This is the English translation of the third part (of four) of the first story (“Stargazer”) of the series of short stories titled “Final Days of Summer” (残夏) by Masaki Hashiba (ハシバ柾). I’ve gotten permission from the author to translate and put these on my blog, and he is very excited about his work being translated to English. As always,… Read More »
Studying Japanese using Japanese books written for children is always something I suggest to leaners who are in the beginner or intermediate levels. As long as you pick a book that isn’t too difficult (you can start with baby books to be safe) you will some good reading practice, and also the satisfaction of actually reading a… Read More »
Recently I’ve been reading a few stories from the magazine “小説幻冬” (December 2016 edition), and I came across one that was particularly entertaining. This story is told in monologue-style, and though little happens in terms of action, I really like how the main character’s personality is portrayed and could really empathize with her. I couldn’t help but… Read More »
Sometime back, I mentioned that I recommend reading children’s books in a foreign language as a good way to experience native-level content that isn’t too difficult. For Japanese, this is especially useful since you will have very little, if any, kanji to worry about, which is one stumbling block when reading Japanese books. I’ve read a great… Read More »
So far, the translations that I have posted on this blog have mostly focused on portions of books, short stories, or online novels. But when I came across the book “Turn your kids into billionaires by teaching them to code” (子供を億万長者にしたければ、プログラミングの基礎を教えなさい) by Kohji Matsubayashi（松林弘治), I decided I wanted to translate at least a small portion of this… Read More »
Recently, I finished reading the first volume of “Witch of the Library” (図書館の魔女) by Daisuke Takada (高田大介) which I reviewed in detail here. Put simply, it is a pretty interesting hard fantasy (think Tolkien) book which requires a pretty high level of Japanese vocabulary and grammar to get through. Typically, I wait until I finish… Read More »
When searching for a new Japanese novel to read, I decided to peruse through the Fantasy section of Booklive (one of my favorite E-book sites) to see what was available. A few of the books looked pretty cheesy, but one of the book’s title and cover art intrigued me: “Witch of the Library” (図書館の魔女) by Daisuke… Read More »
Recently, I reviewed Jin Mayama’s book “そして、星の輝く夜がくる” which I thoroughly enjoyed and consider it one of the best Japanese novels I’ve read. As I’m always looking to improve my translation skills, especially for novels, I decided on translating just a few pages of it. In short, the novel is about a teacher who volunteers to help… Read More »
Lately, I’ve been trying out a bunch of random Japanese novels via the free samples available on the E-book site Booklive. I went through a few that were mediocre, after which I came across upon the 2014 novel『そして、星の輝く夜がくる』(Soshite, hoshi no kagayaku yoru ga kuru) by Jin Mayama. I got absorbed into it after only a few pages, and before I… Read More »
Recently I posted a review of the book “Teaching methods based on student native language, English edition” by Kazuko Nakagawa, which provided some important insights on mistakes English-speakers typically make when learning Japanese. I wanted to translate at least a short portion of this book to give a feel what the content is like, and also… Read More »