Useful Japanese Phrase: “tabete iku” (食べていく）
In this article I wanted to go over a Japanese phrase that I think is used fairly commonly in everyday conversation, 食べていく (tabete iku).
Category Archives: General
New Anime Review: “Cagaster of an Insect Cage” (虫籠のカガステル)
These days for a variety of reasons I rarely watch anime, or even live-action shows for that matter. But I ended up with a Netflix account through a promotional deal and wanted to take a break between translation projects, so I decided to check out a few episodes of random anime series on there that… Read More »
Japanese Women’s Literature Book Release: “Downfall and Other Stories” by Hayashi Fumiko
I’m happy to be able to announce my next book, “Downfall and Other Stories”. This contains English translations of a few pieces of fiction from Hayashi Fumiko (林芙美子), an important Japanese author from the early 20th century. They range from a lighthearted comedy to a poignant post-war tale.
The Three Classes of Translation Errors and How to Reduce Them
For everyone out there doing translations––whether you’re an experienced career translator or a student just getting your feet wet––producing translations with a minimum of mistakes is surely high on your list of priorities. Notice I didn’t use the word “correct”. That’s because nearly all translations have a strong element of subjectivity and style in them.… Read More »
Mysterious Japanese grammar: using the を(wo) particle with だ (da)・です (desu) ?
The Japanese particle を (called “wo” or “o”) is argubly one of the most straightforward particles in the language, with only one major use: describing the direct object of an action. First, let’s look at a simple example of its usage: 僕は本を読んでいます (boku wa hon wo yonde imasu) I am reading a book. Here, the… Read More »
A pair of terribly useful Japanese verbs: 出す (dasu) and 出る (deru)
Verbs are an extremely important part of the Japanese language. One reason for that is the large variety of verbs available in Japanese, some which don’t seem to have direct equivalents in other languages (or at least not in English). But I think it’s also because Japanese tends to omit words deemed unnecessary based on… Read More »
Translation Tips: Dealing with culturally-unique terms
In this post I’d like to talk a little bit about how to deal with translating terms that are unique to a certain culture, in the sense that they are not everyday items that exist in other cultures. An example of a term that is likely to be present in most cultures is “plate”, although… Read More »
Stating the obvious in Japanese (“atarimae”, etc.)
In this article I’d like to focus on a few ways to state that something is obvious, in the sense that it should be clearly understood or known by everyone. Another way we express this in English is with the phrase “of course”. Before we get started, I’ll be using the words “darou” and “deshou”… Read More »
Japanese grammar pattern: the trailing “te” form
Verb order is one of the most fundamental things about a language’s grammar, and for Japanese we have Subject + Object + Verb. Of course, this is just for the most basic of sentences, and there are various ways to build onto a sentence to make it more complex. For example, expressing a chain of… Read More »
TransLiterary Lab (#11): live analysis / translation of Japanese literature (“Ningen Hyou” by Edogawa Rampo)
In this episode I go over and translate the first few lines of 人間豹 (Ningen Hyou) by 江戸川乱歩 (Edogawa Rampo).