Re: Translating game files
I don't really know how to either (ditto on being linked a guide because shitsucks) but I can offer that Habisain's tool found here:
bitbucket.org/habisain/rpgmakertrans/downloads
works well enough for rpgmaker. He also has a guide posted to properly use it, but the gist is that it can create a patch folder for a game that contains the data files in an editable text format with dialogue strings and whatnot separated by occurrences in the game. At this point, you just take the Japanese string, copy it to your translator(s) of choice, and put the translated line in the blank space right above the "end string" line. As a side note, try messing around with one map you can access from the game's start, to get a feel for the software and line limits in your game (the tool doesn't always recognize where the line stops and so you can have sentences trail off the text box without manually spacing them down).
(There are some special rules for editing stuff like scripts but this should get you through editing the maps. My only qualm is that some games keep the standard rpgmaker template IN the options and so on, meaning you have to either translate the same materials over and over, or use the rpgmaker editor to manually check the database and event occurrences for what items/characters/skills/etc they actually use.)
I hope that helps. I'm new at this stuff too (but the difference is I have literally NO knowledge of Japanese), so let's both try and do our best together!