Category Archives: translation

Japanese novel translation: “The Rainlands” by Haruka Asahi [Chapter 6]

This is the 6th chapter of the fantasy novel “The Rainlands” (雨の国) by Haruka Asahi (朝陽遥) which I am translating from Japanese with the author’s permission. It is about a man’s journey to a mysterious land and his encounter with its indigenous people and culture. If you enjoy this story and want to read more, please consider liking this… Read More »

Japanese translation sample: “Poverty Lessons” (ビンボー魂) by Toru Kazama (風間トオル)

Recently I posted a review of the book “Poverty Lessons” by Toru Kazama, which is biography of the actor’s life, focusing on his difficult times in poverty and what he learned as a result of that. As a translation exercise and to give a little exposure of this great book to English-speaking audiences, I’ve decided to translate… Read More »

Japanese novel translation: “The Rainlands” by Haruka Asahi [Chapter 5]

This is the 5th chapter of the fantasy novel “The Rainlands” (雨の国) by Haruka Asahi (朝陽遥) which I am translating from Japanese with the author’s permission. It is about a man’s journey to a mysterious land and his encounter with its indigenous people and culture. If you enjoy this story and want to read more, please consider liking this… Read More »

A comical error: Google Translate fails miserably to translate a Japanese verb

Generally speaking, I don’t like to point out the linguistic errors of others (or if I do, I at least try to be polite about it). But if it’s a mistake of a computer program I don’t feel compelled to hold back. I’ve been checking up now and then on Japanese to English translation technologies, especially… Read More »

Japanese novel translation: “The Rainlands” by Haruka Asahi [Chapter 4]

This is the 4rd chapter of the fantasy novel “The Rainlands” (雨の国) by Haruka Asahi (朝陽遥) which I am translating from Japanese with the author’s permission. It is about a man’s journey to a mysterious land and his encounter with the indigenous people there. If you enjoy this story and want to read more, please consider liking… Read More »

Some announcements about “Final Days of Summer” by Masaki Hashiba

One the translation projects I’ve been working on the last few months is the story “Final Days of Summer”  (残夏) by Masaki Hashiba (ハシバ柾), which is a set of short, interrelated fiction stories . So far, I’ve completely translated the first story “Stargazer” which you can see in full here. The other day I was doing some… Read More »

Japanese novel translation: “The Rainlands” by Haruka Asahi [Chapter 3]

This is the 3rd chapter of the fantasy novel “The Rainlands” (雨の国) by Haruka Asahi (朝陽遥) which I am translating from Japanese with the author’s permission. It is about a man’s journey to a mysterious land and his encounter with the indigenous people there. If you enjoy this story and want to read more, please consider liking… Read More »

Japanese novel translation: “The Rainlands” by Haruka Asahi [Chapter 2]

This is the 2nd chapter of the fantasy novel “The Rainlands” (雨の国) by Haruka Asahi (朝陽遥) which I am translating from Japanese with the author’s permission. It is about a man’s journey to a mysterious land and his encounter with its indigenous people. If you enjoy this story and want to read more, please consider liking this post… Read More »

Fiction Novel Review: “The Lightkeepers” by Abby Geni (an interesting study in literary style)

Once I got to the point where I could read novels in Japanese, it became difficult for me to budget time for English novels. Although I still read much faster in English and would say I still enjoy it more on average than Japanese books, each Japanese novel I read will improve my vocabulary, (hopefully) my reading speed,… Read More »

Japanese novel translation: “The Rainlands” by Haruka Asahi [Chapter 1]

I’ve discovered an interesting short novel called “The Rainlands” (雨の国) by Haruka Asahi (朝陽遥), and gotten the author’s permission to translate it into English and put it on my blog. You can find the entire original Japanese text for the story here (on Kakuyomu), and the first chapter here. It’s a fictional, fantasy/adventure tale (the genre is… Read More »