At my previous job, I worked as a coordinator translating instruction manuals for a leading domestic manufacturer into multiple languages. I have been learning English from a native teacher since my student days, and even studied abroad in England after becoming a working adult. In addition, I am also well-versed in IT, having worked in development at a system company after graduating from university.
Reason for Joining the CompanyI had many opportunities to read English manuals at the IT company I joined after graduating from university, but I often couldn't understand the content even when translated into Japanese. This led me to aspire to become a translator in order to make things easier to understand. After studying abroad in the UK, I returned to Japan and worked at a translation company, where I was responsible for quality control of translated materials. Later, I changed jobs to my previous translation company and gained 10 years of experience in project management as a multilingual coordinator, similar to my current role. When considering the future of the translation industry, I was very interested in joining our company, which is large in scale and strong in IT.
From Joining to NowSince joining the company, I have been in charge of creating instruction manuals for printers from major manufacturers as a multilingual coordinator. Despite encountering incidents such as project delays and product malfunctions during the project, which lasted for more than a year, we were finally able to complete it recently. While the English to Japanese translation is mainly handled by a different department and requires a sense of urgency due to the focus on overseas clients, multilingual translation requires us to first translate from Japanese to English, and then from English to various languages such as French and Spanish. Therefore, it is important to carefully plan and schedule in order to proceed as planned. It can be mentally taxing to check everything in detail, but it is also important not to get too involved and leave it to someone who understands the language that we are not familiar with.
Current Business ContentThe large project that has been ongoing since last year has temporarily settled down, but we are currently handling the localization support for a help site that deals with printer installation and troubleshooting for the entire printer. Because it is a long-term project, we make sure to proactively communicate with the client about any potential oversights and take care to considerate. Additionally, we are currently using a different CMS (Content Management System) for production compared to the large project. Actually, I didn't have much experience using CMS until I joined the company, so it was difficult at first, but I feel like I have grown and can now handle most operations. We believe that our company is the perfect environment for those interested in functional management.
Job SatisfactionIt can be nerve-wracking to work with a variety of languages, but it's a relief when a large project goes smoothly. Multilingual translation can be a complicated process due to the high volume of translation and the difficulty of quality checks, so it's not uncommon for clients to ask unexpected questions. During a long-term project, it's very gratifying to receive words of gratitude such as "Thank you very much for finishing without any problems. We really appreciate it," after having multiple meetings with the client and carefully explaining the process while delivering the project ahead of schedule. I believe that the greatest satisfaction for a project manager is when the project goes according to plan and is beneficial for the client.
Future GoalsThe future of the industry, I feel, will be dominated by machine translation. However, not all translations can be done by machines, and there are still parts that require human involvement. Therefore, in order for the company to grow, education and securing talented individuals are urgent matters. Our employees have a variety of experiences and great expertise, but there are also some areas that have become too personalized. By clearly articulating and organizing the implicit knowledge within the company, I believe we can standardize tasks that are only done occasionally. My current goal is to create easy-to-understand operation manuals that can be used by anyone, in order to increase the efficiency of our internal operations.
