Hello!
Thank you for viewing my profile. I am a native English speaker and US citizen, and I have been living in Japan for four years. I am currently seeking entry-level work in the fields of proofreading/editing and translation. I am also very interested in interpreting.

I have been a student of the Japanese language for the past ten years, both on my own and at Kent State University and Mount Union College, where I obtained my Bachelor of Arts in the Japanese language, with a focus on literary translation. My senior project at Mount Union was the translation of the short story "Himitsu" by Tanizaki Junichiro. This story remains, to my knowledge, unplublished in English.

I passed Level 2 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in December of 2004, and I plan to try for Level 1 this year.

A resident of Nagoya, and am currently working for a tour company with offices in Bristol and here in Nagoya. Previous to Nagoya, I lived mainly in Osaka, though I also stayed in Shiga prefecture and the Kobe area for a while.

As for language skills, I am equally comfortable with everyday conversation, keigo and business speech, slang, and the infamous Kansai and Osaka dialects. I have worked in the teaching industry, the bar and entertainment industry, and the music industry while living here, acquiring the appropriate vocabulary and manner of speaking and behavior for all of the above. I have served as an interpreter in all of these fields, as well as in my time at university, helping to mediate disputes between Japanese international students and their roommates. My reading and writing skills in the language are now beyond that of JLPT Level 2, but I have yet to take Level 1.

I will be the first to admit that I've never officially held the job title of translator or interpreter; however I feel that my experiences as a resident of Japan as well as a student of Japanese language and culture have given me much valuable knowledge that would be a strong foundation upon which to build my skills. I'm just looking for the chance to start building!

If you have any questions about my experience, ability, or availability, please feel free to contact me. I also welcome advice from employers, as well as from people with experience in the field.