きょうすけ

1. I am not an official translator but I know some stuff about the business. Mostly on the indie/VN end, not 8-4 or squeenix or whatever level. Most weeb media companies, esp for VNs, work near exclusively with contracted freelancers. There are some exceptions, but those want you to live in the US or Japan. Most companies avoid agencies for niche media; shiravune/johren is a kinda cringe exception. Nobody really wants to hire an agency, it's more expensive.
2. Contractor positions are usually remote. Full-time positions are usually onsite and usually somewhere with crazy cost of living (cali KEKW).
3. Depends a lot on the place. You might be working in Word for LNs, in Google Sheets for a lot of stuff, or with actual CAT tools (especially translation agencies seem to do this, but you don't really want to work for them if you can help it since you usually don't get credited and have an NDA).
4. Actually can't comment since I've never sought employment. It depends a lot on your networking skills + actual abilities... regrettably (twitter bad for you unless you heavily curate) a twitter presence can help here.

5. ...Usually you want at least N2 level proficiency for a translation job. This doesn't mean you need to have the JLPT pass, many smaller companies care less about this than your performance on translation tests. Anyone company takes people at lower skill level than one able to pass N2 is probably a shit company, yes offense. Apart from Japanese ability, English (target language, but English is in the highest demand) writing ability is also important.
In general, translation has different components and some of them are hard to learn without actually translating yourself. As such, starting in fan translation is advisable. One risky "in" with translation companies for visual novels is to do a fan translation and sell it to the company. Note that the translation has to be good enough that the company wants to take it, and that you'll likely need to stall and piss off your fans as negotiations progress if you have gone public, plus you need to resolve tensions in your tl group etc etc. If you work with this goal I would be upfront about it to any member that wants to join.
It's hard to recommend becoming a weeb media translator if you have any other prospects. The pay is bad, the job security precarious, the outlook grim (machine translation will increasingly be getting """"""good"""""" enough that companies will be more and more tempted to cut costs and do MTL post-editing rather than real translation, with shitty but good enough results). But if you choose to let the void gaze also into you, I can only wish you luck.

Indeed, let's. Went ahead and hid most of the trolly posts derailing the thread. 

don’t mind them, they’re just a bunch of 12 year olds with nothing better to do

That's one way of identifying text as originating from Moogy. He has (had?) connections, speaks with authority (which he likely never had for real) and it seems he wants everybody to feel bad because nobody sane will ever live up to what Moogy wants. According to him, everybody should learn Japanese, but at the same time nobody is allowed to go through the learning process.
VNDB has boards, which is a forum like thing. It's custom made and generally poor from a forum point of view, but it's in the database, meaning it's designed to link to VNs, releases, publishers etc. In fact you look at say Ever17, to the top right there is a tab with discussions. 43 threads has been attached to this title. The benefit of this is if somebody asks about the contents or writes a review, even if left idle for years, it will still pop up for the VN in question and not die many pages back in some subforum. 43 is really high. Most have less than 5, with 0 being the most common for untranslated VNs.
Around 5 years ago, the boards were some sort of wild west. One instance was that Moogy said VNs should be transformed into American culture. One person (A) replied something like "are you saying Americans are so stupid that they can't read a story unless it's changed to match American culture? I don't think that's the case". Next a new person flames for calling all Americans stupid, but aims at A rather than Moogy. Other people joins in and in a short time there was 50+ posts of people calling each other names.
Another example was a recommendation thread. It nearly instantly got replied with something like "OP makes it sound like low resolution is better than high resolution. Can somebody explain the point because I'm it". This got replied with 5-10 posts of harassment and death threats for not liking VNs enough before somebody came with a valid reply and pointed out that OP wasn't good at explaining the thinking behind the request. This made both the request and the question valid.
Eventually VNDB got tired of deleting posts all the time from people acting like that and announced a cleanup, which meant people who wouldn't stop doing that would get banned. That made VNDB a lot nicer, but it also lost more than one translator working on official translations.
Usually it isn't, at least not the serious boards like this one. This thread got seriously trolled though as it has taken up two pages of replies by now and I just made yet another reply, which is off topic from the threads intended purpose. We should get back on topic.

Tip of the day: do not act like Moogy is the god he believes he is. He has stated that the goal of a translation is localization, meaning it should be rewritten to get rid of as much Japanese culture as possible and insert American culture instead. After all American readers can't understand Japanese culture. Also if you aren't an American, you apparently have no business reading VNs in English. Moogy is also a firm believer that readers should be punished for not understanding Japanese and the way to do that is to ensure the quality of the localization will not reach the quality of the Japanese original.
Despite his significant influence in the VN community, VNDB had to ban him for always starting fights.
If you want a real answer to the question, Darbury already provided it on his blog.
Poll summary: only one person out of 34 says honorifics should never be included in a translation.
 
If you ask for my personal opinion, then it depends on the VN. In some titles they make very little difference and removing them will not be a noteworthy loss of information. In other titles, the honorifics carries a lot of information, sometimes more than first meets the eye, in which case keep them. In such a title, trying to include the information without actually using honorifics will not only lose information, it will also result in English sentences, which are less readable than if you would just include the honorifics.
If you use honorifics, make a list of those you include and add a txt file or something to tell the meaning of each. It might not sound important at first glance, but what is the difference between -san and -kun? We can't be 100% sure all readers will know. We can't even be sure everybody on Fuwa is fully aware of this. And what if the VN decides to use some less known ones, such as -waka or -dono? If you always include a list of all honorifics in the VN and an explanation, then you will gain the freedom to use such honorifics/titles.

nice!
and good luck with your project...

do you already solve this problem yet?
guess i found new workaround for this...
i tested this game yesterday
try this:
lets assume this is the japanese text
これは日本語テキストです。 これは新しい行です。
you want to make it looks like this:
これは日本語テキストです。
これは新しい行です。
so do this:
これは日本語テキストです。[r]
これは新しい行です。  <move this to the new line with Enter
put [r] instead of  \n and after that, hit enter so that the text split to the new line
let me know if this works, but if you already solve this problem, just ignore it.

In my opinion, if the setting is in Japan, then definitely keep the honorifics. Otherwise, remove them. That's the best way to go about it.
Hentai generally means pervert though.

for me, yes, i keep them... sometimes, i just feel awkward change honorifics like: senpai with senior, or sensei with teacher, or even remove them? i feel like it lose its impact... beside the honorifics, i also keep anything that reader already familiar with, something like: lolicon, ecchi, hentai, or other terms as well, how suppose we translate lolicon in english? p3do is a bit much isnt it?

depend on how often/much they say the names,
here is an example, i translate a game with english name: Crow, in japanese it says Kurou
some char call him Kuro, while other also call him Kurou, like "Kurooooouuuu-kuuuuun...!" with the obvious visible "u", so i keep the long vowel instead...

I will not sell myself in order to be together with other people. If people demand something I don't agree with, then screw them. Life is too short to waste it pleasing somebody who aren't even friendly towards you. I will rather have no contact with people than having contact with the wrong people. This has given me problems multiple times, particularly from bully leaders in school when they couldn't control me. However I will have to add that this doesn't mean that I have no contact with the outside world. There are actually some people worth knowing.

Conditions like heavy depression or schizoprenia are a "delightful" mix of symptoms. Weariness (even if not elicited by traceable causes) is a common byproduct of depression, it's commonly told how the patient stays in bed during long periods of time, feels drained, and so on.
With schizophrenia you have the "lovely" antipsychotics, which aren't religiously used willingly by patients anyway. Those bring their own problems, but at least you shake off the worst.

I'll be honest and say that after what I experienced during all these years, it's only natural for me to seek a more secluded life. Nonetheless a bith of company is always welcome, as long said company respects you for what you are.
Wish you a happy life, no matter the direction you'll take.

He has set up his 'personal room' at the house he is renting for his otaku stuff.  His wife isn't an otaku, but she is understanding of his need to watch anime for ten hours a week in order to remain sane.   Also, some of the other staffers at the embassy are light or medium otakus, so he has people to chat with irl, apparently.

I'm not sure it's your location or age, which really matters here. Once you reached a certain age (teens?), watching anime is seen as weird and childish more or less regardless of where you are, including Japan. Not being interested in (insert local sport) is apparently really bad everywhere. I have taken some flaming for that from peers and teachers for that one alone. As I wrote earlier:
This sentence can be applied to everything you mention. In fact it can be applied to more or less everything.
I wonder if stressful is the right word, but I guess it depends on the person and the surroundings. Some are more prone to stress than others and the risk of being discovered varies greatly. If you are the sort of person who wants to be nude in the living room with hentai on the big screen, then it could be stressful if you have to hope no family member will come home earlier than usual. If you can somehow be sure not to be interrupted, then the stress from risk of discovery should be minimal.
To me, stress isn't really an issue. What matters more is that it's annoying not to have anybody to talk to. In a way it's comparable with hikikomori despite the fact that I do have face to face contact with other people, usually for hours each day. Fuwa helps in this regard, though oddly enough I have a tendency to feel left out here as well. People mention some awesome VNs/animes and it's not uncommon that I have no interest in those. At first I took what I could get, but now I have apparently become quite picky about what contents I spend time on.

People berated my tastes, saying that Japanese media is stupid and immature.
What did I do?
I stopped going out with people.

Unfortunately I know way too well that mental condition. Once you reach that point, everything lose its value in your eyes, you feel extremely tired, without being able to even fight for your own dreams and aspirations; the only thing you do is "living" by the day (and I was extremely generous by using the word "living").

I know that I'm going to derail from the main thread (sorry for doing this, Thyndd), but I really would like to ask @Clephas something about his post:
How is your friend living out his hobby/coexisting his otaku side with his family and his life in general?
The reason for my question is that, frankly speaking, I live in a country not that developed toward otaku stuff in general (the south regions, in which I live, are even more ignorant on this matter). As a result, most of the people here hide the fact of liking anime/manga or any videogame which is not soccer or FPS related (because here, if it's not soccer or a shooter game, everything else is "crap for children").
This holds extremely true for my generation and similar (I'm almost 30), which forced me to hide my hobby till this day. This goes without saying that is very stressful, and unable to show others my tastes without being finger pointed.

I know that I'm going to derail from the main thread (sorry for doing this, Thyndd), but I really would like to ask @Clephas something about his post:
How is your friend living out his hobby/coexisting his otaku side with his family and his life in general?
The reason for my question is that, frankly speaking, I live in a country not that developed toward otaku stuff in general (the south regions, in which I live, are even more ignorant on this matter). As a result, most of the people here hide the fact of liking anime/manga or any videogame which is not soccer or FPS related (because here, if it's not soccer or a shooter game, everything else is "crap for children").
This holds extremely true for my generation and similar (I'm almost 30), which forced me to hide my hobby till this day. This goes without saying that is very stressful, and unable to show others my tastes without being finger pointed.

^Amen to that (feel a bit sorry for you too, since we understand each other that kind of awkward situation, which is sooo unpleasant).
You are also right on finding the right environment with the right people, but is very luck based, at least to me, which to this day I wasn't able to find outside of the internet.

I completely agree with what you're saying Kyousuke. I'm also of a similar age (32) and there's no way I can discuss with others about my hobbies without being labelled as weird. That said I believe it's all about your environment and the people that surround you. During my first (and only) research assistant position I found that I could talk to colleagues about these things; although many of my colleagues at the time we're Chinese. Since I had to give up my ambition of a lectureship (due to an unplanned pregnancy) and move into the defence industry for a permanent job there's just no way I can discuss these hobbies with anyone anymore; and I find that unbelievably crushing. Like you said if it's football or rugby then there's conversation, everything else just raises eyebrows. 

I know that I'm going to derail from the main thread (sorry for doing this, Thyndd), but I really would like to ask @Clephas something about his post:
How is your friend living out his hobby/coexisting his otaku side with his family and his life in general?
The reason for my question is that, frankly speaking, I live in a country not that developed toward otaku stuff in general (the south regions, in which I live, are even more ignorant on this matter). As a result, most of the people here hide the fact of liking anime/manga or any videogame which is not soccer or FPS related (because here, if it's not soccer or a shooter game, everything else is "crap for children").
This holds extremely true for my generation and similar (I'm almost 30), which forced me to hide my hobby till this day. This goes without saying that is very stressful, and unable to show others my tastes without being finger pointed.

People who follow their hobbies obsessively are often seen as eccentric or childish... but immaturity is relative.  One of my best rl friends is a heavy-duty otaku with a family who works in the embassy of a certain African nation (though, because of that I haven't seen him in years).  I know plenty of people who are serious and live fulfilled lives around me who also happen to be otakus... and if you don't seem childish while indulging your hobbies, they probably aren't a hobby.  That is because a hobby is something you are supposed to take joy in pursuing, as opposed to working at.
That said... in any community, a certain percentage of those involved are going to be immature trolls (trolls being immature by definition).  I won't deny that some people, excluding myself of course *bats his eyes innocently* have made decisions others might consider... immature.  However, there is no absolute definition of maturity, beyond the ability to rationally make your own decisions based on what you want from life and be capable of rational discussion with people who disagree with you... or at least avoid exploding in their faces.
 

I see a pattern in this and it's more general than what it seems at first glance. It's about the classic "you have to think like me". There are plenty of examples of this. It's very clear in politics where you can be called deplorable for just disagreeing on which politician to vote for. There are however lots of examples unrelated to politics. Few examples related to psychology.
 
Introvert vs Extrovert
While introverts have a high degree of "other people can do as they like", extroverts have a tendency to expect other people to act extroverted and they announce whenever they think somebody doesn't behave according to "extrovert guidelines". If a person have no interest in being the center of attention at a party or even showing up, that person is declared to be a loser. The same goes for a person with too few friends because apparently having 1000 friends on FB is a goal in itself. Introverts tend to care less for how cloth looks, but wearing something, which was the fashion 10 years ago is so not accepted by some other people.
 
Asperger syndrome
This diagnosis is likely to be removed in the next revision of official diagnoses due to being applied to people it was never intended for. However if we look at the core criteria for this diagnosis, it aims towards people (primarily children), which are different. On top of usually being introverts, they don't like crowded places like schools, mainly due to the noise level. They have a tendency to have a major interest, which they like to study, usually alone. This interest can be anything, but is often mechanical in nature (trains is a common interest). They don't mind studying insignificant details for hours and they build up a wast knowledge of the area and you can ask them anything and they usually remember.
The problem with this description is that particularly the interest part of it fits most engineers, which has given it the nickname "the engineering disease". Most engineers tend to like studying "insignificant details", like engine parts, software algorithms, math problems etc. All those problems seems to be unimportant to psychologists, which by now has labeled them as deviation from perfection.
One example would be Joseph Whitworth. He became obsessed with measuring small distances and in 1840 he achieved being able to measure a millionth of an inch. Just wanting to measure something too small to be seen provides a not insignificant score on the AS scale. He then proceeded to make a standard for screws, which made them interchangeable and it's this thing, which allows you to go to the hardware store and buy screws and bolts and know they fit whatever you need just by reading the numbers on the box. He also started making guns where barrel and bullet fits in size, making them long range and accurate enough to allow aiming in a way we understand as aiming. Somebody else quickly took his method of measuring and applied to it making cylinders and pistons for steam engines. This almost eliminated the problem of leaking steam around the pistons, which made them a lot more fuel efficient. This in turn changed railroads from something in coal field areas to a global thing because now they were beating horses in operation costs even in countries without coal. The importance of Joseph Whitworth is likely not possible to over estimate (but have you even heard of him? I didn't in school). The reason why I bring him up here is because if he had been born today, he would have been labeled as Asperger and put in counseling and possibly medication to make him normal. He would need protection against his own weird ideas. There is no room for being different anymore. Einstein has been labeled with Asperger, though luckily not until long after his death, meaning it didn't cause him any problems.
 
Anime/VN/Japan
I see little difference in this. There is some guy, who doesn't understand and doesn't try to understand what he is talking about and then he flames people for having interests, which are different from his interests.
 
That he brings up childish as a psychologist (if he is that) is interesting because according to psychology, there are 3 categories: child, adult, parent and each person consist of something from each. Since only the child is able to have fun, people with little or no score in child aren't able to have fun at all. In order to be happy, it's important to have a non-insignificant score in child while at the same time it should not over shadow the others as that would make the person irresponsible.
I wouldn't call it childish to follow orders. In fact it's actually a grown up thing to do. For instance there is a law stating that cars should drive on the right side of the road (or left depending on where you are). A child would go "me first, me not listen" and go everywhere while grown ups will understand that it's part of a greater plan to avoid traffic jams. You become one piece in a giant puzzle and you understand that it is in the interest of everybody including yourself that all pieces match perfectly. Another example would be to obey queues when going through a door. If you want to skip ahead in the queue, you risk ending up in a jam because too many people are in the door at once.
 
The talk about Japan and WW2 makes no sense whatsoever. If true, then explain why what he claims to be a result of losing WW2 was present even more strongly in the 1930s than it is today.
 
I wouldn't put too much into "somebody on the internet" flaming people out of ignorance and intolerance. The people he talks about do exist, but he puts it in way too general terms. Going back to the car example, it would be like saying people drive cars because they want to drive around a block repeatably honking the horn to annoy somebody. It has likely happened in rare cases, but it's not a general trait of car owners.

Welcome to Fuwanovel, and sorry for the belated greeting. As for your Japanese study, good luck on that and hopefully you'll able to translate a VN in the future (Short one is fine as well if you just want to started it, and remember that translating VN is usually quite need a lot of effort). Have fun.