She is a professional Japanese/English interpreter/translator and business
communications specialist. Yasuko holds a degree in English Literature and a
Teaching Diploma in English from DoshishaUniversity in Kyoto, Japan.
She studied English at the University of
Pennsylvania, and participated in a
Danish language program at University
of Copenhagen as a
scholarship recipient. Additionally, she studied at the University College London,
concentrating in International Relations. She also took courses in government,
politics, and history at OxfordUniversity. Yasuko
received intensive training in simultaneous interpretation in Kyoto.
In 1970,
she formed her own language service company in Kobe, Japan.
Yasuko’s services through this company also included worldwide business
communication consultation that has taken her from Kobe
to Yorkshire, England,
from Baltimore to Paris,
from Dusseldorf to East Africa, and from Fiji to Toronto.
She was a manufacturers' representative for products as diversified as women’s
apparel, copper tubes, auto parts, pet supplies, golf courses, resort hotels,
chemicals, rubber products, and cigarettes. Yasuko relocated her operations to Hawaii in 1976 when she
signed the manufacturer’s representative contract with the Japan Tobacco and
Salt Monopoly Public Corporation.
Yasuko has concentrated and specialized in the litigation-related
translation for the last 32 years and has developed and mastered the art of
neutral and accurate verbatim translation, earning the reputation of being very
knowledgeable, competent and reliable among judges, prosecutors, counsel, and
all those present in the courtroom. Yasuko has served all the courts in Hawaii, and has been
tasked by the Hawaii Supreme Court to sit on its Committee on Certification of
Court Interpreters. Yasuko was honored with the 2001 Hawaii Joint Police
Association’s Certificate of Distinguished Service for Court Interpreters, and
was the chief interpreter for the US Navy Court of Inquiry at Pearl
Harbor deriving from the Ehime Maru/USS Greenville incident.
Yasuko has orally translated many depositions, trials, conferences, press
interviews, television documentaries, business meetings, medical seminars,
police investigations, and governmental protocol. Her written translation areas
of expertise include scientific articles, technical reports, industrial
operating manuals, patent documents, and legal documents of all kinds.
In 2006,
Yasuko re-opened her Japan
office in Kobe at the request of her clients and
is serving clients in Japan,
Hong Kong, Korea,
Hawaii, and the mainland USA.