Episode 2:  Interview with Nicole Nemoto

In Episode 2 of the podcast I spoke to marketing specialist in transcreation Nicole Nemoto.

Nicole Nemoto has been working her magic in Japanese-to-English marketing and creative translation for over two decades. Not long after graduating from the University of Queensland’s Master of Arts in Japanese Interpreting and Translation (MAJIT) degree in 2002, Nicole landed herself the role of Translation Manager in-house at a Tokyo-based global advertising agency where she remained for 11 years honing her creative translation and copywriting skills across a smorgasbord of fields including FMCG, airlines, automotive, fashion, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, and hospitality. 

Ready for a change of pace, she then went on to launch her own brand Moji Magic Translations—a name she hatched over a decade earlier alongside dreams of one day setting up shop for herself. These days, she works directly with brands in the communications, advertising, design, entertainment and creative industries. In addition to her fascination with words, Nicole is a foodie who loves to cook, a busy mum of two young girls, and an avid streamer of tv dramas and documentaries.  

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

The JET Programme, and specifically the CIR position.

MAJIT (the masters degree Nicole and I both completed in Japanese translation and interpreting).  

We talked about how Nicole benefited from utilizing Proz.com, despite the fact it gets a bad rap.

Once again, the many benefits of being part of The Japan Association of Translators came up. We specifically discussed volunteering and participating in discussions on the JAT mailing list, which has now been replaced with the forums accessible to JAT members via the JAT website.

The Honyaku Mailing List also came up as an alternative to the JAT Mailing List/Forums. Instructions for how to subscribe can be found here.

We also talked about IJET-29, which was held from June 29 through July 1, 2018 in Osaka.

Nicole mentioned that she uses translation memory software TRADOS.