In this article I’d like to go over the Japanese word “katte”, which is almost always written in kanji as 勝手. It’s a pretty common word and you’ll likely hear it once in a while in spoken Japanese, with perhaps a bit less usage in written Japanese (excluding dialogue lines which are essential spoken language).… Read More »
This it the seventh chapter of a novel I am translating and publishing on this blog. See this post for the first chapter and more details about the novel. I want to thank the author, Yuki Hoshizaki (星崎ゆうき) for giving me permission to translate and publish this chapter here, as well as Yeti san (from… Read More »
I can’t think of too many Japanese movies that become popular enough in the U.S. to the extent that they come up in casual conversation. “Shoplifters”––written, directed, and edited by Hirokazu Kore-eda (是枝裕和)––is one exception. In fact, it has grossed over $2 million dollars in the U.S., making it one of the most popular foreign… Read More »
In this post I want to focus on two common Japanese words that sound similar but have very different meanings––in fact opposite meanings. These words can have a few different usages, but I will be focusing on the following usage, where だって or だから begins a new sentence. 「sentence A」。だって「sentence B」 「sentence A」。だから「sentence B」 Besides… Read More »
I’ve translated and published the full text of the Japanese fairy tale “The Life of a Musical Instrument” (楽器の生命) by Mimei Ogawa (小川未明)
I’m very happy to report that my English translation of the story “Mysterious Spacial Rift” from classic SF writer Juza Unno (海野十三) was recently published on Historyradio.org, a cool site that has a radio station and blog covering a variety of historically relevant writers. You can read the full text of “Mysterious Spacial Rift” here.… Read More »
As if raising a child isn’t difficult enough, raising a child to speak a language different than the primary language(s) of the country you live in further complicates things. There are various reasons for why parents want their child or children to speak another language, but I’ve heard many stories where the child ends up… Read More »
Ironically, the Japanese form of entertainment that I had consumed the most in my early years of studying Japanese––anime––is now among those I consume the least. But still I like to watch an episode every once in a while, sometimes even an entire series. Recently I had an opportunity to get a Netflix subscription on… Read More »
This it the sixth chapter of a novel I am translating and publishing on this blog. See this post for the first chapter and more details about the novel. I want to thank the author, Yuki Hoshizaki (星崎ゆうき) for giving me permission to translate and publish this chapter here, as well as Yeti san (from… Read More »
In English, language used in literature can be quite different to that used in everyday conversation, with variations in vocabulary, sentence length, and word order, among other things. For example, a simple phrase like “A captain was I!” has a tone that marks it as literary, and generally wouldn’t be used in spoken language unless… Read More »