by Rychelle Brittain
I majored in Japanese throughout university and always dreamed of being a translator, but due to various life choices I ended up in a generic administrative career in Australia. I currently work as a court transcriptionist typing up legal proceedings in South Australia.
In 2020, with the advent of COVID-19, I decided I wanted to take charge of my life and seriously look at picking up freelance translation. I came across a Peatix event hosted by Japan Visualmedia Translation Academy, a subtitling school based in Tokyo, Japan, offering a free subtitling lesson online, so I thought I would give it a go.
I absolutely loved the experience and I learned that due to COVID restrictions the school had just recently started offering their courses online.
I immediately signed up. Halfway through the yearlong course I registered myself as a sole trader and began officially introducing myself as a freelance translator. My freelancing career has since shot through the roof. I have also discovered I can combine my skills developed in court transcription to provide video transcription to English to Japanese subtitle translators who would not otherwise have access to a script.
For whatever reason, I had always felt that before I was allowed to translate within the entertainment industry I would have to do the hard yards translating generic or business documents. But through my journey with JVTA and discovering online translation and localization groups, I now realize that that way of thinking only serves to pigeonhole oneself, and the only way to get into the entertainment industry is to actually offer your services within that industry.
Ultimately, the global pandemic has ended up being a blessing in disguise for me. I was able to attend a school I would not have otherwise been able to, and I am able to continue living in Australia while interacting with my Japanese audience through Zoom and other online meetings. I sincerely hope that this will continue to be available even as the world opens up again.
