You don’t have to go very far to be a tourist, and looking at the world with that mindset can also be helpful for language study. In this week’s episode, I reminisce about when my parents visited Tokyo and talk about ノーダメージクリア (nōdamēji kuria, completing games without taking any damage).

The book I mention in the episode is Sumiko Enbutsu’s “A Flower Lover’s Guide to Tokyo: 40 Walks for All Seasons.”

Jenn O’Donnell is a Japanese to English translator and project manager based in Osaka. By day she works as a Localization Director for a video game company and by night she blogs about translation on J-ENTranslations and studying Japanese on Japanese Talk Online. She also hosts the podcast Recommendations from My Otaku Spouse.

• Mix of different methods
  • Private Japanese tutor – Japanese in 45 Hours (にほんご45じかん)
  • Gap year in Fukuoka – Language school and working on a farm
  • italki
  • Genki Japanese and Culture School 
• Japanese Textbooks
  • Genki Japanese
  • Minna no nihongo
  • Japanese: The Spoken Language
• Japanese Talk Online
  • Knowing what learning methods work best for you
  • Tracking what works for you as a student
  • University anime club 
• Strategies to avoid
  • Overbuying books
  • Mindless studying
• Strategies to use
  • Multiple different approaches
  • Mindful studying
• Dyslexia and Studying Japanese
  • Accommodations – knowing what works for you
  • “Research on Educational Support of Japanese Language Learners with Developmental Dyslexia” (PDF – in Japanese)
  • Study strategies with dyslexia
• Consuming Japanese media
  • “Kiki’s Delivery Service (魔女の宅急便)“
  •  『コーヒーが冷めないうちに』
  • Picking books that are easy 
  • Creating a reading habit
  • Reading a Japanese book and an English book at the same time to maintain the habit
  • How to develop habits
• Working in Japan
  • Automotive work
• Translation master’s program
  • SOAS – MA Translation
  • J-En Translations
• Getting better at translation
  • Full time work + freelance translation
  • Bellevue College – Translation and Interpretation
  • Translation contests
• Impostor syndrome
• Interviews With Localizers
• Building habits/keeping track of goals
  • Atomic Habits
• Job hunting in Japan
  • Japanese teacher
  • Preparing for interviews
• Japanese teachers
  • Linguage
  • italki
• Japanese games that are better for Japanese study than others
  • “All of them, and none of them”
  • Animal Crossing
  • Ace Attorney
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses
• Japanese karaoke song
  • “Again,” Yui
  • Violet Undergarden opening

Episode 2! 一番搾り (Ichiban Shibori) helped me cement my understanding of a translator’s role and what “fluency” means. And I was able to get this podcast up and running again thanks to a little 自己分析 (jikobunseki, self analysis).

Mel Ok is a translator and project manager based in Tottori Prefecture. We talked about Japanese study, the JET Program, translation, and Japanese whisky:

• Japanese in high school
• When did your Japanese skills start to “click”?
• Japanese in college
  • University of Washington – Technical Japanese Program
  • Working with long sentences – identifying subjects and verbs
  • USJETAA Reading Group
  • Jay Rubin’s “Making Sense of Japanese“
  • “Mirroring“
• Teaching English in Japan
• JET Program
  • JET CIR placements – rural vs. urban
  • Tottori Prefecture’s internationalization efforts
  • Interpreting on JET – consecutive vs. simultaneous
  • JET Program Translation & Interpretation Course
  • Connecting with local organizations for interpretations/translation opportunities
  • JET Program application advice
  • Watching TV = studying
• Project Management
  • Shifting from JET to project management
  • QA work
  • Unemployment in Japan – ハローワーク (Hello Work)
  • Types of translation projects
  • Experience writing
  • Sales
• Freelance Translation
  • Translation Memory
  • Japanese Association of Translators (JAT)
  • Felix CAT
  • Accordance searches
  • Sales work vs. translation work 
• Incorporating as a translator/company
  •  Hiring an accountant
• Translation Trials
• Work-life balance
  • The Oatmeal – Why working from home is both awesome and horrible
• Spirits/Japanese Spirits
  • Yamazaki 25
  • Balvenie 12 DoubleWood
  • Nomunication
  • The Complete Guide to Japanese Drinks, Stephen Lyman
  • Japanese Whisky, Brian Ashcraft
  • Stephen Lyman and Christopher Pellegrini Instagram events
  • Fuji-Sanroku
  • Aged Shochu
• Investing in Whisky
  • Yamazaki Owner’s Cask
  • Whisky secondary market
  • Mighty No. 9
• Karaoke Songs
  • “Sakura,” Ketsumeishi
  • Orange Range (The band Mel couldn’t remember.)

お待たせしました！ It took me longer than I hoped, but the How to Japanese Podcast is back. I’m interviewing another 10 people who have studied Japanese and done work in Japan. The interviews have run long, so I’ll be separating the interviews from my content and posting 20 episodes over the next few months. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

And if you haven’t listened to Season 1, go ahead and give those episodes a listen.

Adam Evanko is the creative mind behind the Gaijinhunter YouTube account where he’s built up over 280,000 subscribers. He’s also an incredibly lucid communicator and diligent student. We discuss his early time studying Japanese, his work at McDonald’s and a hotel in Japan, and how a job at a translation company helped prepare him for a career in video game production:

• Had you studied Japanese before you moved to Japan?
• Once you were in Japan, were you taking classes or doing self-study?
  • Japanese Language Proficiency Test
• Did you have any strategies to help you with the reading section of the JLPT?
• Were there any big milestones in terms of a first game, manga, or novel you completed in Japanese?
  • 漢字検定 (Kanji kentei – Kanji aptitude test)
• What were your job hunting strategies in Japan? Are there any strategies you would recommend people looking for work?
• Did McDonald’s or the hotel where you worked have any guidance for 敬語 (keigo, polite speech)? How did you learn 敬語?
• What was your experience like as a translation project manager?
  • The word my coworker helped me learn was 必殺技 (hissatsuwaza, special move), not whatever it is I said on the pod.
• Did you do any coding, writing, or game creation when you were growing up?
• What is it like to work as a video game producer? What advice would you give people interested going into video game production?
• What drew you to Monster Hunter and what has kept you interested for so long?
  • 8-4 Podcast
• What was it about Monster Hunter: World that took the series to an international level?
• What are you excited to see in Iceborne?
• Do you think anything about Monster Hunter reflects Japanese culture or values?
• How has it been to raise a daughter in Japan? Did you make a conscious effort to include her in your gaming? Do you monitor screen time?

At the top, I talk about being mindful of the difficulty of your Japanese study – sometimes you need to actively choose to do difficult things when you study Japanese.

Shaun McKenna is the Deputy Manager of the Life & Culture Division of the Japan Times. He came on the How to Japanese Podcast to talk about his experience studying Japanese while teaching on JET and the transition to journalism. He also has some great recommendations on how to pitch an editor at a publication like the JT:

• How has it been to edit the Bilingual page?
• Did you study Japanese before you visited? And was JET the first time you visited the country?
  • Japanese for Busy People
  • Genki
• Did you have success with Japanese for Busy People?
• After you finished the textbook, what self-study techniques were helpful?
• Looking back, is there anything you would do differently?
• Are a lot of Japan Times writers come to Japan without much training in the language?
• What language milestones were important for you?
• How did you find your Japanese teacher?
• Where did you find free Japanese lessons in Yokohama?
  • YOKE Japanese Classes
• After you returned to Canada, did you start job hunting in Japan?
• Was journalism a long-term goal for you coming out of college?
• What was your job hunting process in Japan?
  • “Spare a thought for the Western men trapped in Japan“
• How is the workplace culture at the Japan Times?
• What naming conventions are used in Japanese workplaces?
  • Néojaponisme
• Are you able to write for the Japan Times now that you’ve transitioned to editor?
• Are you taking pitches from new writers?
• Have you found new writers on Twitter?
  • Patrick St. Michel
• What’s an ideal pitch? And what kind of web presence do you need?
• Are you able to follow the music scene as much now that you’re not Music Editor?
• Are there any venues you’d recommend in Japan?
  • Forest Limit
  • WWW

At the top, I tell the story of crashing a car in Japan and discuss facing setbacks during language study.

Kristi Fernandez has translated a number of light novels, manga, and drama. She’s also the creator of the group Japanese Translators of New York and a champion for translators on Twitter. We talked Japanese study and light novel translation for the eighth episode of the How to Japanese Podcast:

• What inspired your Twitter thread on translator appreciation?
  • Jessica Chavez
  • Shawn Wylie
• What was your path to Japanese fluency?
  • Japan Society
  • Kodansha
  • Penguin Random House
  • Yen Press
  • Vertical, Inc.
• What self-study strategies were you using? Was anything particularly effective?
• What do you remember about your first encounter with Japanese in Japan?
• How did your college course present 敬語 (keigo, polite speech) versus more casual speech?
• When did you feel like you were making progress with the language?
• What was the first novel you read? And what reading strategies did you have?
  • 蹴りたい背中 (Keritai senaka), 綿矢りさ (Wataya Risa)
  • 金原ひとみ (Kanehara Hitomi)
  • Matt Treyvaud
  • 新恋愛講座―三島由紀夫のエッセイ (Shin-renai kōza), 三島由紀夫 (Mishima Yukio)
  • The New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary
  • アルク (ALC)
  • The Green Goddess
  • 新和英辞典 (Kenkyusha’s New Japanese-English Dictionary)
• Are you finding time to read in addition to your translation work?
  • A Wild Haruki Chase: Reading Murakami Around the World
• How did you find a job using your Japanese skills when you returned from Japan?
  • Pasona
• How did you get your first translation job?
  • The Dark Maidens
• What is the marketing process for translation and what kind of work do you do to fill up your schedule?
• Creating an online presence
  • Japanese Translators of New York
• What’s the translation process like for you?
• Has anything changed with your translation process?
• Do you work from a digital or paper copy when translating?
• What are your thoughts on The Dark Maidens? Do you think it has anything to say about the Japanese high school experience?
  • Learning to Bow
• What has made the foreign market more receptive to light novels?

At the top, I talk briefly about some of the purchases I made on Amazon Japan during my time on JET and the strategy I used to make sure my package was delivered.

Tamara Latham-Sprinkle has been a full-time Japanese-English freelance translator for a year. She talks about breaking into the world of translation, different translation associations, getting a masters in translation, and working as an interpreter at a manufacturing company in the latest episode of the How to Japanese Podcast:

• What was your path to Japanese fluency?
• What self-study strategies were effective for you?
• Knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?
  • italki
  • Nihongo-Pro.com
• When you visited Japan for the first time how did you feel your Japanese level was?
• At what point did you feel like you were making progress with the language?
• Were you taking Japanese courses or courses in Japanese?
  • おくりびと (Departures) (Tamara refers to this as The Cellist)
• Did the university provide any support for writing projects in the Japanese courses?
• What were the college clubs like at a Japanese college and how did you find them?
• How did you make the decision to get a masters in translation?
  • Kent State University – Programs in Translation
  • Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey – Master of Arts in Translation
  • SOAS University of London – MA Translation
• What is the language requirement for these programs?
• Do these programs help place students in jobs or give you strategies to find work?
• Was there any advice you got that was particularly helpful or stuck in your mind?
• Which translation associations are you active in?
  • American Translators Assocation (ATA)
  • Chicago Area Translators and Interpreters Association (CHICATA)
• How was the transition into full-time freelance translation?
  • Japan Association of Translators (JAT)
  • Samurai Translators (translators.jp)
• What was it like to work as an interpreter/translator for a manufacturing company?
  • “Interpreting in the U.S. #1 – In-house Challenges“
• What are of the country were you in and how did the Japanese engineers respond to that part of the country?
• Would you recommend this kind of manufacturing interpretation work to people with some language skills?
• How much work are you doing to improve your Japanese in areas where you are doing translation?
  • NOLO
• What was it like interpreting in a courtroom setting?

At the top I talk about how Tamara and I first met (hint: over Twitter) and some of the organizations you can look to connect with if you’re interested in Japan-related events.

Brian Caster is a practicing attorney in Japan working in compliance. He’s also one of the most voracious readers I’ve ever met (90+ English books so far in 2019 and counting!). He took some time to tell me about how he learned Japanese, job hunting, and how he brought the goodest dog from Chicago to Tokyo.

• What are you reading right now?
  • From Here to Eternity
  • The Thin Red Line
  • 遠い太鼓 (Tōi taiko)
• How did you get to fluency with Japanese?
  • 江戸川乱歩 (Edogawa Ranpo)
  • 少年探偵団 (Shōnen tantei dan)
• Looking back, what study approaches would have been helpful? And is there anything you did that was particularly successful?
  • ビールの教科書 (Bīru no kyōkasho)
• How did you find your Japanese tutor?
• What other authors are you reading?
  • 柳広司 (Yanagi Kōji)
  • 池井戸潤 (Ikeido Jun)
  • 下町ロケット (Shitamachi roketto)
  • 三木谷浩史 (Mikitani Hiroshi)
• Which news apps are you using?
  • 全紙無料新聞
  • 秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan
• Did you know you wanted to apply to law school when you went on JET?
• At what point did you know you wanted to go back and work in Japan and how did that inform your application process and the choices you made during law school?
• Did you spend any summers in Japan during law school or take any classes about Japanese law?
• Other than the two years experience, is there anything else you need to be a practicing attorney in Japan?
• How was the job hunting process within Japan? How did it differ from job hunting while living in the U.S.?
• How does work as an in-house attorney differ from outside counsel work?
• How is Honeypie?! What is it like having a dog in Japan?
• What was the process of bringing a dog over to Japan?

At the top I made some translation recommendations, including 夜のくもざる (Yoru no kumozaru, The Spider Monkey Comes at Night) by Haruki Murakami. If you’re looking for public domain material you can publish online, here’s a list of some 随筆 (zuihitsu, miscellanea/essays) that look promising:

Title: 表現論随筆
Author: 豊島与志雄

Title: 押入れ随筆
Author: 吉川英治

Title: 物売りの声
Author: 寺田寅彦

Title: 備忘録
Author: 寺田寅彦

Title: 寺田先生と銀座
Author: 中谷宇吉郎

Title: 京都の朝市
Author: 柳宗悦

Title: 新茶
Author: 岡本かの子

Title: 小学生のとき与へられた教訓
Author: 岡本かの子

Also, I was in the Japan Times a couple weeks back with a look at the podcast and what I learned after talking with everyone: “A podcast that talks to bilingual people about studying Japanese and working in Japan.”