"Rindler Sigurd" <srindler@da2.so-net.ne.jp> wrote in message

> > > They are native French,
> >
> > And that makes them some kinds of experts in Japan.
> >
> What's that supposed to mean?

You can be translator or not,6 teacher or not, writer or not...there is no
concept of native French.
Except for the Japanese.

> However, car body parts are about the most difficult stuff to translate in
> the automotive field. I should know after being in this business for 22
> years.

Because you translate from Engrish.
Now I understand you were not even sure "front mask" existed...

> I see... you have died from overwork,

from being underpaid...
Well, I didn't like technical translations enough to specialise in that
(getting a post-graduate degree in a narrow specialty is the only way, if
you want to make a living. There is a fierce competition.)
I'd translate only half of the day in average, then I'd used the translated
stuff to sell the parts or machines. Normally, you get a salary or a % on
sales when you do that...but in France, that money went to the salaried guys
we replaced while they were doing strikes,
attending union meetings, coffee break, interprofessional meetings, coffee
break, meetings between themselves, getting training (=eikaiwa lessons or
how-to-use windows beginner level....), coffee break, going back home after
35 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds of presence, taking sick leaves, calculating
how many weeks before they can take their pre-retirement at the age of
48-50, etc.

>got resurrected,

...came to Japan, where I get paid for meetings and coffee breaks all day.

> These manuals come once every 3 years. They are either written in Japanese
> by engineers who have their own jargon or can't write... or they are
> translated into incomprehensible Engrish by anybody who has nothing to do
> and passed the 2nd TOIC test!

I have seen that sort of litterature. Rewriting them completely would take
less time.

> There are people who are pretty good, but I have yet to find somebody who
> can say that he/she does not need any dictionary...

She uses dictionaries, data bases,....but not something that gives random
definitions like google, as rechecking would consume even more time...

> All I can do is quit my job or adapt myself to the system. It's still too
> early to retire...

Like everybody. I often think of how a friend illustrated that sort of
situation :

There is the guy that goes to a garage and asks square wheels for his car.
If the garagist refuses, he'll go to see another one. But if he gets his
square wheels, he'll go to tell everyone "Look at what that idiot garagist
made to my car !"

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