EP18: Life as a ”Translator and Interpreter ” with guest, Ricardo Rivera

With each passing year, the interconnectedness of our world including economies, markets, governments, businesses, human relationships and so on deepens.

Now, in a perfect world all of this seamlessly fits together. Well, we all know that is not reality. That is where my next guest fits in. He works in an industry in which he, for all intensive purposes could be considered a lubricant that helps this incredibly intricate and highly complex machine of life, living and work roll on.

Introducing

Ricardo Rivera is a fully-fledged Japanese translator with his own business based in Hiroshima prefecture, Japan. After growing up in Sacramento, California and attending U.C. Berkeley, international living and working came a calling.

Ricardo’s track to translation however, could be traced to his early years of being born in Tucson, AZ near the border of Mexico, where many residents flip back and forth between Spanish and English. His first language was Spanish which eventually was supplanted by English.

His yearning to connect with his roots drove him in later years to learn Spanish more fluently where he studied literature in both English and Spanish at Berkley, which included literature, linguistics, history and even translation courses.

Japan

Fast forward to his arrival in Japan in 2006 where his purview of the Japanese language and society at that point was limited to “sushi” and maybe the word “Arigato” (from the 80’s song “Mr. Roboto”).

This lack of basic knowledge drove Ricardo to delve into Japanese language study during his first few years in Japan. What captured his attention more than anything was the fact that the Japanese writing system and language as a whole, really offers no commonalities with English or Spanish. That challenge was refreshing, engrossing but quite difficult.

Gradually, his immersion into the culture through stints as an English language teacher and his enrollment into a proper Japanese language course, eventually lead Ricardo to attain the highest certification level relating to Japanese language proficiency.

This in turn, amounted to finding employment with a Japan based engineering firm within their international sales department, where his role was acting as a liaison between the company’s office and clients in the Silicon Valley.

Business

Finally, those additional opportunities to further build his translation skills and abilities revealed a pathway to work as a freelance translator and then eventually his founding of his own translation and interpretation business, where he has been at it for nearly 15 years.

Tune in to learn more about Ricardo’s role within this fascinating industry. Hear about his life as a translator & interpreter through this engaging talk.

You can connect with Ricardo here:

Website

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