This article is part of the series on my July 2018 trip to Japan. Please see the table of contents page for other articles in this series as they are posted. While walking through Akihabara we stumbled on the “Square Enix Cafe”, a restaurant that I had never heard of before; but being a Final… Read More »
In my college days, I was really into the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering, although in the last decade or two I don’t think I’ve played a single game. One of the fun things about having children is the possibility of exposing your hobbies and interests to them, and if you are lucky they… Read More »
On a recent trip to Japan (which I am in the process of reporting on here), I browsed through many bookstores. Because my reading speed in Japanese still hasn’t quite caught up to my English reading speed, rather than actually read a few pages of a book I generally focus on searching for covers and… Read More »
As part of the simple marketing effort for my latest book, “Classic Japanese Fairy Tales”, I have been searching out people on Goodreads to see if they are interested in reading the book and writing a review. While I don’t want to spend a huge amount of time marketing (frankly, I enjoy translation a great… Read More »
Generally, I try to focus on fiction works in both my reading and translation of Japanese. It’s not that I don’t enjoy non-fiction, it’s just that I have limited time and fiction is usually more relaxing and interesting for me. However, I recently had an opportunity to read through the book 「脳が若返る！大人の古典・名文暗唱ドリル」 compiled by 篠原菊紀 (Kikunori… Read More »
As a result of the various projects I’ve been working on over the last few years, I have many “hats” that I don from time to time––author, publisher, book agent, editor, marketer, and of course translator. It seems rarer and rarer these days that I take time to read books in English, instead devoting a… Read More »
Raising a child bilingually (or bi-culturally) can enrich him or her with the knowledge about a culture different from where they are living now. However, putting aside the advantages of learning a second language, it can be said that some of this cultural knowledge can still be gained via translations. However, in rare cases you… Read More »
Yoko Ogawa (小川洋子) is an award-winning Japanese author who has written over 30 works, with at least eight of them translated into English so far. She is perhaps most known for her novel “The Housekeeper and the Professor” (博士の愛した数式) which was also made into a movie. I read Ogawa’s book “Little Bird” (ことり) last year… Read More »
While I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving print books (including E-books), Japanese audiobooks have some significant advantages. For a non-native speaker, I get extra information on the nuances of the text, especially for dialogue when there is a good voice actor. I don’t have to look up unfamiliar or forgotten Kanji characters, and I… Read More »
I recently received an email from a member of LingoDeer, maker of a free mobile language learning app, asking me to try their app and maybe write a review. So I thought I would try it out and write a review with my unbiased feedback about the app. (I’m using an iPhone 6 in case it… Read More »