Fairy tale about a magic organ: Mimei Ogawa’s “The Life of a Musical Instrument”
I’ve translated and published the full text of the Japanese fairy tale “The Life of a Musical Instrument” (楽器の生命) by Mimei Ogawa (小川未明)
Tag Archives: translation
Japanese word 実務 (jitsumu)
Whereas many of this blog’s posts are about Japanese words that I use myself in daily life, in this article I’d like to talk about a word that I had some difficulty understanding and the research I did related to that. The word is 実務 (jitsumu) and I saw it used in the name of… Read More »
A few more thoughts on the Kurodahan translation prize (2018)
In a previous article I talked a little about the 2018 Kurodahan translation prize. Today I received an email from someone at Kurodahan saying I didn’t win. As this was my first contest of this type, honestly I was not too surprised about this. However, I was a bit disappointed in the number of “points”… Read More »
Book release: “Tales of the Disturbed” (classic Japanese fiction by Yoshio Toyoshima)
I’m very pleased to announce my latest book, “Tales of the Disturbed,” has just been released on Amazon. This book contains my translations of several short stories by the classic Japanese author Yoshio Toyoshima (1890-1955), all which are appearing the first time in English. Whereas my other books have all been about science fiction or… Read More »
A few thoughts on participating in the 2018 Kurodahan Press Translation Contest
The folks over at Kurodahan Press have been running a yearly translation contest now for some time that typically involves translating a selected text from Japanese to English. The winner receives a monetary prize and I think also gets their story (eventually) published in some form. While I had heard about this contest a while… Read More »
Japanese book review: “文藝年鑑” (Literature Yearbook) [an important guide for acquiring rights to publish Japanese works]
In the process of researching how to obtain official legal permission to translate and publish certain Japanese authors, I discovered the book “文藝年鑑” (bungei nenkan), which can be translated as “Literature Yearbook”. In this post I’d like to review this important reference guide, especially useful to translators and those deeply interested in Japanese literature. (By… Read More »
Japanese loanword spotlight: 「ナーバス」(naabasu) [It doesn’t always mean “nervous”]
Loanwords from other countries, called gairaigo (外来語), make up a significant part of the Japanese language, and learning their nuances is a key part of being truly fluent in Japanese. Many of these words, for example seetaa(セーター, meaning “sweater”), are used in a way that is very similar to their original language. However, some loan words have… Read More »
Japanese web novel translation: “Japan: A New Age” by Tasogarenin (黄昏人) [Chapter 8: Construction Begins]
This is my translation of the 8th chapter of a Science Fiction novel about a boy genius who helps develop groundbreaking technologies that change Japan’s society drastically, eventually resulting in the colonization of outer space. I had taken a break from translating this series, but due to popular demand I have decided to translate this chapter… Read More »
Science Fiction novella released: “Two of Six” (A Captain’s Dilemma) by Tomohito Moriyama (森山智仁）
In mid-June I released an English translation of the first part of an intriguing Japanese SF novella that I had discovered titled “Two of Six: A Captain’s Dilemma” (Japanese title: “６分の２”), written by Tomohito Moriyama (森山智仁). The story involves a system malfunction on a spaceship requiring evacuation of the humans aboard, but the escape pod… Read More »
Japanese Word Highlight: 超訳 (chouyaku), the “extreme translation”
Recently when I was reading a book with explanations of old Japanese (for example a Matsuo Bashō poem from over 300 years ago), I came across the word 超訳 (pronounced ‘chouyaku’). I had never seen this word before, despite having prepared this vocabulary list which included a few terms about translation. While the word was not… Read More »