation, typesetting, web site localization and interpreting?
Well, I don't do any of those but you can find links to people who do on the J-Net website.
Other factors to take into consideration when thinking about having a text translated....
Patent translation - A lot of my work is patent translation for filing or information. You may prefer to have only the claims or a patent application translated to save time and money. Please enquire if you only want a specific part of a patent translated such as the claims or examples or just the bit which mentions how they made compound (4-a) on page 35, for example.
Character count - Unlike other languages, the cost of translation from Japanese is calculated according to the number of Japanese characters in the source document and not the number of words. This is mainly because there are no spaces between Japanese words (although there are commas and full stops) and counting the number of words is too time consuming for an estimate. It is not easy to say exactly how many English words there will be in the finished translation too but a ratio of 1000 Japanese characters to 700-900 English word is reasonable. A typical (A4) page of Japanese medical text may contain 80 lines with about 22 characters per line. So, assuming the page does not contain figures and diagrams, about 1750-1800 Japanese characters. This equates to a translation cost of about £140 per page of source text which may end up being 3 pages of English text assuming around 550 words per page.
Document format - The commonest format for documents is Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) or Adobe Acrobat (.pdf). Other formats are .odt for Open Office, .txt and .rtf. Chemical structures are often drawn in ChemDraw format (.cdx). I can handle all document formats.
British or American spelling? - A lot of pharmaceutical translation work uses American spelling for standardization. You can select British or American spelling for the final translation but I need to know this at the start of the project. I usually use Verdana 11pt and US spelling unless instructed otherwise.
Reference materials - Do you have any reference materials, glossaries or prior art which may influence the way the translation is done and the technical terms used in it? If so, I'd like to have copies of them before I start the translation to make sure the terminology I use is consistent.
Deadlines - If you ask me to look over a document for potential translation, I will make a character count and give you a realistic deadline when I can finish the translation by. Many documents require post-translation processing, that is, the addition of tables, figures and graphs which often don't need to be translated but can be copied and pasted from the original document into the final translation. This may take some time, so please bear this additional time requirement in mind when thinking about the deadline. Complex tables can also take more time to translate and format.
Document transmission - Most documents I receive for translation are in MS Word or PDF format. This is a convenient format for me and I prefer PDFs to be text documents rather than bitmaps when possible. Please consider the format in which you want the translation returned. Word is the most common but I can supply documents in these formats; PDF, Open Office, RTF, Adobe InDesign, MS Publisher, PowerPoint and plain text.
The use of machine translation tools - Machine translation (MT or machine-assisted translation (MAT)) refers to a computer programme that translates text from one language to another. I've tried it from Japanese to English (using two well-known standalone applications, Systran and Fujitsu Atlas) and I don't like it so I don't use it. I don't like it because it just isn't very good. There are plenty of online translation engines if you want to try it yourself.
What about translation memory? - Translation memory (TM) refers to a computer programme that memorizes the way particular sentences, phrases and words are translated and shows the translator how they were previously translated (or shows a fuzzy match) when it next encounters them. If a document for translation contains a lot of repetition, translation memory is a good thing because it speeds up translation markedly, increases efficiency and decreases inconsistencies. I use TM when I can, but the work I do is seldom repetitive so it's of limited practical use to me. If I use TM, I factor this into the cost estimate and can usually offer a lower price if the project is 'TM-friendly'. Of all TM software available, I prefer Omega T.