I’m very happy to announce I’ve formally established “Arigatai Books”, a publisher focused on Japanese literature and other related material. In this post I’ll go over some of my reasons to create a publisher and introduce our new website.
In this post I give over 50 introductory phrases, with translations. that can be used as starting blocks to build Japanese sentences.
You probably know that the Japanese word “sono” means “that”, but in this article I will talk about an alternate way it can be used.
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.