So you want to be a Japanese translator, eh? Is your dream to move to Japan and get a job translating video games/manga/anime – or, better yet, doing interpretation for businessmen? Then you should check the flowchart below to see if you can handle it.

Look, I’m going to be honest. The grim reality is that you will almost certainly never be a Japanese translator. For one, your Japanese isn’t good enough, and it probably won’t be. It requires a truly immense amount of studying, and you have to be nearly fluent both in terms of grammar and incredibly obscure vocabulary. And passing the JLPT doesn’t matter, unless you pass 2kyuu (actually, probably 1kyuu) or higher – and even then you’re probably not going to get it. The fact is that, unfortunately, being Japanese is really the main way to be a translator. There are nuances of Japanese culture that they don’t teach you in class, and having them be innate is a huge leg up.

I was at a talk tonight, and they had a Japanese interpreter. She did a really great job, in terms of speed, efficiency and accuracy. But – and here’s the thing – she was Japanese. I mean, my guess is that she was Japanese-American, and that basically puts her ahead of all the other non-Japanese vying for that position.

So… sorry. Maybe you can do translations for your manga group on the Internet, but that won’t help you in the real world. It’ll earn you some weeaboo credibility, but that’s about it.

There’s an essay online about learning Japanese and, in part, the people who take classes like that. It’s from the early ages of the Internet, but it’s still wholly relevant. I currently take Japanese classes here in New York (at a fairly advanced level) but there are still stereotypes, so I thought I’d write about them. Keep in mind that the average person in the class is somewhere between 20 and 35.

• The recent repatriate. This is the person who just got back from spending somewhere between several months and one hundred years in Japan, so they know everything about everything in Japanese culture, both past and present. Their answers are always overly verbose and end up going on tangents about that one time they were in that one place and saw some really crazy thing. Also, despite having recently gotten back from Japan, they’re still not as fluent as they think.
• The future expatriate. This person is ready to get out of the U.S. and go to Glorious Nippon, where they will undoubtedly immediately be given a job, a beautiful apartment, and a Japanese girlfriend. These classes are just a way for them to get up to the level where they’ll be perfectly fluent and can then go over.
• Still Otaku. Despite easier classes usually weeding out the otaku who realize that they can’t take one session’s worth of classes and translate manga, some still manage to make it through, and their geekdom becomes concentrated at higher levels. They know all the weird aspects of Japanese subcultures and are not afraid to let you and everyone else know it. The Still Otaku archetype often spends half an hour describing the awkward subject they’ve brought up, and are immune to your facepalming.
• The Engrish Master. Despite being in a class to learn Japanese, there are still people who insist on speaking English. These people often raise their hands to answer a question, but then go totally blank, get frustrated because they can’t really elucidate their point, and then have to ask in English for that one word that means something really obscure. Or they’ll try to speak some hybrid of Japanese and English, where most of the words that have actual meaning are English.
• The Know-it-all. In earlier levels there are people who think they really have a grasp on the language but don’t; in the higher levels, there are people who really do know everything. When you pause to think of a word, they’ll jump right in and explain what you’re trying to say, much to your chagrin. These people also have a level of smugness where they know that they’re at the top of the class, having clearly understood the Japanese concept of humility.
• Captain Overshare. We’re often asked to describe situations, and they can be personal stories. But Captain Overshare has no problem telling that one really awkward story about how they had a walk of shame back from the Upper East Side or something. There can be overlap between this group and the otaku guy class.
• The deer in headlights. They’ve somehow made it (read: paid) through the levels, but they’re still lost in the discussions. “What are some examples where you feel rushed?” “Um, er, well.. yes. If you were… yes, that’s right.” This sort of person usually doesn’t speak up unless specifically called on, and then your class will drag while they putter around.
• The old guy. Sort of a subclass of the recent repatriate, the old guy spent a bit of time in Japan some time ago and has more or less forgotten everything, but they’re trying to work their way back up. Admirable, maybe, but they can also end up being deer in headlights.

Now obviously there are regular people who took the language in school and want to maintain their comprehension, or maybe they use Japanese for work. But they’re usually few and far between.

Look, I don’t want to be the curmudgeon here, but I think I need to say what’s on my mind. I should first state that I agree with the general purpose of TwitChange. Raising money for a good cause? Great! Using Twitter for something other than inane bullshit? What a nice change of pace.

But come on, let’s face it: the general premise behind TwitChange is utterly depressing. Here’s the premise: you, a random Twitter user, place a bid on an eBay auction for a celebrity. If you win, you get all sorts of amazing things, like the celebrity “follow[ing] you on Twitter for a minimum of 90 days, will retweet one of your tweets and will send out a tweet including your @twitterhandle.” Whoa, man!! A celebrity will follow me for 90 days and echo my username out once!? For upwards of $500!? How is this not a bad deal for anyone involved?!?!!

I guess it just makes me sad that people feel the need to be validated by paying a bunch of cash to have a pseudo Twitter relationship with a celebrity. I love Nathan Fillion and Joel McHale and Felicia Day just as much as the next person, but I don’t go around with a handful of money asking them to be forced to interact with me. It’s a clever idea and a great way to generate money for a charity, but it’s predicated on exploiting people’s trite and awkward desires to be close to celebrities. And it’s totally artificial on top of it. Ryan Seacrest isn’t going to remember who you are the day after you win the bid.

Three days ago “Geek and Gamer Girls” was released on the Internet. Those of you who missed it can watch it here, but basically it’s a song where four chicks sing about how they’re geeks. The intention is good but ultimately misguided, and the song ends up really just being an enormous embarrassment. I admit that I spent most of the video cringing.

The first thing I noticed is that it’s less of a song and more of a list put to music. At its core, the song’s lyrics are just references to TV shows, video games, board games, and other things that are traditionally considered geeky. That doesn’t prove that you’re a geek – it only proves that you have a cursory knowledge of some things that aren’t considered to be mainstream. It’s probably hard to come with lyrics for a song like this, but maybe that’s a sign you shouldn’t be writing one altogether.

I think I’m questioning the need for a song like this altogether. Was it in question that there are a bunch of girls out there who play video games – and that a portion of them are good looking? Why does that need to be declared in a song? Yes, most geeks are still guys, but females are a still growing minority. There are far better ways to make such a declaration, anyway; take a look at Felicia Day’s The Guild for an example.

But the part that gets me the most is that, in a song about girls who are geeky, there’s a fairly lengthy rap session by Seth Green. I don’t understand why his cameo is necessary. I get that the original song (Katy Perry’s “California Gurls”) has a rap section with Snoop Dogg in it and maybe they wanted to reflect that in this song, but it seems contrary to the point of the song. Clearly the song is meant to be some form of anthem for geek girls, but then you have a guy perform in roughly one third of the song? The song is about empowerment, and having a guy in it waters it down, I think.

Ultimately I think the song falls flat and really just ends up hurting the cause (whatever you defined it as) more than helping it. And unlike other people on the Internet, I’m not insulted that the song references things that I like. It’s really just an unnecessary piece of fluff that sets back female gaming. The right way to do it would have put the girls in a Gears of War group, have them go around wrecking other teams, and then laughing over the mics.

Yes, everyone has heard that the asshole who was going to hold a Quran book burning has decided to cancel, as long as the imam that’s behind the community center near Ground Zero moves the center’s location. Now the guy says he won’t move and blah blah, they’re going to have a meeting, whatever. Honestly it seems like blackmail to me: either you move the center, or we burn the Quran. Maybe we should issue something like that to the Tea Party. Disband forever, or we’ll set some crosses on fire. … Then again, maybe not.

Anyway. Where one crazy person disengaged, another crazy has stepped up to fill the void. Westboro Baptist Church, my favorite group of people of all time, will burn the Quran instead. According to one of their blogs (I won’t link to it because they don’t deserve the clickthroughs):

The Westboro Baptist Church will burn the Quran and doomed-american flag on 9/11/2010.

The false prophet Terry Jones caved-like all false prophets do, and like we told you he would.

We will burn your Quran on 9/11/10 to tell the world that the Muslims are the servants of God-and they will bring the final affliction to Israel and the Jews according to the promises of God.  … Meanwhile we will also burn the flag of this doomed rebellious disobedient nation of proud sinners.  While you sissy brats browbeat and jockey with the false prophet Terry Jones-pretending like the lives of those soldiers are your political and personal pawns-we will tell you the truth.

Now here’s the conundrum. They’re going to simultaneously burn the Quran and the American flag. Crazy Christians were going to burn the Quran, and crazy Muslims burn the American flag. Crazy teabaggers who hate Muslims want to see the Quran desecrated, but they’ll have to do it while watching their flag be desecrated – and people who want to see the American flag in flames will have to do it at the risk of watching their own holy book burn. It’s so crazy!

Actually, I have to commend Westboro for achieving what seems to be rather impossible: somehow pissing off everyone at once. At the same time, they’ve also made it easier to write them off – hell, most of us have already acknowledged that they’re batshit crazy. So will enemies join forces against a common threat? The heat will be on!