Episode 1: Interview with Danny MacLeith

In Episode 1 of the podcast I spoke to Japanese-to-English translator Danny MacLeith.

Danny MacLeith is an ATA-certified Japanese-English translator living in Okayama, Japan. He is a generalist who specializes in sports, music and civil engineering, specifically projects involving tunnels, bridges, roads, railways and waterways. He started translating professionally in 2009 and has been freelance wire-to-wire, though he also worked part-time as a project manager for TBSJ from 2013 to 2015.

Danny’s lifelong love of baseball drew him to Japan, but his lifelong obsession with solving puzzles is what makes translation his ideal vocation. When he is not translating, he enjoys daily walks and traveling with his wife, and diving into maps, baseball statistics, personal finance and recorded music.

Here are some of the things that came up in our conversation:

The Japan Association of Translators

This page on the JAT website gives a good introduction to the organization and the different kinds of events that JAT hosts, including PROJECTS. We specifically discussed the first PROJECT ever held: PROJECT Tokyo, in 2008.

We also talked about IJETs, and in particular IJET-29, which will be held from June 29 through July 1, 2018. 

Some of the tools that came up were translation memory software Memsource  and dictation/speech recognition software Dragon Naturally Speaking .

Here is the link to Danny's blog post on different ways to translateこだわり. It turned out that there were a few less terms listed than he thought while we were talking, but this is a great resource with lots of interesting options for translating what can be a very tricky-to handle word.

When Danny talked about working for a translation agency as a project manager he was talking about TBSJ. For those who don’t know, one of my roles is as a Senior Legal Translator with TBSJ and I am also an equity partner in the company.

I also mentioned the masters degree I completed in translation and interpreting: MAJIT. (In the conversation I actually got my dates wrong: For the record, I graduated in 2006 and am now in my 12th year as a translator!)

If you want to get in touch with Danny please contact him via his contact form-  http://triplecrownpacific.com/contact-quote/