Across the Divide / Learning English through subtitles
Nanako Yamashita, president of a company that offers English-to-Japanese subtitling, dubbing and simultaneous interpretation services, says she acquired more English skills through her job in Japan than she did during four years studying at a university in the United States.
"I'd like to say that you can start learning English anytime if you have a challenging and unyielding spirit," says Yamashita, 46, who worked as a freelance translator and interpreter for many years before establishing Wise Infinity Co. in February 2000.
Although Yamashita didn't particularly like English in her younger days, she became interested in the language during a three-week homestay during a summer vacation in New Mexico when she was a high school student.
"I couldn't speak English well, but I thought it was fun to communicate with people in English. I wanted to stay there longer," she said.
Although she was desperate to study English at a university in the United States, her parents were opposed to her going there. "My parents said they would only let me go if I could find, by myself, a university that would accept me," she said.
In those days, there was hardly any information available for students wanting to pay to study abroad. But she did find a book written by a former student who had studied overseas. Acting on what she read, she visited the author and obtained a lot of information on studying abroad. Eventually, she was accepted by a local university in Virginia.
"I tried to find a university where no Japanese students were studying," she said. She married an American student there at the age of 20. When she returned to Japan with a diploma and a husband, she had already become a mother.
Yamashita started to teach English at a language school. She also started writing Japanese subtitles for English videos, after an acquaintance working in a production company dealing with imported videos asked her for help.
"It was a time when direct-to-video films and TV dramas were flooding into the Japanese market," she said.
Yamashita was also asked to do the interpreting of overseas news by TV stations.
"It was a tough job as foreign news often comes in during the middle of the night, and I would have to go to a TV station located in the center of Tokyo all the way from deepest Kanagawa Prefecture," she said. As she lived in Atsugi, it took nearly two hours to reach the TV stations of the metropolis.
She started to build a reputation for flexibility and accuracy in translation. As she could not deal with these job offers by herself, she started a company. Now her company has a staff of 10, including coordinators and translation checkers.
Yamashita said a refined Japanese language ability is indispensable to becoming an interpreter or a subtitle translator. She said she had a good command of Japanese when she was a student. "I liked reading books as a child, and I think my Japanese abilities were cultivated through books," she said.
Her company holds a seminar every year, and many young women who are interested in becoming subtitle writers attend. But Yamashita says some of the participants lack a hungry spirit.
"I think the number of people who are good at English but lack knowledge about general affairs is increasing these days," she said. "But professionals in the language business must know all kinds of things from current affairs to the entertainment world, not just the language itself.
Dictionaries are useful when it comes to language, but a lack of general knowledge in current affairs cannot be compensated for in the short term."
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This column features interviews with professionals who use English in their work. It will return on April 20.