JAT設立40周年を記念し、「長年にわたりJATに貢献してきた会員への感謝の意」として授与された功労賞を拝受いたしました。表彰状と記念品を頂戴し、身に余る光栄にあずかりました。

私が好きで取り組んできたJAT内での活動を、JATへの貢献ということで評価をしていただき大変うれしく思います。

2003年にJATに入会して以来、セミナーやカンファレンス、ネットワーキングイベントの企画・運営をはじめ、裏方業務の支援など、さまざまな形で協会活動に関わってきました。これまでの主な委員・活動歴は以下の通りです：

• PROJECT Osaka 実行委員（2009年）
  
• PROJECT Tokyo 2010 実行委員
• 関西活動委員会（KAT）
• 東京活動委員会（TAC）
• ウェブサイトコンテンツ委員会
• SNS運営委員会
• IJET-25 実行委員長
• JATLAW運営委員会
• スポンサーシップ委員会
  

2014年に東京ビッグサイトで開催されたIJET-25（2日間のカンファレンス）では、500名を超える過去最多の参加者を迎えることができました。

また、PROJECT Osaka、PROJECT Nagoya、IJET Hiroshima、IJET Sendai、IJET Osaka、JATLAW、TACなど、全国各地およびオンラインでのイベントでも、これまでに数多く登壇させていただきました。

JATは、私の翻訳者としてのキャリアにおいて非常に大きな存在です。このような形で評価していただけたことを心よりうれしく思います。ありがとうございます！

I recently received a Distinguished Service Award from the Japan Association of Translators (JAT).
This award was presented in celebration of JAT’s 40th anniversary and recognizes members who have made significant contributions over the years.

Since joining JAT in 2003, I’ve had the opportunity to serve on a number of committees, helping to organize seminars, conferences, and networking events, as well as supporting back-office operations. My involvement has included:

• PROJECT Osaka Organizing Committee (2009)
  
• PROJECT Tokyo 2010 Organizing Committee
  
• Kansai Activities Team (KAT)
• Tokyo Activities Committee (TAC)
• Website Content Committee
• SNS Management Committee
• IJET-25 Organizing Committee (Chair)
• JATLAW Steering Committee
• Sponsorship Committee

IJET-25, a two-day conference held in 2014 at Tokyo Big Sight, welcomed a record 500+ participants.

I’ve also given presentations at numerous JAT events across Japan, including PROJECTs in Osaka and Nagoya, IJETs in Hiroshima, Sendai, and Osaka, and sessions for JATLAW and TAC in Tokyo and online.

It’s been a privilege to contribute to a community that has played such a valuable role in my professional journey. I’m deeply grateful to JAT for this recognition and look forward to staying involved in the years ahead.

Nihonshu (sake) has been my hobby for a few years and finally, after a lot of dithering, I decided to get myself a sake qualification🍶

There are a lot of courses and qualifications available that come at varying prices and with varying time commitments.
I chose the Sake Service Institute's International Kikisake-shi (国際唎酒師) because the SSI offers a correspondence course that meant I could study at home at my own pace. It also sounds kind of cool😎

The course comes with a 300 page textbook but thanks to participating in numerous online events over the past 18 months, and the Monday night Taste With The Toji sessions in particular, not a lot of the information was new to me so the main challenges were finding time to complete the assignments and deciphering some of the slightly dodgy English in the textbook🤣

At the end of a recent online tour, organized by Autabi, a small Tokyo-based travel agent that specializes in tours to meet producers and people living in rural areas and a group set up to promote three of Japan's taro soups, the participants were tested on how well they had been paying attention during the tour and their knowledge of taro soup. Participants who got 10 of the 15-question test answers corrected were awarded a Taro Soup Master Certificate.
I got 14 answers correct so am now a Taro Soup Master!!!

During the tour we visited Nakayama in Yamagata Prefecture, Tsuwano in Shimane Prefecture, and Ozu in Ehime Prefecture, all areas famous for growing taro, and learnt about how the soup differs between the regions.

日本三大芋煮マスターになりました
先日参加したオンラインツアーは日本三大芋煮連絡協議会とのコラボで企画されました。山形県中山町、島根県津和野町と愛媛県大洲市を訪ねて、町探検と芋煮について教えてもらいました。そして、ツアーの最後にマスター認定試験が行われました。各地域や芋煮についての試験でした。

During an online networking session with fellow translators I debuted my Zoom business card virtual background.
A few people noticed it, so I thought I would explain more about here.

Over the last few months I have spent quite a lot of time on Zoom. I use a webcam placed on top of my monitor, which faces the back of my office - a counter and whiteboard-cum-noticeboard which, while not untidy is somewhat unsightly (I wasn't expecting anyone to peek into my world when I designed the layout!)

Luckily Zoom has a virtual background feature.
This is my go-to background that I use in social and non-work related zoom sessions.










It is a picture of my garden, taken in early May, before rainy season killed off my petunias.

In August I read a blog post written by an interpreter about using more professional looking backgrounds:

The article includes a link to a YouTube video on how to create your own Zoom business card.
Essentially the background is a PowerPoint slide, saved as a jpeg file.

As a translator I interact with my clients mostly by email, with the odd (very occasional) phone call, and most work-related seminars are webinars in which participants' cameras are turned off. This means that most of my Zoom endeavors do not require a professional background.

My husband, however, gives online seminars and regularly participates in online meetings with clients. So much so that he has set up another desk in our bedroom so that he is not talking all day in our office and I can concentrate on my work (and without having to worry about accidentally appearing on his webcam).

So, making a business card seemed like a great idea but also a bit of a hassle so I came up with a cunning plan to get my husband to make one and give it to me to adjust for my own use.

I sent him a link to the blog post and "suggested" to him that he ABSOLUTELY must have a Zoom business card. Luckily he read the article and agreed, so he watched the video and set about making his PowerPoint slide. At which point I asked "was it hard to make?" and he offered to give me his slide. SUCCESS!
(he tells me that the YouTube video is actually pretty amazing, and filled with excellent advice!)

After the networking session I added some more information to the card.
I'm not convinced of the need for a QR code given that most people I interact with a likely to be using a PC to access the internet (which is why I added a URL to my card) so I might tweak the card at a later date.

This is it, together with my husband's:

I wrote an article on legal translation in the July 2019 edition of the Tsuyaku Honyaku Journal (Link) published by Ikaros.

通訳翻訳ジャーナル 2019年7月号(リンク）に法務翻訳についての記事を書かせていただきました。

よろしければ、アマゾンでお買い求めください！

May 1, 2019 saw the start of new era, both for Japan and for Orian.
Orian entered its second decade in business and moved to a new address, hence commencing the "Nerima Era".

Both the start of the Reiwa era in Japan and the start of the Nerima era for Orian have resulted in a fair amount of admin work.

The start of Reiwa means I need to update my macros and Word add-ins so that I can automatically convert Japanese dates to Western dates. This is a bit of a pain as I set up the macros so long ago that can't remember where they all are...(^^;

This is the macro I use:
https://www.wordvbalab.com/code/10313/

While my accountant took care of most of the official procedures for changing the company address such as contacting the Legal Affairs Bureau, there is still quite a lot that I needed to do myself, such as informing the tax and pension offices, my bank, the post office, clients, not to mention updating the address on estimates, invoices, email signatures, and envelopes, ordering new business cards and an address stamp and so on...

This is the third time Orian has moved and it should also be the final move!

5月1日は日本とオリアンにとって、新しい時代の始まりでした。
オリアンは11年目に入り、練馬区に引越しました。

日本の新元号への変更と会社の住所変更とにより、様々な事務作業が発生しました。

新元号への変更でも和暦を西暦に自動的に変換できるように、マクロとWordアドインを更新する必要がありました。
ずっと前にマクロを設定したので、マクロの更新方法を忘れてしまって少し面倒でした(^-^;

私が使っているマクロ（の一つ）はこちらです：
https://www.wordvbalab.com/code/10313/

顧問会計士は法務局への届出などの住所変更の一通りの手続きをしてくれましたが、自分でやるべきことがたくさんありました。税務署、年金機構、銀行、郵便局、顧客への新住所の連絡や、 見積書、請求書、電子メールの署名、封筒の住所の更新、新しい名刺や住所印の注文などなど・・・。

オリアンの引越しは今回で3回目であり、これが最後の引越しになると思います。

新しい元号とともに始まった今年度も、引き続きよろしくお願いいたします🎶

On September 15th I attended an event at Microsoft's head office in Shinagawa.
The event was called 『Microsoft Officeユーザー 感謝祭！ ”今よりもっと”を最新のOfficeで』

When I say "attended", I was actually asked to MC three sessions.
The participants were 100% Japanese, and while I am not a good judge of age I would guess they were mostly aged 30-55 and 70% male.

As a translator and business owner, I am a heavy MS Office user but this event focused on Office 365, which I have never used, so it was all completely new to me. And although it was also somewhat irrelevant to my work situation, it was actually quite fascinating to see a) what Office 365 is capable of and b) how it is being used by people outside the translation community.

Here is a random list of some of my take aways from the event:

1. An MS employee demonstrated giving a presentation using PPT with real-time translations of whatever he was saying appearing as subtitles below the slides on the screen. While not 100% accurate the concept is fascinating and will surely be usable in the future as technology improves.

2. Joint editing of Word docs is still sluggish but I can see how it could be used by translation companies to check large documents when deadlines are tight IF the sliggishness is resolved.

3. Two of the three speakers connected their phones to the projector to demonstrate apps

4. MS's technology (in the rooms) was all new to me. I had a switch been the speakers' screens (PC) and another screen (PC) showing sponsor details during the breaks. The rooms had two screens and some speakers demonstrated functions by hooking up each screen to a different PC or phone. As a speaker, having such options opens up the possibilities when preparing a presentation.

5. One speaker explained that Line and FB Messenger are now more secure than email due to the encoding/encryption these apps use. Skype for Business, he said, is the safest way to send files.

6. Said speaker also commented on the US trend of employing experts versus the Japanese trend of outsourcing tasks. He also mentioned the differences between the US and Japan in the way application forms are written (designed).

7. I am not a tech person so a lot of the presentations went over my head but it was still very interesting, and I got a good sense of where the world is heading in terms of technology, and I'm glad I "attended".

2018年10月28日（日）にサイマルアカデミーの東京校でワークショップを担当します。

タイトルは「ネイティブ翻訳者が教える日英契約書翻訳ワークショップ 」です。

翻訳学校でワークショップを担当するのは3年ぶり！

サイマルアカデミーのウエブサイトに詳細は書かれていますが、一部をここで紹介します。
＿＿
【第1部】
法務文書の翻訳と通常の文書での翻訳の違いや的確な翻訳をする為に知っておくべきことなど、契約書の英訳について一から分かりやすく説明します。レイアウトをはじめ、決まり文句、「甲」「乙」「丙」や数字の扱いなど、翻訳時に悩む点も取り上げます。また、法務翻訳をする上で必要な情報、有益なリソースやツール、検索方法、最近の動向などもご紹介します。

【第2部】
実際の契約書から一般条項を中心に翻訳演習を行います。一般条項には、定義・契約期間・裁判管轄・準拠法・不可抗力・準拠法・知的財産権・反社会的勢力排除などが含まれ、どんな業種や種類の契約書でも取り決めておくべき一般的な条項です。実務で扱う頻度が高く、翻訳のコツを知っておくことは重要です。
＿＿
申込締切は10月16日（火）です。

I'll be running a workshop on legal translation for Simul Academy on October 28.