So you want to be big in Japan? What does it take to promote your brand in the country and how can you avoid being seen as a sub-par performer in a market widely known for its expectations for excellence?
您想在日本市场发展壮大吗？如何在该国推广您的品牌？如何才能在一个以追求卓越而广为人知的市场中，避免被视为不合格的参与者？
An Attractive Market
极具吸引力的市场
The Japanese market is an attractive prospect for foreign companies. As of 2021, Japan accounts for 5.7% of the world's online economic potential, despite having just 2.8% of the global Internet-connected population. Although both these numbers have fallen somewhat since 2017 in the face of more rapid growth in other economies, Japanese has retained its slot as the sixth-most-valuable language world-wide*. Japan's per-capita GDP exceeds that of 89% of the world's population and its relative linguistic homogeneity makes the Japanese language highly effective in reaching this market. These factors make it a prime target for high-value consumer goods. However, outsiders seeking to enter the market face robust competition from brands based in Japan that have global reputations for excellence. In addition, consumers in the country are well-known for their demand for top-notch quality in all aspects of their products.
日本市场对外国公司来说极具吸引力，前景大好。2021年，日本以仅占全球2.8%的互联网人口，创造了占世界5.7%的在线经济潜力。尽管自2017年以来，由于其他经济体更为快速的增长，这两个数字都有所下降，但日语仍然是全球第六大最有价值语言*。日本人均GDP超过世界上其他89%人口（的人均GDP）。日本语言具有同质性，使得进入日本市场时，使用日语具有极高的效率。这些因素使日本成为高价值消费品的主要目标。然而，寻求进入该市场的外来者正面临着来自日本本土品牌的激烈竞争，这些品牌在全球享有卓越的声誉。此外，该国消费者以对产品各方面质量要求一流而闻名。
Steps to Ensure Success in the Japanese Market
确保在日本市场取得成功的步骤
These quality requirements pose a challenge for marketers and product developers. They end up paying top prices for translation, but often find that the results fall short. Our report “Ensuring Japanese Linguistic Quality” examines some of the common mistakes that content creators make and ways to address them. Key takeaways include:
这些质量要求给营销人员和产品开发人员带来了挑战。他们往往为翻译付出高价，但往往结果不尽如人意。我们的报告“确保日语语言质量”审视了一些内容创作者常犯的错误和应对这些问题的方法。主要研究成果包括：
Let Japan run its own processes. Centralization is normally the way to go in localization, but Japan performs best when given more freedom. As long as your Japanese language operations meet your business requirements, give them free rein – within the limitations of your technical environment – to do what they need to. Frequently, this involves creating their own Japan-specific content and investing more in translation and review than you might spend in some other markets. You may also need to build Japanese-specific templates and resources distinct from your global-ready versions.
让日本管理自己的流程。集中化通常是管理本地化的好方式，但日本在被给予更多自由时表现更好。只要您的日语语言管理能满足您的业务需求，在您的技术环境的限制范围内，那就给予他们足够的自由，放手让他们做该的事。通常，这会使得生成他们日本的特定内容，并且在翻译和审校上比在其他市场上投入更多。您可能还需要建立日本特有的模板和资源，以区别于您的全球就绪版本。
For high-value text, consider transcreation or dual authoring. Simple translation of marketing texts might work for some markets, but the results end up feeling foreign and clumsy in Japan. Give your localizers leeway to transcreate or even completely rewrite your content using the source as inspiration. It may cost you more to take this approach, but the results beat a bargain-rate translation that fails to meet your market objectives.
对于高价值的文本，可以考虑转写（创译）或双重创作。简单翻译市场营销文本可能对某些市场有效，但在日本却会显得非常业余和愚蠢。给您的本地化作者留出转写的足够空间，甚至可以让其以原文本为灵感，完全重写您的内容。采用这种方法可能会让您投入更多，但一定胜过不能满足您的市场目标的低价翻译。
Work closely with in-country vendors. Many of the companies we consulted have adopted a centralized localization strategy but make an exception for Japan. They find that multiple layers of MLV processes hinder the level of collaboration and care they need to get things right. This isn't to say that you should abandon a good MLV relationship, but make sure that your Japanese localizers have a direct line to your team for questions and concerns.
与国内供应商紧密合作。我们咨询了许多公司，他们都采取了集中化的本地化战略，但日本除外。他们发现，多语言服务商（MLV）多层级的服务流程阻碍了成员间协作与相互关心的水平，而这些却是办好事情必须的。这并不是说您就要放弃与多语言服务商的友好合作关系，但要确保您的日语本地化人员与您的团队有直接联系，以便出现问题时可以随时沟通解决。
Plan for customer support from the start. It doesn't matter how good your marketing and support collateral is if you do not have a plan to engage with the Japanese market. Make sure that you have support channels in place and that they are of the best quality.
从一开始就做好客户支持计划。如果您没有日本市场的客户支持计划，那么您的市场营销和附属支持做得再好都无济于事。确保您有准备就绪的支持渠道，并要确保其能提高最优质的服务。
Use graphics. Japanese documents are known for their rich adoption of graphics. Taking this approach can help save overall localization costs for all languages but is especially effective for Japanese. It reduces the volume of text you need to translate and makes many technical concepts clearer, especially for an audience that has very different expectations for how technical text should be structured.
使用图表。日文文档惯常运用各种图表。这种方法有助于节省所有语言的总体本地化成本，对于日语尤其有效。它减少了需要翻译的文本量，使许多技术概念更加清晰，特别是对于那些对技术文本构建有截然不同期望的读者而言。
For non-technical texts, examine whether TM really helps. Translation memory (TM) is usually a good thing, but it locks translators into a segment-oriented approach that is difficult for Japanese, where you may end up moving blocks of text around or rewriting content to meet local expectations. Using a sentence-level TM just ensures that you will repeat the same mistakes over and over. However, we do recommend using it for technical texts, where the benefits are obvious.
对于非技术性文本，检查翻译记忆库（Translation memory,TM）是否真的可用。通常来说翻译记忆库是有用的，但它将译者局限在基于句段的翻译环境中。这对日语来说是很困难的，因为翻译时译者为了满足本地化的的期望，可能需要移动文本段落或重写内容。使用句子层面的翻译记忆，只会使您反复犯同样的错误。但是，我们依然建议您在技术文本中使用翻译记忆，它的作用显而易见。
Drop the italics. One of the most obvious marks of a dubious localization into Japanese is the use of slanted Japanese characters as an equivalent to italics in European languages. Japanese readers may be used to it and accept it, but only in the same way that Westerners accommodate “interesting” translations in low-price foreign consumer goods. Japanese has multiple equivalents to italics – which one you choose depends on what are using them for – and adopting them doesn't add cost or time to your process but does show a level of care for detail that many companies do not have.
摒弃斜体。日语本地化中最明显的一个错误就是斜体，在欧洲语言中常用斜体，但这却不能照搬到日语中文本中。日本读者也许已经习惯并接受它，但这与西方人在低价外国消费品中接受“有趣”的翻译是一个道理。日语中有多种斜体字等替物，您选择哪一种取决于您使用它们的目的，使用这些等替物并不会给您的流程增加成本或时间，但却能体现出许多公司所不具备的对细节的关注。
Japanese may have a reputation for being a complex and challenging language, but there is no reason you should not succeed in localizing for the market with a little knowledge and care. As long as you do not treat localization as an afterthought, but instead have a concrete plan for how to address the market, you can succeed in Japan. The seven steps in this blog post will help you get started, but if you want to move to the next step and learn about how to improve your success in Japanese localization, consult “Ensuring Japanese Linguistic Quality.”
日语以复杂性和富有挑战性而闻名于世，但只要您稍加细心并钻研，就没有理由不能成功实现在日本市场的本地化。只要您不把本地化当作一种补救之策，而是用一个具体的计划来拥抱市场，您就可以在日本取得成功。这篇文章中的七个步骤将帮助您入门，但如果您想进阶，学习如何提高日语本地化的成功率，请参阅文章“日语语言质量保证”。
* Readers may notice significant shifts in some numbers since a previous version of this post in 2017. In 2019 we added additional economic and demographic factors that resulted in a more accurate accounting of the value of each language. Combined with rapid growth in China and some other large economies, we now assign a lower relative value to Japanese than we did in previous years. Despite these shifts, Japanese still retains its position as one of the most attractive and profitable language opportunities.
*读者可能会注意到，该报告与2017版的一些数字发生了显著变化。这是因为2019年，我们增加了额外的经济和人口因素，从而更准确地计算了每种语言的价值。由于中国和其他大型经济体的快速增长，我们现在标定的日语的相对价值比往年低。刨除这些数字的变化，日语仍然保持着极具吸引力和极具盈利性的语言之一的地位。
关于作者
阿尔勒·罗梅尔
高级分析师
关注语言技术、人工智能、翻译质量以及影响全球化的总体经济因素
本文翻译自CSA Research行业洞见，原标题：
7 Steps to Ensure Japanese Linguistic Quality
本文译者：伍泳、徐馨萌系源语信息-湖南大学翻译专业兼职实习生
翻译方法：机器翻译+人工译后编辑
翻译指导：孙润凯
