Japanese fairy tale now available free on Kanshudo (a Japanese learning site)
One of my translations of a classic Japanese fairy tale is now available for free on Kanshudo, a full-featured site for learning Japanese.
Category Archives: translation
Machine Translation Showdown: 5 MTs tested using a classical Japanese excerpt
I compared the English translation abilities of 5 different machine translation services (including those of Google and Microsoft) using a short excerpt of classic Japanese literature from Akutagawa Ryunosuke.
Free E-book of dark fiction (Toyoshima Yoshio)
In celebration of International Translation Day today, I’ve decided to make my E-book “Tales of the Disturbed”, a set of dark, introspective short stories by Toyoshima Yoshio (豊島 与志雄）free for the next day (meaning roughly for the next 24 hours). You can find the book here on Amazon. The book’s release article is here. Update:… Read More »
Classical Japanese poetry translation: “The Hollow City” (虚しい街) by Yoshinobu Morikawa (森川義信)
Yoshinobu Morikawa was a Japanese poet who lived from 1918 to 1942 and left behind various poems, some with dark or mysterious themes. He was said to be influenced by famous poet T. S. Eliot, author of The Wasteland. This post contains my full English translation of Morikawa’s poem “The Hollow City” (虚しい街), first published… Read More »
Indonesian Retranslation of “Final Days of Summer”
Back in early 2017 I translated the short fiction story “Final Days of Summer” (残夏) written by Masaki Hashiba (ハシバ柾), which you can read in full here. Recently I received a query from a person named Perzipal regarding the retranslation and online publishing of this work into the Indonesian language. To make a long story short, after… Read More »
Japanese Light Novel Translation: “Past, Present, You” by Yuki Hoshizaki (Chapter 14)
In this chapter of “Past, Present, You”, Sora at last hints at the reason for the parallel universe that has brought her closer––and yet somehow more distant–––from Mizuki.
Expressions of receiving actions and thinking backwards in Japanese
One thing that sets apart Japanese from other languages, such as English, is the wide variety of ways there are to express politeness, whether it is special verb forms, words, or other grammatical constructions. One of the most basic of these is the verbs “ageru” / “kureru” / “morau”, which I have written a bit… Read More »
Japanese literature review: “The Legend of Fukiage: Book 1″ (吹上奇譚 第一話) by Banana Yoshimoto (吉本バナナ)
Banana Yoshimoto is one of the most well-known Japanese authors in the Western world, with over 10 novels translated into English. Because I generally try to read, review, and translate authors which are not yet very well known in the West, it might seem odd that I choose to read and review one of her… Read More »
Book Release: Japanese SF story collection (Juza Unno)
(To jump to the book’s page on Amazon click here) As those of you who read this blog frequently know, around early 2018 I started making E-books out of my translations of Japanese literature and publishing them on Amazon. My first book was a series of short stories by Japanese science fiction pioneer Juza Unno… Read More »
“Convenience Store Woman” and the intriguing translation of a simple phrase
After learning of an interesting translation choice in the English version of the award winning “Convenience Store Woman” novel I decided to write a post that touches upon topics including the responsibilities of translators, publishers, and readers of literature.