Yesterday I made a post about the “~kaba” particle combination that you can see here. But you may have realized that yesterday was April 1, and it turns out this post was actually an April Fool’s joke. The “~kaba” particle combination doesn’t actually exist. Having said that, besides “kaba” itself much of the content in… Read More »
(Note: this post was an April fools joke. Please see this post for more details). I enjoy getting deep in Japanese grammar not only because of the challenge but because it helps me have a deep understanding of whatever I am reading or listening to. It also provides a good foundation for doing accurate translations.… Read More »
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.
One of the biggest challenges when learning a foreign language, especially if you are going the self-taught route, is that it’s hard to find situations where proper use of the language actually matters. If you can interact with native speakers on a frequent basis, or even better, live in a country filled with such native… Read More »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »