Keyboard shortcuts are available for common actions and site navigation.
You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more
Before the fan-translation-to pro-translator discourse dies out, I might as well share this experience of mine. Hi. I put my 6 years of fan translation experience on my first translation resume. Here are three very different reactions I got from anime and manga companies.
Backstory: I was looking for internships between my first and second year of study for my Master's in Japanese Translation at a top ranked translation university. My experience was limited to my classwork and my years of fan translation, mostly obscure webcomics and josei.
The Resume: Included the name of the group, a link to the website, and details on the specific tasks I carried out, as well as viewership statistics. Yes, I know. I was young and naive, and I paid for it, as you'll see.
#1) Did not mention it. Emailed me back a week later. Asked me to complete translation test. Passed, then signed a contract. Business as usual.
#2) Never heard back. A day later, a fan translator friend reached out to me, saying an employee at the company had posted a Twitter thread about me.
The tl;dr: "I got an AMAZING applicant to work for Company today. Good scores, great sample, but she's a filthy scanlator. I can't believe a criminal like this would apply for us. Into the trash it goes."
The comments were in agreement. Lynch the villain. How dare she. Release her name so she never works again. It rattled me for weeks.
#3) The translator that responded said they entered the industry the same way, praised me for my passion. Said I'd have to stop, and pass the test, but they saw me as a mentee. I passed the test and signed a contract.
Oh wow! That was you!!!!
Wow! Its almost like meeting a celebrity! I have heard about you for years....pic.twitter.com/1bDQLtUpzn
Years? That's... disturbing, considering the implications.
Nothing specific, just the story of a translator who sent in a resume filled with scanlation work. Kind of a cautionary tale....
Well, it /did/ end up getting me hired somewhere I love to work, so... joke's on them? 
Honestly, I'd probably do it again, but add in a note saying "I don't do this anymore, I don't condone it, but it did give me a lot of experience... just sayin'."
I literally put in a note like that when I submitted resumes to companies like Yen Press. I figured I’d rather them hear it from me, myself, and hear me say “yeah, I screwed up back in the day, it’s still online though so just FYI”. I also got a range of reactions.
That's messed up - particularly because that entire industry's popularity is built upon fan translations. The years and years of companies not taking chances on good series, the years and years of price-gouging. They don't realize how much this industry owes fan translators.
Speaking as someone deeply involved in videogame fan translation on the technical end of things, my skills unfortunately don't translate nearly as well to paid employment. Best I can come up with is becoming an official boutique publisher.
Basically, offer "get your old IP out in English; all you need is to let me do the work and take some of the cut" but idk, I've pretty much never had any luck with rightsholders. My technical chops did get me work in enterprise software though, so there's that I guess? :/
I love doing the work though, and I'd love to be able to make a living at it. But I feel like that #2 reaction you got is still the prevailing view, especially in Japan, especially with business-decision-makers :(
Looking through replies I said, "omg, GideonZhi!" You've patched so many games to accommodate translators' localizations that I simultaneously: recognize your name, know I've played many games you've translated, & yet know I would only *incidentally* name one.
Wow, you live in Seattle, now? That's pretty cool. Do you have a publicist? Maybe somebody doing twitch streams of your translations, hosting all your interviews, asking hacking events to invite you?
Nothing like that, no. As a hobbyist I can't really afford to pay anyone, and as a professional I don't really have anything I legally own to show. I also don't really have many interviews to speak of, and certainly none recent.
I've done some contract work for @RetroBitGaming but that's by far the exception and not the rule, I'm afraid :/
I'll think on that a little..
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.
