A native speaker of American English who lived and worked in Japan for six years, from 1988 to 1994. The first two years my career guided me to teaching English to Japanese college students in Sendai-shi, Miyagi-ken. I approach all my projects with enthusiasm and am prepared to work hard in order to meet the goals for the project.

Additionally, while in Japan, I traveled for both work and pleasure. I spent 3 weeks in Madhya Pradesh, India, doing a work camp with my Japanese college students who studied English with me. I spent 2 weeks in Thailand, with the same group of students, and we worked to build a Christian chapel in their village. I visited Hong Kong with my parents several times. I was very interested in Chinese Kanji and realized that I could read some Chinese! I took a vacation to Guam with friends, and I visited Taiwan twice. Taiwanese culture is very different from Japan. On those visits to Taiwan, I found my "Japanese sensibilities" offended several times.

As a translator and interpreter, I am active in the automotive industry. My entire career beginning in 1994, has been working for Japanese manufacturers making automotive part assemblies and components. In my interpreting and translation work, it is extremely important to me that I meet the Clients' deadlines, and provide translation to English from Japanese and translation from Japanese into English. Of course I am not a native speaker of Japanese; in 1990 while working for Gifu City, I met a man who lived close by and played Dobro in a Bluegrass band. I did not have a vehicle (even though I had a Japanese driver's license!), so Mr. Kasuga, who did have a vehicle, became my 'legs". In Japanese, when someone with a car chauffeurs someone who does not have a car, then Japanese people in Gifu say that the driver is the other person's "legs" since the driver of the car is taking the person to their destination.

A lot of times Clients choose me for a project that is Japanese to English because my last name is Japanese. Japanese Clients especially, feel comfortable choosing me because of my last name Kasuga 春日(translated literally is "spring day"). I do have extensive experience in translating English into Japanese; but because I am not a native speaker of Japanese, I always have my translations reviewed and marked up by a native speaker of Japanese, then I apply the recommended changes to complete the project.

My strength in translation is providing native English texts that emanate natural US English. Any translator can do a literal translation of the Japanese text. I, however, choose to pull out the subliminal statements in the Japanese text, giving a meaningful, culturally correct, document.

I do not accept legal or financial translations as I have no experience in these areas and do not feel I could provide a correct translation for the Client. 

Amy Kasuga