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My vocabulary is largely based on living with my mother and grandmother. I know some words I use may sound a bit old. For example, I say “Tokkuri*” for high neck shirts 👚. I say “Mizuya” or “Shokkidana” for cupboards. (Now many Japanese people call these items in English reading: “Hainekku (high neck),” “Kappuboudo (cupboard)”).
(*Tokkuri refers to Japanese ceramic sake bottles that have a narrow neck of jug and we used to call high neck shirts the same as its neck looks similar.)

Yesterday my mother told me what she experienced at an electronics store the other day.
Mom: “Excuse me, where can I find ‘Denkimatto (electronic carpet)’?”
Staff: “What is ‘Denkimatto’?”
Mom: “Hmm, something we lay under a carpet”
Staff: “Alright, you mean ‘Hotto Kaapetto (hot carpet)’!”
Mom: “Yeah, that’s it (so, now people call it a hot carpet, I see)”

And you, Denkimatto!?

It shocked me a little but it was also funny.
According to her, the staff member looked as old as me. There are possibly more words altering or that have just altered among people around my age.

I, as a linguist, always try remaining up to date and aware of new words but this conversation reminds me our everyday language shifts over time. 📚

The phrase often heard: “it’s been two years and a half since the pandemic began.” Yes, it is long enough, and people are being prepared for or adapting themselves to the (emerging) post-pandemic era (I am not going to discuss here if it has come / when it will come etc.). At the same time, companies return or restart presenting their commodities at expos onsite. It must have been tough years, as many of them weren’t able to participate in onsite events and/or were forced to adjust (or tried to adjust) to operating under ever-changing COVID restrictions, moving from offline to online. Yet, you recognize enormous energies from people and impressive senses of reality at scale when you visit those events onsite. It’s always interesting to see and learn new products and solutions that go live in the markets. Expos are great places to catch up with those state-of-the-art technologies that you may get involved as a translator.

In mid-September, I visited some of those expos in Tokyo to explore potential business opportunities. Visiting those places and marketing yourselves however need good strategies. Expos are not places for individual marketing in the first place. Honestly, I went there only to learn I didn’t have those strategies with me, so it’s my homework for next occasions. On the other hand, I think I did well in the long run, getting to know some people and giving them my business cards. One of my current steady clients remembered and gave me a call one day, when they happened to need both interpreting and translation services for their customers. You give your business cards, you send messages, you get no responses, that’s fine, but you managed to cast “some seeds.”

COVID related travel restrictions have been lifted or are being lifted over the world. Japan also reopens to independent travelers (finally). I want to try these marketing activities overseas: in Singapore, in the States; or in Germany or elsewhere. We are approaching the last quarter of the year, and soon the year end is to come, so I am very much excited about planning for the next year 🙂

You have now Eight, Blinq, HiHello, Knowee and else. Digital business cards are handy, easy to make and available with a variety of fascinating templates. I’ve seem them in use at social networking events. I am not making fun of Japanese businesses in contrast but at expos in Japan, I saw a majority of visitors and presenters still depend on business cards in print. I brought mine with me, a simple one with my name, a business logo and contact details. It has no additional information. Maybe little boring.

Some of my colleagues have 2-3 different kinds of business cards and use either of them for different purposes. I didn’t find it necessary when I heard it for the first time but now I understand the point: memorable information depends on people and their needs. Those cards that include what you can do and/or what you are specialized in would be a good topic for (or would be easy to have an extended) conversation when you visit expos and meet people.

I’ve got some homework for next occasions to visit expos: make another design of business card for those self-marketing purposes.

Digital or in print: whichever it is, what kind of style/information does your business card include? And why?

I occasionally use a shared office and got to go there for some paperwork yesterday. An elderly gentleman, whom I sometimes see there, gave me a thin booklet called 職場の教養, something like Workplace Culture or Lessons learned from Workplace. It includes a number of short journals that describe behavioral guidelines, good work relationships with colleagues; work productivity; addressing of mistakes or those similar themes, followed by one piece of little advice in each article. Honestly, they are not all practical or not what you feel like incorporating every time, as they often seem pushy, but I still find some of them interesting and a good reading. As a freelancer translator, I have lots of chance to get to know clients, peers, and to interact and produce something together with them but remotely in most cases, which is a different environment from what you are supposed to be put into when you work at a company, where you meet your colleagues and work together every day. So, an opportunity to remind myself of some lessons learned from workplace through the booklet gave me somewhat a fresh feeling…

Better early than late. We recently (and finally) updated our English website with more information. This accomplishment kept us motivated and we also managed to open a new website in German within a short time! Our main website is now in German. Collaterally, we also have websites in Japanese and English. We hope this momentum will enable us to reach a wider and more expansive client base 😊

Sprachgetriebe Consulting has just been initiated into DJW – Deutsch-Japanischer Wirtschaftskreis – 日独産業協会! Thank you for smoothly taking care of our membership application procedure. Our team is looking forward to a variety of opportunities of bridging and supporting businesses between Germany and Japan through our language/consultancy services.

It has been more than ten years since I got to know my great friends and peers through an interpreting job for a business transition project in aerospace at a local manufacture. It was a project of just less than 4 months but 9 of us as an interpreter team got along with one another very well and we regularly meet up even after the project was over. Sometimes we hold a cozy potluck party and share our own recent news. We weren’t able to hold it F2F in 2021 due to the pandemic and did only a brief chitchat via Zoom. Fortunately, however, we managed this New Year’s F2F potluck party in 2022. It’s always nice to see them F2F and have a great time together, enjoying these exquisite dishes.

At the New Year meetups, we make a New Year’s resolution, always representing one Japanese character. My 2022 New Year’s resolution with one Japanese character is “動” Dō, or move. It’s gonna be a “busier” year with lots of things to do: translation businesses as usual, Japan Association of Translators (JAT) activities, and preparation for getting incorporated. But I’ll be actively moving around onsite from east to west, and here and there over social media, and enjoy all these challenges to come in 2022.

What’s your New Year’s resolution, or do you have anything you want to achieve this year? 🙂

2021 was very hectic throughout the year but somewhat productive as well. I already foresee a sequence of events and I’ll be even busier with translation businesses and JAT activities but I’m looking forward to challenges in 2022 🙂 belated happy new year.

On one of the first three days of the New Year I visit the Hofu Tenmangu shrine to make New Year wishes. Though I refrained from visiting there last year, I made it yesterday as for 2022. Their vibrant atmosphere with throngs of visitors truly gives a good feeling. I wished for blessing of safety, and also successful studying, as Sugawara no Michizane, revered at the shrine, is the god of learning. I should study hard ୧(⑉•̀ㅁ•́⑉)૭✧

I became self-employed as a freelance translator in 2019, and prior to this, I had been translating on the side for 7 years. The encounter with the unprecedented pandemic of COVID-19 a year after I turned to full-time was unexpected and challenging, but thanks to the basis I had built with clients and partner agencies by then, the last two years weren’t that bad for me.

In the meantime, I have been wondering whether I should incorporate my business. In consideration of a nature of the job, however, you can complete a translation task alone. You may provide more extended services such as TEP (translation, editing and proofreading as a set), collaborating with peers through outsourcing so long as your clients agree, but that’s not a reason enough to become incorporated.

I operate a translation-agency-like business with my reliable, competent fellow translators as a team and provide translation/localization, editing, proofreading, TEP, transcreation, copywriting, interpreting, or (cultural) consultation according to clients’ needs. In this month, I had a chance to discuss with a prospective client for interesting translation projects in finance which is one of my fields of expertise, but it was put on hold as I am not incorporated. I quoted for a TEP service, but they didn’t want to accept the price. They differentiate rates for sole proprietors and the ones for incorporated entities, even if a service to be provided is the same regardless a form of business. We reached the conclusion that we’d re-open the discussion for collaboration if and when I become incorporated.

Until this happened, I had been satisfied with how my business were going but now I see myself being ambitious. Obviously, however, there are pros and cons of the incorporation:

Pros:
– You can appropriate more extended variety of expenses to be included in your accounting records.
– You will gain more flexibility and options to save tax.
– You will gain wider access to clients who aren’t willing to do businesses with freelancers.
– You will gain more credibility in terms of concluding contracts or financing.
etc.

Cons:
– Your income will be fixed.
– The amount of fee and withdrawal of your social benefits will increase technically.
– Corporate tax is inevitable even if your business goes into the red.
– You will have more paperwork.
etc.

Honestly, the insurance fee will most likely increase by 10 times or more (It’s my unique case) if I change the form of business. That’s the only issue that makes me hesitate. In spite of that, however, I think it is worth becoming incorporated to gain wider access to interesting projects in my fields of expertise (and interest). It’s just a matter of attributes of clients with whom you are going to do business.

Everyone has different objectives and circumstances. Do you choose to stay unincorporated or become incorporated?