Japanese to English Translation

Do not translate word for word

In Japanese to English translation, it is essential to avoid word for word translation and to translate the speaker’s message rather than exact words. There are a few reasons for that.

The most prominent one is that Japanese and English are two languages with very different structures and inner logic. The word order is different: subject-verb-object in English and subject-object-verb in Japanese. There are a lot of differences in grammar as well. For instance, there is no grammatical gender in Japanese – you need to rely on the context and non-grammatical markers to translate Japanese to English correctly.

Another reason is the difference between the two cultures. One of the things that stand out is the prominence of the category of politeness in Japanese culture and language alike. Depending on the relation, seniority, and familiarity of the speakers, many different forms are used in Japanese – translating them into English might be a challenge.

Thus, it is important in Japanese to English translation to read the whole sentence – sometimes even the whole paragraph or text – and analyze its meaning and context before you can adequately translate it.

Be careful with false cognates

Over the course of history, Japanese has borrowed quite a few words from English and other European languages. Some of such words make learning Japanese or Japanese to English translation easier. For instance, ‘miruku’ (ミルク) can be fairly easily recognized as ‘milk’ and ‘naifu’ (ナイフ) as ‘knife’.

However, some words have changed their meaning since they have entered Japanese, and their meaning differs from their English counterparts. One such word is ‘naibu’ (ナイーブ), which is not ‘naive’ but ‘overly sensitive’.

Three ‘alphabets’

Three writing systems are commonly used in the Japanese language: kanji, hiragana, and katakana. Kanji are hieroglyphs, Chinese characters adopted to write Japanese words. They are used to write most of the content words in the Japanese language.

Hiragana and katakana are syllabic alphabets, with each symbol representing a syllable. Hiragana is used primarily for native or naturalized Japanese words and grammatical elements, and katakana is used primarily for foreign words and names, loanwords, onomatopoeia, scientific names, and sometimes for emphasis. 

Occasionally, a fourth system is used: romaji, Latin script used to write foreign names, foreign words, and occasionally Japanese names and brands.

A unique language

Japanese is a member of its own language family: Japonic. It is not related to any other major language of the world; any similarities you may notice are coincidental or resulted from borrowing.

Linguists still argue about the origin of the Japanese language and try to uncover the mystery of its origin. Some have suggested genetic relationships with other languages, namely, Korean, but no consistent proof has been demonstrated.

Related to Japanese are Ryukyuan languages, the indigenous languages of the Ryukyu Islands, the southernmost part of the Japanese archipelago. Very few speakers of these languages remain, and they are classified by UNESCO as ‘endangered’.