After learning of an interesting translation choice in the English version of the award winning “Convenience Store Woman” novel I decided to write a post that touches upon topics including the responsibilities of translators, publishers, and readers of literature.
In this post I talk about a tricky translation problem related to bird names and how I solved it.
(quick link to my new particle quiz book on Amazon) For anyone who has followed this blog you probably know that in the last few years I’ve started putting out eBooks with my translations of various pieces of Japanese literature. A few of these are in parallel Japanese / English to help those studying Japanese,… Read More »
I reviewed the book “Communication begins with Ki!”, the latest book by Shin’ichi Tohei, the head of the Ki Society and son of the founder of Ki Aikido, Koichi Tohei. In this book he talks about a variety of topics with Professor Katsuhiro Nishinari, many related to Ki or Ki-Aikido.
This is the 13th 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 would like to thank the author, Yuki Hoshizaki (星崎ゆうき) for giving me permission to translate and publish this chapter in this blog. You can find… Read More »
I’ve published another volume of fairy tales by Mimei Ogawa, father of modern Japanese children’s literature. The stories are listed in bilingual Japanese/English.
The Japanese language has a small number of verb tenses, but in place of those are various combinations of words that can be tricky to understand and translate. In this article I’d like to go over the phrase 疲れにくくなる(tsukare nikuku naru) that combines three words to create one idea. First I’d like to review the… Read More »
When learning a foreign language, there are words you can guess from the context and others that can be figured out with a quick trip to the dictionary. However, once in a while you discover a word that remains perplexing even after you read about what it’s supposed to mean. This article is about one… Read More »
In this post I illustrate 50+ sentence patterns in Japanese using example sentences and English translations. The examples are minimal and the focus is on how small changes (especially involving particles) can lead to very different meanings.
Because of the unfortunate situation in the world at this time, many people are turning to online options to continue their learning, social interactions, or even exercise. Blogs like this one already take advantage of the internet, and if anything I have seen a rise in hits over the last few weeks. But I’ve been… Read More »