Here’s what my clients say about me
I’m proud and happy to share how lovely it has been to work with Bethan Jones during the 77th edition of the Festival de Cannes when she served as Jury member interpreter.
Anyone can imagine how important it is to have the right word and the perfect attitude in such circumstances. I’m grateful, and highly recommend her.
Thank you so much Bethan for being so nice and professional, so witty and flexible, so discreet and reliable.
Wishing you the best and hoping our paths will cross again !
Juries & External Affairs Chief Operating Officer,
I have been working with Bethan for 5 years now and she has always provided an exceptional level of service. More often than not, when she is translating in our Finance meetings, she has to deal with complicated Tax or Accounting issues and she does so with clarity and precision. Bethan not only translates the words but also manages to translate the sentiment as well, so a funny comment or a serious point will be translated with meaning as well.
I would not hesitate to recommend Bethan. (She is also a very good tour guide for when you are in Japan!)
James Lund
CFO, Financial Times
When interpreting, Bethan adapts effortlessly and immediately makes the participants feel at ease; her work has a natural and seamless flow. Whether at concerts, filmed interviews, or newspaper interviews, she brings a level of professionalism and tact that makes every conversation run flawlessly.
Thomas Böcker,
Artistic Director and Producer at Merregnon Studios
I think it was in 2018 that I first met Bethan when she interpreted for me at a special screening at the London Film Festival. She hit the nail on the head – she got the unique, ambiguous nuances of the Japanese language, and created a completely comfortable, stress-free interpreting experience.
In the train on the way back to Paris, where I was staying at the time, I announced to my producer “I’ve finally found her!” We’ve been working together ever since.
This year I was on the jury of the Cannes Film Festival, but if I hadn’t met Bethan, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to accept the role.
I hope we can work together for a long time to come.
Hirokazu Kore-eda, film director
Thank you for your excellent work, it was critical to making our workshop a success… Hope to have the chance to work together again for another successful workshop.
Francesca Pincella, Senior Lecturer, Kyoto University
Bethan has been a joy to work with. Immensely professional, hugely talented, and totally reliable, Bethan has been the safe pair of hands we needed to deliver a successful campaign. Whether flexibility in scheduling was needed or respectful communication was required, Bethan has gone above and beyond on all fronts.
Eleanor Stammeijer,
Head of Publicity, Bonnier Books UK
Huge thanks again for your brilliant translation and wonderful help with the editing. I’m extremely grateful to you. It’s a highlight of the programme!
Jo Glanville, BBC producer
I have been involved with a number of events at which Bethan has acted as interpreter. She combines outstanding linguistic skills with unflappable professionalism – a winning combination!
Head of East Asian Collections, British Library
Thank you so much for your translation yesterday. Not the easiest of set-ups, but your conveying the tone of Kore-eda-san, as well as what he said, made it such so much more involving for the audience. Everyone I spoke with after the event commented on how great they thought you were. You certainly made it a much easier job for me.
Ian Haydn Smith
Moderator, BAFTA Screenwriters’ Lecture Series 2022
I wanted to write to offer you our profound and sincere thanks for your outstanding performance at our symposium last Thursday afternoon.
We were commenting on Friday at just how calm and collected you were throughout, and what a brilliant job you did of animating the presentations by our Japanese guests. Thank you!
Alex Owen
Senior Conservator: Organic Materials, The British Museum
I’ve never quite appreciated what a truly amazing skill being a translator is. Amazing job from Bethan Jones.
Hannah MacInnes
Moderator, How to Academy conversation with Marie Kondo
Huge thanks for your incredible work and skill bringing these two sessions to life so brilliantly. I’m very grateful for your time and it’s always great to work with you. Hope we can do so again in the future.
Lyndsey Fineran
Festival Programme and Commissions Manager
The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature
Bethan was amazing! She interpreted for Japanese games music composer Nobuo Uematsu, expressing his charm and wit effortlessly whilst also tackling complicated Final Fantasy games info and names!
Tim Davy
Tours and Projects Manager,
London Symphony Orchestra
Bethan is a brilliant and incredibly competent translator and interpreter. Our events and texts often require specialist knowledge and Bethan’s exacting approach means she always makes sure that she has an excellent handle on the material.
She is a pleasure to work with and I would thoroughly recommend her services.
Chloe Julius, Tate
Bethan, thank you for your professional and fantastic work!
We have been working with Bethan for over 10 years and her perfect translation skills as well as the wide range of her experience & expertise is a very valuable asset for us.
For example, she did many great jobs of simultaneous/consecutive interpretation when our HQ executives visited Europe. She has a deep understanding of ICT technology as well as practical business issues, and this makes her one of the few persons who can accurately translate the nuance of the message which is often lost in translation. We are very happy with her consistent and timely professional services!
Nori Kobayashi, NEC Europe
Bethan is the real deal. We hired her to help us out with a Japanese document review exercise for a complex technical dispute and she far exceeded our expectations with that task. But she also quickly became an indispensable member of the team because she is just very, very smart. She grasped the legal and factual issues really quickly and was able to make valuable contributions that ultimately helped our client. Not only that, but she is extremely professional and a delight to work with. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her and hope we can work together again in the future.
Westley Walker
Senior Associate, Bristows Law Firm
Bethan, thank you for such a perfect translation operation! Japan is the only country I work in as an anthropologist where I don’t myself speak the language. I usually feel it’s a terrible disadvantage. Not on this occasion though. I thought you worked out everything brilliantly. It was certainly the easiest English-Japanese debate I’ve participated in. Re-watching it, I thought that between us we managed to elicit some answers that would have been difficult under any circumstances, and we got far more than I had expected to, thanks almost entirely to your skills.
Dr Robin A. Wilson, Keble College, Oxford
Bethan Jones has been interpreting for events for Japan Foundation London for over ten years. These events have ranged from academic conferences to film directors’ talks, across a wide variety of formats and subject matters. Her interpreting is always accurate, and both the Japan Foundation and our Japanese speakers and delegates have the utmost faith in her.
Junko Takekawa
Senior Arts Programme Officer,
Japan Foundation London
Bethan Jones is one of the best Japanese-English translators I have had the pleasure to work with. During my time at Japan House she expertly translated interviews and talks on topics as wide ranging as manga, metalworking, Buddhism and botanical dyeing. Always professional and always reliable, I would not hesitate to recommend Bethan.
Kylie Clark
Former Director of PR & Communications at Japan House London
It was an honor to be able to work together. Thoroughly punctual and professional. It’s no wonder she has an amazing career, which is a testament to her work.
I look forward to a great day working with Bethan again.
BAEK Jin-Won
Associate, International Film Distribution, CJ ENM
Our team hired Bethan for a recent book tour that included press interviews, an onstage speaking engagement and customer events. Not only is her interpretation impeccable, but she effortlessly brings to life the tone, personality and context of the conversation. She draws the audience in, and they seem to be enamored by her skill and engaged in her storytelling. In fact, I overheard many people throughout the course of our week working together comment how impressed they were with Bethan.
Katie Stevens
Senior Manager, Corporate Communications,
Rakuten Americas
Thank you sooo much and your translation is truly amazing! I hope to have next chances to work with you.
Kosai Sekine, film director
Working with Bethan has been extremely good and easy. She is a true professional, not only in what she does, but also in how she deals with her clients. She never missed an email or a question, and she has done all that she could to find out all the answers. We knew already about her talent in Japanese, this is why we chose to work with her in the first place, but her kindness exceeded our expectations. We are definitely more than satisfied!
Alice Vicentin
Gallery and Events Assistant,
The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
I can’t say enough good things about Bethan. She worked a sold-out public event in Central London, an interview with my client, a bestselling Japanese author. His novels are highly emotional, and many of his responses to the journalist’s and audience members’ questions that evening were very personal, detailed and emotional. Bethan managed exquisitely to convey the author’s vignettes and despite most of the audience not understanding Japanese, one could see and hear that they understood the author perfectly, and felt deeply the power of his responses. That can only happen with a deft touch like Bethan’s. She also has a likeability factor that’s off the charts, which never hurts. I’ve been involved in a great many author events in the US and UK, and she’s simply the best I’ve seen, by a wide margin.
Neil Gudovitz, Literary Agent
I have hired Bethan Jones for a range of different events and meetings regularly over the last ten years. Honestly – we’ve been spoiled by her over the years as it’s been made to look so easy and effortless.
Bethan is not just adept at interpreting complicated terminology on stage during events but at parsing people’s personalities and helping us build relationships with our guests. She has been our most public secret weapon since Anime Limited began. Without her we’d not have half the business we do now, nor would guests enjoy their time in the UK half as much as she provides much needed context, humour and friendliness to the mix.
Ten years on since we started working together and she still remains my first choice when we know we need an interpreter in advance. She should be yours too.
Andrew Partridge, CEO, Anime Limited
Bethan was an utter delight to work with. Professional, kind and instinctive from start to finish when working with one of our biggest International authors. Her skills are extraordinary and her ability to fuse the moderator and audience into a seamless event was extremely impressive. Even behind the scenes, Bethan’s personality was infectious and immediately made everyone feel comfortable. We at Picador are extremely grateful for Bethan’s work and would encourage anyone who’s after the best interpreter in town to contact her.
Kieran Sangha
Communications Executive, Picador
I have had the great pleasure of working with Bethan Jones on 2 projects in the last 12 months. She was the simultaneous translator for an Artist Talk I organised with the Japan Foundation at the ICA and she was the simultaneous translator for a half day round table discussion event that I organised with 9 participants, 2 of them being Japanese speakers.
For the translation of Japanese artist O JUN’s talk and the following Q and A session she demonstrated considerable skill in understanding and communicating the complexities, range of references, humour and poetry behind his work. The audience included a number of bi-lingual Japanese/English arts professionals and all of them commented to me on the exceptional quality of her translation and how it had even helped them to understand more deeply about O JUN’s work.
For the Round Table discussion, considering the status of craft in Japan and the UK, she again proved to be a superb communicator. Bethan managed to capture a wide range of ideas from the highly technical to the religious, humorous and unlikely.
Again I heard from bi-lingual participants that this was the most exceptionally lucid and fluent translation they had come across. Those of us who are, sadly, not bi-lingual were equally impressed by the evident accuracy, speed and clarity of the translation.
Bethan is a highly skilled presenter and on both occasions found the appropriate tone for communication that made it possible for us to understand the nuance and subtlety of our Japanese guest speakers while in turn they found her excellent to work with, giving them the confidence that their ideas were genuinely being communicated. I really can’t recommend her highly enough!
Tamiko O’Brien
Principal, City & Guilds of London Art School
Bethan was an absolute delight to work with; she was super professional and did an amazing job in her role as MC at our event. Thanks so much Bethan, and I hope to work with you again.
Event Manager, Pico Europe
Bethan has interpreted for me several times. Her Japanese is accurate and her vocabulary broad, and particularly in my area of speciality, which is cyber and information technology, she has a wealth of experience and background knowledge that allows her to interpret with precision.
I am always grateful for her reliability and professionalism.
Harada Izumi
Senior Researcher, Institute for International Socio-Economic Studies
Bethan interpreted for numerous events at the 20th edition of Nippon Connection film festival – the largest festival for Japanese film outside of Japan, which took place entirely online this year. The Japanese filmmakers and actors she interpreted for are well-known in the industry, e.g. director Yukiko Mishima. Despite the challenging environment of online interviews and panel discussions, Bethan managed to put the filmmakers at ease and at all times ensured smooth communication between them and the audience. Her language was easily understandable to both native and non-native speakers of English, while always transmitting the message and tone of the interview guests. The Nippon Connection team took great pleasure in working with Bethan and appreciated her professionalism. We would love to work with her again and wholeheartedly recommend her for any film-related event, both physical and virtual.
I hired Bethan to coordinate the preparations for a promotional event for Kansai Prefecture at Japan House London featuring a maiko and a geiko, and to interpret on the day. She also acted as liaison for me for a special feature on Kansai in National Geographic Traveller magazine.
Her use of written Japanese is perfect and it felt just like corresponding with a Japanese person, and her spoken Japanese is better than many Japanese people’s. Not only did she translate what was written, she also conveyed what was written between the lines, allowing for a very smooth negotiation.
Kazuki Sagawa
Promotion Department, Kansai Tourism Bureau
Bethan provided excellent interpretation for our online lecture and panel discussion Event “Knowledge Meltdown” which took place on 6th June 2020. Her understanding of Contemporary Japanese Art and Culture and current socio political situation was very good and she was able to provide an exceptionally high level of interpretation. Her delivery was clear, accurate and also engaging. Fantastic work.
Kaori Homma, artist
Bethan is our most trusted interpreter. We are always very happy with the fair dealings we have with her. Besides her outstanding language skills, Bethan’s personality is her best asset. When we ask Bethan to interpret for us, everyone, including the client, becomes a big fan of Bethan.
With Bethan an impossible deal can be possible. Just ask her to interpret and realize how important interpreters are. We guarantee you will be happy with the results!
Akira Sato
Project Manager, Europe-based Japanese Translation/Interpreting company
It is tough getting shy Japanese film-makers to interact with live audiences in English, and half the battle is putting them at their ease. Bethan has been an invaluable asset at making our guests feel at home over the last ten years. She deals continually in specialised industry terminology, not only technical and legal but also cultural — issues such as cel halation, stroboscopic effects, and the financial structure of studios. Her confidence in interpreting encourages the guests to come out of their shells and joke with the audience. In allowing me to concentrate on content instead of communication, she makes it a rare pleasure for me to do a hosting/moderating job that is so often a chore. In more recent times, we have had to work together on virtual events, where her usual interpreting skills must also contend with connection issues and a barrage of in-feed comments from producers and assistants, all the while keeping her cool and making everyone heard and understood. I have no hesitation in recommending her for future assignments; her Japanese is impeccable.
Jonathan Clements
Jury Chairman, Scotland Loves Anime
We are delighted to have had the opportunity to work with Bethan on the translation of papers for the two-day international conference hosted by the Scottish Society for Art History in association with the National Museum of Japanese History. Sponsors included the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, Consulate General of Japan in Edinburgh, Japan Society, Lyon and Turnbull and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.
Working closely with the conference organisers and the speaker, Bethan prepared Japanese to English captions for recorded presentations that were presented to audiences at National Museums Scotland and also live-streamed to international audiences via Zoom.
We were greatly impressed by Bethan’s engagement with the subject matter of contemporary art and the preparation of translation working across multiple platforms. It was a pleasure to work with Bethan and her professional expertise was invaluable to the delivery of the Scotland and Japan Conference.
Claire Robinson
Chair of the Scottish Society for Art History
I have seen Bethan in action at numerous literary events throughout the UK, and have been honored to work with her several times along with authors I translate Sayaka Murata and Kyoko Nakajima. She has never failed to impress with her sheer professionalism, her engaging and upbeat style of interpreting, and also for her ability to capture the finer nuances of what authors are saying about their work. I have no hesitation in recommending her for interpreting at literary events.
Ginny Tapley Takemori
Literary translator
As a literary translator I’m familiar with the challenges involved when working between Japanese and English, but translating and interpreting require completely different skill sets. I’m in awe of Bethan’s talent and professionalism. When interpreting, she comfortably shifts between and among different voices, capturing so much of the nuances that are integral to successful communication. I would work with Bethan every time!
Allison Markin Powell, literary translator
This was our first time working with Bethan and we couldn’t have asked for a better experience. From the talent involved who requested a translator to the participants experiencing the event, everyone had wonderful things to say about Bethan and we would definitely use her again.
Jenny Carroll
Account Director, Organic
We recently worked with Bethan as an interpreter for an online, virtual rehearsed reading where she acted as interpreter for a Q and A section with our Japanese writer. Bethan was incredibly professional in this new medium of virtual interpreter and developed a seamless way of not disrupting the flow for our audience by translating privately with our writer before translating back clearly to our audience. I would highly recommend Bethan for any event, virtual or otherwise! She was very calm, clear and confident, exactly what is needed as a Japanese interpreter! We would work with Bethan again in the future in a heartbeat.
George Cook
Company Manager, Fabula Collective Ltd.
Thanks again for all your help and work on this campaign – we’re really pleased with how it went, and your translation and interpretation were fantastic! Look forward to working with you again on another project.
Piers McCarthy, DDR (PR)
I’m writing on behalf of Shimaguchi Sensei who has asked me to contact you to extend his warmest appreciation for your assistance last week.
He was very happy with your skills and felt you captured the essence of what he was wanting to express and get across to the participants. He thanks you and would like to keep in touch for future opportunities.
Magdy Abdel-Rehim
UK Representative, Samurai Method Kengido