I have no work right now, so I figured I’d share some of the localization wisdom I’ve learned over the last twelve years.

Never double bag. It doesn’t matter how much cooler the project that came in the day after the kinda cool project you just accepted is. Don’t do it. You won’t do it justice, and you’ll have to live with that. You will be able to afford your medical bills from overwork though.

Rikai-Chan is your friend.

I use it a lot!

Writing ability trumps Japanese ability. A great exercise is to take a writer you love and copy their sentence structure while writing completely different content.

Another great exercise is to find a localizer you respect, translate the Japanese yourself, and then see how he or she did it. And then go cry in a corner.

Games are not a genre in themselves. They are a medium. If you don’t know about soccer, don’t agree to do a soccer game.

Always have at least a half a year in savings if you are a freelancer. Twice I’ve gone through months with little to no work. Sudden changes can have a huge impact.

Did you talk about translation all of three seconds while drinking with a friend? Congrats! Business meeting! Get a receipt and expense that!

You seeing that one typo in FF4 when you were 13 years old is going to make the many mistakes you’ll make suck even more.

If you live in Japan, write off everything on taxes. 80% of your house is an office. Video games and game music are “research.”