David Brown

E Mail: acqkwo@r.postjobfree.com

OBJECTIVE: Seeking a position as a Translator for Japanese to English and related editing and research.

QUALIFICATIONS:

Translate commercial, technical, and literary text from Japanese to English.

Translate computer role playing games from Japanese to English.

Clients contracted include: Toyota, Japan GoreTex, Mitsubishi, Mercedes Benz, Koganei, Komatsu, Obayashi, Mitsui OSK, Gartner Group, the Japanese Government, and many others.

Translate and research materials on Japanese securities and finance.

Translated and wrote newspaper articles, commentaries, and feature stories.

Translate history, mathematics, art, economics, and scientific papers.

Page layout, editing, proofreading, and management of special features sections.

Wrote a weekly column for two years at an English language daily newspaper in Tokyo.

Copywriting work from Japanese sources.

WORK HISTORY:

8/99 6/2006Technical Translator, Nikon Precision Inc., Belmont, CA 6/94 present Translator, Freelance, Moraga, CA and Tigard, OR 6/92 5/94 Translator/Rewriter, Universal Securities Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan

3/87 5/94 Translator/Columnist, Daily Yomiuri Newspaper, Tokyo, Japan 10/83 2/87Translator/Copywriter, Witan Associates, Tokyo, Japan EDUCATION:

Graduate work, University of California at Berkeley, East Asian History, Berkeley, CA

B.A., Asian Studies and Political Science, Minor in Japanese, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT

General Comments:

On Games:

I have worked on three or four computer and video games, mostly in the period 1999 to 2000. This work mainly involved translation of dialogue and of software commands related to the games. One game in particular I did all the translation work from beginning to end, including a 30 page player handbook, in the fall of 1999. This was Tomba, The Wild Adventures a fantasy role playing game made for Sony Playstation by WhoopeeCamp, a software company based in Osaka, Japan. In the 1980s, I also participated in a pre computer role playing game about pre modern Japan, contributing a chapter on Japanese magic. The game was produced by the Chaosium, of Oakland CA, and later purchased and marketed by Avalon Hill, a game company based in Baltimore MD. On Office Experience:

At Nikon Precision, where I worked in house since 1999, I was mainly engaged in translation of technical manuals and in house service documents related to the stepper machines marketed by Nikon to semiconductor chip manufacturers. I worked closely with the Japanese engineers and designers, and also with the American service engineers who maintain the machines for customers. The work also included a number of trips to on site locations for interpreting and for obtaining hands on experience with the machines.

Before that, at the Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, I worked at nearly all phases of newspaper operations, including translation of stories from the Japanese newspaper, reporting work, page editing and make up, editorial page comment, and a weekly column.

While I was never in a formally supervisory position at either Nikon Precision or the Daily Yomiuri, I was often in a position of directing other people work in the context of a particular project formed ad hoc for a few days or a few weeks at a time.

On Preparation of Published Documents:

At Witan Associates in the 1980s, I gained experience working on PR publications and magazines with tight deadlines, doing proofreading and editing at all stages from first draft to final proof sheets. At Nikon, I have assisted in production of customer manuals with specific deadline requirements. The newspaper experience, of course, involved tight adherence to deadlines on a daily basis, or a weekly basis for features pages.

On General Knowledge:

I took graduate level courses at U.C. Berkeley in 1994 to 1996, in East Asian history. This experience, combined with an on going interest in history and culture in that part of the world and elsewhere, has given me a background knowledge that has proved useful when working on games, doing freelance translations on all sorts of topics, and working on publications.

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