Monthly Archives: August 2016

Japanese short novel translation: ”Sluggish Symbol, Inane Illusion” (緩慢な表象と虚ろな幻想): Chapter 2: “Masatoshi Sakizaki”

”Sluggish Symbol, Inane Illusion” is a story written by Yuki Fujimura that is published on syosetsu.com. I enjoyed it so much I decided to start translating it into English. This story takes place in a unique society, where each citizen is legally obligated to write a single book during their lifetime. You can see more information about… Read More »

Japanese short novel translation: ”Sluggish Symbol, Inane Illusion” (緩慢な表象と虚ろな幻想): Chapter 1: “Saki Mitsumura”

Recently I reviewed the short story ”Sluggish Symbol, Inane Illusion”  (緩慢な表象と虚ろな幻想) which I discovered on the site syosetsu.com. After reading through several stories on there, this is one of the few that I really liked (this is one of the others), and I felt it would be a perfect candidate for an English translation. I wrote a message to the story’s author… Read More »

Japanese short novel translation “Memoirs of a Traveller” (ある旅人の手記): Ch.4 “Festival Girl”

This is the fourth chapter of the story “Memoirs of a Traveller” which I am translating from Japanese to English. As you might guess from the name, this is a fictional tale about someone’s travels throughout various places. You can see my review of this story here, and the translation of the prologue here, chapter 1 here, 2 here, and 3 here. I highly… Read More »

Another use of the simple non-past tense in Japanese: admonishing children

One of the convenient things about Japanese is that there are less verb tenses than in English, where you have things like “will run” and “would have run” (though there is still a few in Japanese). However, the tradeoff is that there are a bunch of other ways to use the smaller set of tenses to… Read More »

Japanese short novel translation “Memoirs of a Traveller” (ある旅人の手記): Ch.3 “The City of Cats”

This is the third chapter of the story “Memoirs of a Traveller” which I am translating from Japanese to English. As you might guess from the name, this is a fictional tale about someone’s travels throughout various cities and places. You can see my review of this story here, and the translation of the prologue here, chapter 1 here, and chapter 2 here.… Read More »

Japanese short novel translation “Memoirs of a Traveller” (ある旅人の手記): Ch.2 “Car Conversation”

This is the second chapter of the story “Memoirs of a Traveller” which I am translating from Japanese to English. As you might guess from the name, this is a fictional story about someone’s travels throughout various cities and places. You can see my review of this story here, and the translation of the prologue here and chapter 1 here. I… Read More »

Japanese short novel translation “Memoirs of a Traveller” (ある旅人の手記): Ch.1 “Coffee and Camera”

This is the first chapter of the story “Memoirs of a Traveller” which I am translating from Japanese to English. As you might guess from the name, this is a fictional story about someone’s travels throughout various cities and places. You can see my review of this story here, and the translation of the prologue (which should… Read More »

Japanese short story translation: ”Sluggish Symbol, Inane Illusion” (緩慢な表象と虚ろな幻想): Prologue

Recently I reviewed the short story ”Sluggish Symbol, Inane Illusion”  (緩慢な表象と虚ろな幻想) which I discovered on the site syosetsu.com (review). (Note, I had originally translated the title as “Unreliable Symbol, Hollow Illusion”, but changed it after further consideration) After reading through several stories on that site, this is one of the few that I really liked, and I felt it… Read More »

Japanese short story translation “Memoirs of a Traveller” (ある旅人の手記): Prologue

A little while ago I reviewed the short story “Memoirs of a Traveller” (ある旅人の手記) which I discovered on the site syosetsu.com (review). After reading through many stories on that site, this is one of the few that I really enjoyed, and also I felt it would be a good candidate for an English translation. I wrote… Read More »