In many ways Japanese grammar is simpler than English grammar, especially in terms of fewer tenses to deal with and the omission of unnecessary words. However, sometimes thinking in terms of English can make it difficult to understand seemingly simple Japanese sentences. In this post I’d like to talk about the expression 「もっと早く知りたかった」 (“motto hayaku… Read More »
For the most part, my translation career so far has been about translating Japanese fiction in written form to English (the exception being a few months of freelance translation at Gengo). But the other day I accepted a job that was in a very different form, providing new challenges that stretched my boundaries as a… Read More »
In this post I talk about literal vs. interpretative meanings in Japanese, and talk about how to properly interpret the word “urusai”. I also go over two examples using the phrase “~koto nai”.
In this post I go over the Japanese phrase “〜ことから” (~koto kara) and give a few examples of its usage.
I posed a series of questions to Edward Lipsett, one of the founders of Kurodahan Press, a publisher that focuses on new translations of Japanese literature as well as reprints of classic texts. We touched on a variety of topics, including learning Japanese, Japan’s culture, translation checking, and the daily activities of a publisher, so I think there’s a little something for everyone.
I’ve released an ebook of “The Masquerade Ball” in bilingual Japanese/English format. It’s written by Edogawa Rampo, master of classic Japanese mystery.
Having trouble finding opportunities to practice writing in Japanese? In this post I wrote in Japanese about a fun experience I had. I ask you to try doing the same, and in exchange I’ll give my feedback on your writing. Japanese learners of any level are invited, and there is no length requirements on the result.
The other day I saw a reference to María Ortega García’s book “Weaving Words: The Alchemy of Languages” (amazon link) on Twitter somewhere, and both the title and book summary sounded really interesting, so I contacted the author. She was kind enough to send me a review copy of the paper version of this book,… Read More »
Japanese is rife with compound verbs, which are generally composed by taking the verb stem (what I like to call the ‘pre-masu form’) of one verb and attaching it to a second verb. For example 食べ終わる (“tabeowaru”) which is comprised of the verb stem of 食べる (“taberu”, meaning “to eat”) and 終わる (“owaru”, meaning “to… Read More »
In this article I’d like to go over the Japanese expression “dake atte” (だけあって), particularly because the meaning is not quite what you expect given the words comprising it. But first let’s look at those words as a starting point. だけ (dake) is probably a word you’ve come across before, and many times it is… Read More »