Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

[Simatong]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Trust you to reply now when I have to go out soon ^^. IT's funny, because that line was one of the lines I thought sounded a bit weird. I thought about doing what you did, and ignoring the fact that the verb is in the potential form, but then I couldn't shake the feeling that I was no longer conveying the writer's intention.

See, I'd already mentioned in the first message, that seeing translations has made me understand that it's not the meaning, but the intention, that is sometimes best to translate. So I guess it's just something I can't do myself. I used 'you' as well, for the same reason you did, although as some lines seem a little specific, I figured he's half talking about himself (the playing without sleeping, something I think most minecraft players have experienced ^^), so I sometimes used 'I'.

The second verse gave me a bit of trouble, The line about the moat threw me for a while, but then it just hit me like a bolt while I was listening to the song and not worrying about the translation. I give in and had to ask a native about the 'professional crime' (who didn't know either, so asked her boyfriend who knew the expression).

Oh btw, there were two typos in my translation. I'm sure you'll know what the word was meant to be both times. I noticed them ages ago, but forgot all about it when I copied and pasted the original. ^^

The other line I really don't like my translation of is the last line of the first verse. I also wish I'd written 'polish my skills' and not 'improve my skills', because I just forgot that we can use polish in English too, so changed that for no good reason.

Here are the translations I did. At first I thought 犯行 was referring to stealing something, but then I watched a video on youtube that followed the description of the lyrics and so I was then in agreement with your translation (that and I saw the post in the Japanese practice site where your friend asked her boyfriend). Let me know what you think. Heck, if you have some suggestions for me about my translations, feel free to let me know

何をやっても楽しめる マインクラフト。(You'll have fun in Minecraft no matter what you do)
家建てたり穴掘ったり マインクラフト (Be it building houses or digging holes, all in Minecraft)
明るいうちに働いて夜 は眠って。(Work when it’s light out and sleep at night)
少しずつ開拓するの マインクラフト (Little by little, you development the land in Minecraft)


家を建てるとき松明つけて (Attach torches while building your house)
屋根の上もそう忘れないでね。(And don't forget the rooftop!)

仲間たちと町を作る マインクラフト (Create a town with your friends in Minecraft)
でがいオブジェのクオリティ プロの犯行 (Create masterpieces/Create beautiful works of art)
落ちたら二度と出られないお堀もあるの (There are even moats [ditches?] that you won’t get out of should you fall in)
とても立派なマンションも前川ビュタも (And you’ll find magnificent mansions and floating islands)


ワクワクしながら、世界を歩く (Travel the world in excitement)
たまにFPS腕を磨こう (Polish off your FPS skills every now and then)

何をやっても楽しめる マインクラフト。(No matter what you do, you’ll have fun in Minecraft)
家建てたり穴掘ったり マインクラフト (Be it building houses or digging holes, all in Minecraft)
暗いうちにプレイしたら、いつのまにか朝 (You play when it’s dark out and morning’s here before you know it)
眠らずに開拓するの マインクラフト (You sleeplessly develop the land in Minecraft)

[Jembru]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Very nice! I really like your wording! If anything, it might be a little too nicely worded for the original song! There's a video that goes with the lyrics? 見たい！Yeah, the 'professional crime' threw me. As far as possible, I try not to ask my Japanese friends for translations other than while we're conversing and I can't say something, or don't understand them, because lets face it, there is usually nothing you can't work out with help from the Internet so long as you know how to 'work it'! This though, was such a rare expression (slang changes so rapidly in Japan and varies so much between regions that sometimes a foreign speaker has no chance) that I couldn't find it anywhere. It bothered me so much that I ended up posting it on the FB page of the oshaberikai, which I prefer not do for the sake of a translation (I usually wait until someone is IMing with me, or we're face to face, and then drop a tone of questions on them out of nowhere ^^).

Back to your translation. You are a master for making that first and last lines of the first verse sound so natural. In the case of the first line, I never even considered using the future tense instead of literally taking it as the potential. It works really nicely. I'll to to remember to ask myself if the future tense could be used in cases where I just can't make the sentence sound normal in English. Very useful.

More than that, what you've really made me realize, is that sometimes, you need to change the word order, or in fact, flip the clauses, to make it sound good in English. I think it's because I don't generally translate. Often I don't even consider what the things I'm saying (or in many cases, trying to say) would be in English, but even when I do consider the English, all I really have to do, is translate my English thoughts into Japanese, which as you know, is more forgiving of word order so long as the particles are in the right order. This is something I will definitely keep in mind too.

I have 2 further questions..

Do you think that translating is more about your English skill, then you ability in the original language? I mean, of course you need to know the original language pretty well, but do you think having good, literary skills in your L1 is the most important part? I ask this because when I translated, I just listened to the Japanese and wrote down what the sentences very literally meant. You, on the other hand, took the Japanese meaning and added a far more poetic twist to the meaning. Essentially, we had the same translations.. in so far as my translations don't contrast yours, but linguistically, yours just sound so much prettier. So I wonder if it's a case of, anyone can become proficient in a second (or third) language, but not everyone who does will necessarily be able to translate well between them.

Next question. I actually have a friend who is native Japanese, but fluent (and as a native speaker, I mean fluent) English speaker and very good at Cantonese, who is an interpreter for business meetings. She is amazing, but once made a passing comment about how in interpretation, which way around your native language and second language are, doesn't matter too much, so long as you have a command of both, but in translation, they prefer you to be L2 in the language translated from, but L1 (mother-tongue) in the language you translate into. Is this your experience too, or do you think it was more just the preference of her company? Not that I am thinking of becoming a translator (there's overrating ones ability and then there's seriously overrating to a delirious degree!). Is it unlikely these days that someone speaking Japanese as a second language would be employed to translate something from English to Japanese? If so, are the days of embarrassingly poor video game translations behind us?

[Simatong]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Very nice! I really like your wording! If anything, it might be a little too nicely worded for the original song! There's a video that goes with the lyrics? 見たい！Yeah, the 'professional crime' threw me. As far as possible, I try not to ask my Japanese friends for translations other than while we're conversing and I can't say something, or don't understand them, because lets face it, there is usually nothing you can't work out with help from the Internet so long as you know how to 'work it'! This though, was such a rare expression (slang changes so rapidly in Japan and varies so much between regions that sometimes a foreign speaker has no chance) that I couldn't find it anywhere. It bothered me so much that I ended up posting it on the FB page of the oshaberikai, which I prefer not do for the sake of a translation (I usually wait until someone is IMing with me, or we're face to face, and then drop a tone of questions on them out of nowhere ^^).

Back to your translation. You are a master for making that first and last lines of the first verse sound so natural. In the case of the first line, I never even considered using the future tense instead of literally taking it as the potential. It works really nicely. I'll to to remember to ask myself if the future tense could be used in cases where I just can't make the sentence sound normal in English. Very useful.

More than that, what you've really made me realize, is that sometimes, you need to change the word order, or in fact, flip the clauses, to make it sound good in English. I think it's because I don't generally translate. Often I don't even consider what the things I'm saying (or in many cases, trying to say) would be in English, but even when I do consider the English, all I really have to do, is translate my English thoughts into Japanese, which as you know, is more forgiving of word order so long as the particles are in the right order. This is something I will definitely keep in mind too.

I have 2 further questions..

Do you think that translating is more about your English skill, then you ability in the original language? I mean, of course you need to know the original language pretty well, but do you think having good, literary skills in your L1 is the most important part? I ask this because when I translated, I just listened to the Japanese and wrote down what the sentences very literally meant. You, on the other hand, took the Japanese meaning and added a far more poetic twist to the meaning. Essentially, we had the same translations.. in so far as my translations don't contrast yours, but linguistically, yours just sound so much prettier. So I wonder if it's a case of, anyone can become proficient in a second (or third) language, but not everyone who does will necessarily be able to translate well between them.

Next question. I actually have a friend who is native Japanese, but fluent (and as a native speaker, I mean fluent) English speaker and very good at Cantonese, who is an interpreter for business meetings. She is amazing, but once made a passing comment about how in interpretation, which way around your native language and second language are, doesn't matter too much, so long as you have a command of both, but in translation, they prefer you to be L2 in the language translated from, but L1 (mother-tongue) in the language you translate into. Is this your experience too, or do you think it was more just the preference of her company? Not that I am thinking of becoming a translator (there's overrating ones ability and then there's seriously overrating to a delirious degree!). Is it unlikely these days that someone speaking Japanese as a second language would be employed to translate something from English to Japanese? If so, are the days of embarrassingly poor video game translations behind us?

I am SOOOO sorry for the delayed response! I was waiting and waiting from a response from you, only to realize that I was looking in the wrong thread!! It's weird that I can translate several languages into English and yet still not have enough common sense to think, "Hmmm...maybe I should check the other thread." Why is it that the human brain can often do very complicated things, but then goes all ditzy with the most basic forms of logic? ORZ. I apologize for my stupidity.

As for your question...My best friend is technically bilingual (he has gone through a sort of "linguistic limbo", if you will, but that is another story for another thread lol). While he has the POTENTIAL to be good at translation, his translations often sound robotic and quite unnatural, even if they are correct. So I think it does have to do with a combination of skill with the English language (which both you and I obviously possess) and an ability to kind of see translation as an art. In essence, we translators are writers, and a writer's goal is to use target language to capture the attention and imagination of the reader, which is why I think it is so important that when ANY of us translate, we take time to put ourselves in the audience's shoes and minds: How would I want this to read if I picked up a copy? How would I want it to make me FEEL. For example, if I were in a supermarket and I saw a sign that said, "We graciously invite our customers to purchase our very delicious items and find very satisfying pricing methods", I would feel awkward because it sounds so cold and stiff. When we shop somewhere, we want to feel like we are just casual people looking for something to eat or wear. So instead, I would want a sign that said "Welcome to Our Store (name)! Come on in and find great items with low prices!". Something like this seems like it is actually INVITING me in, and it makes me feel more welcome than the first sign. These are the things that translators have to take into consideration. We don't just want the reader to see the message, we also want it to fit their mood and purpose so that they also FEEL the message, if that makes any sense.

Your friend is absolutely right. Translating into your second language is an act that might end up getting you glares and criticisms of varying intensity. Many translators find it absolutely unethical to translate into your L2 because they feel that, even if you are highly proficient, the way you would translate might seem somewhat odd and stiff, regardless of the grammatical accuracy. While my first translation job was an English document that I translated into Mandarin Chinese, this was under desperate circumstances; A former student of my Chinese professor needed to do work for a company in China and needed the slides (60 of them) translated into Mandarin. Unfortunately, it was during a holiday in China, and the Chinese professors and teachers at my college, though all native speakers, could not do it because they of course had their own classes to teach, so it was left up to me. However, even now, I usually won't translate into my second and third languages, at least not without letting the client know that, as a non-native speaker, the translations will be accurate but will sound like a foreigner wrote it. It's hard to explain, but, I think even as native English speakers, many of us have perhaps seen people write sentences that are for the most part accurate, but still make us think, "This is not quite native. Very, very good, but not completely native."

Oh by the way, horrible translations are actually a dark spot in my industry. Oh my goddess, Jembru! You would not BELIEVE some of the trashy translations I have seen for REALLY serious documents (like patents). I was once supposed to edit and proofread a document translated from Japanese into English, and the translations sounded so weird and were so inaccurate I basically had to RE-translate almost EVERYTHING! While I love my industry, there are many companies who want it cheap instead of accurate.

[Jembru]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Belated thanks for the reply. I'm so sorry I'm late getting back to you. I've been very strict with myself while I'm doing my cram-speaking practice. Today would have been the day I met my friends, had I read my rota properly. I've improved quite a bit, well more than I expected, although I'm still basically the same level, I can just verbilise my grammatically incorrect Japanese better than I could (haha, I recently told my friend my cucumber went up this month 給料<-> キュウリ.. that's possibly my best slur to date. It's even better than when I accidentally said 'I'm not lying, I'm a vacuum cleaner'). Still, as today would have been the end originally, I've given myself the night off (if you call still doing my speaking practice, but also letting myself catch up with forums, a night off ^^).

While I haven't seen these poor translations for myself (and probably wouldn't recognise them as poor, not being particularly proficient myself), I can imagine that there are some translators out there who are, lets say.. over-selling their skills.. It amazes me how many people you bump into on the net, who claim to be 'fluent' in Japanese, who in reality are maybe intermediate at best. I recently saw (in romaji), the sentence 'as I am very good at Japanese....' in which the person failed to correctly conugate 'umai', instead treating it as a 'na' adjective (and it was still an awkward use of grammar, even if it HAD been). This person identified themselves as being very fluent in the language, yet somehow didn't know how to conjugate adjectives? The poster seemed so sure of their proficiency, that it made me doubt myself. I didn't want to hurt their feelings by pointing to this error, so I showed the sentence to Miyo and she said in her sweet aimai way 'I think maybe they're a bit too confident'. ^^

The thing is, I don't think badly at all of these people because I was like that once too. I don't know if you had it too in your early days, but it's something that seems to be a common experience amongst me and my friends who I know can speak Japanese at least well enough to carry a conversation. Many of us, at some time or other, had this same delusion that we were near fluenct, when we were maybe pre-intermediate or lower. Having been there myself, I try not to try to knock people down, but instead try to lead by example, by staying realistic and honest about my own ability.

However, as harmless as they usually are, I fear that such people might wiggle their way into the translating industry. Especially someone who's ability is around my own, so that with excruciating effort, could produce a poor approximation of a dialogue or document in English. I could totally translate something for a small fee. It would be nothing like the original and have very alien and forced sounding sentences in it.. probably missing so many of the key features that the story is lost.. but I could produce SOMETHING! If the person requesting the translation doesn't know either the original or final language, who would know?

Mind you, I'm a little thankful for poor translations.. I couldn't imagine a world without engrish.com. Besides,.. the bad translations at least keep good translators like you, in work! ^^

Hmm, I did notice you included me in there, when you were talking about being skilled in English, presumably as I'm a native speaker, but to be honest, my English isn't so great. I certainly can't think creatively like you can, when I am translating. I think you are probably spot-on in calling translation an 'art'. It really comes over that way from the outside. Especially to someone like me who appreciates the beauty of language. It's a very impressive skill if one can do it well. It was very nice reading your translation of that song, and seeing how you tackled the linguistic differences that had me scratching my head. I'm so glad to have met such a talented translator!

Oh that reminds me, someone replied to your intro on the Japanese forum and she asked you if you've taken the JLPT. I'm curious now too. Personally, I don't rate it. I've never dared sit it, but I've tried sample questions and past papers, and it is just so easy to work out the answers from the choices. Other than your abiliy to memorize a bunch of kanji and some grammar rules, I don't see what it's actually testing. I did well enough to scrape a pass on N2 (well, it goes on quotas, and it might have been deliberately easier to make me spend money on sitting the real one, but roughly speaking) and I can assure you I can't speak at that level, and sometimes struggle keeping up with N3 level dialogues, never mind all the keigo and business language you see in N2. I just applied logic while guessing. So while I understand it's a necessary evil, I personally don't like the JLPT and hope I never need to take it. What are your thoughts on it?

[Simatong]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Belated thanks for the reply. I'm so sorry I'm late getting back to you. I've been very strict with myself while I'm doing my cram-speaking practice. Today would have been the day I met my friends, had I read my rota properly. I've improved quite a bit, well more than I expected, although I'm still basically the same level, I can just verbilise my grammatically incorrect Japanese better than I could (haha, I recently told my friend my cucumber went up this month 給料<-> キュウリ.. that's possibly my best slur to date. It's even better than when I accidentally said 'I'm not lying, I'm a vacuum cleaner'). Still, as today would have been the end originally, I've given myself the night off (if you call still doing my speaking practice, but also letting myself catch up with forums, a night off ^^).

While I haven't seen these poor translations for myself (and probably wouldn't recognise them as poor, not being particularly proficient myself), I can imagine that there are some translators out there who are, lets say.. over-selling their skills.. It amazes me how many people you bump into on the net, who claim to be 'fluent' in Japanese, who in reality are maybe intermediate at best. I recently saw (in romaji), the sentence 'as I am very good at Japanese....' in which the person failed to correctly conugate 'umai', instead treating it as a 'na' adjective (and it was still an awkward use of grammar, even if it HAD been). This person identified themselves as being very fluent in the language, yet somehow didn't know how to conjugate adjectives? The poster seemed so sure of their proficiency, that it made me doubt myself. I didn't want to hurt their feelings by pointing to this error, so I showed the sentence to Miyo and she said in her sweet aimai way 'I think maybe they're a bit too confident'. ^^

The thing is, I don't think badly at all of these people because I was like that once too. I don't know if you had it too in your early days, but it's something that seems to be a common experience amongst me and my friends who I know can speak Japanese at least well enough to carry a conversation. Many of us, at some time or other, had this same delusion that we were near fluenct, when we were maybe pre-intermediate or lower. Having been there myself, I try not to try to knock people down, but instead try to lead by example, by staying realistic and honest about my own ability.

However, as harmless as they usually are, I fear that such people might wiggle their way into the translating industry. Especially someone who's ability is around my own, so that with excruciating effort, could produce a poor approximation of a dialogue or document in English. I could totally translate something for a small fee. It would be nothing like the original and have very alien and forced sounding sentences in it.. probably missing so many of the key features that the story is lost.. but I could produce SOMETHING! If the person requesting the translation doesn't know either the original or final language, who would know?

Mind you, I'm a little thankful for poor translations.. I couldn't imagine a world without engrish.com. Besides,.. the bad translations at least keep good translators like you, in work! ^^

Hmm, I did notice you included me in there, when you were talking about being skilled in English, presumably as I'm a native speaker, but to be honest, my English isn't so great. I certainly can't think creatively like you can, when I am translating. I think you are probably spot-on in calling translation an 'art'. It really comes over that way from the outside. Especially to someone like me who appreciates the beauty of language. It's a very impressive skill if one can do it well. It was very nice reading your translation of that song, and seeing how you tackled the linguistic differences that had me scratching my head. I'm so glad to have met such a talented translator!

Oh that reminds me, someone replied to your intro on the Japanese forum and she asked you if you've taken the JLPT. I'm curious now too. Personally, I don't rate it. I've never dared sit it, but I've tried sample questions and past papers, and it is just so easy to work out the answers from the choices. Other than your abiliy to memorize a bunch of kanji and some grammar rules, I don't see what it's actually testing. I did well enough to scrape a pass on N2 (well, it goes on quotas, and it might have been deliberately easier to make me spend money on sitting the real one, but roughly speaking) and I can assure you I can't speak at that level, and sometimes struggle keeping up with N3 level dialogues, never mind all the keigo and business language you see in N2. I just applied logic while guessing. So while I understand it's a necessary evil, I personally don't like the JLPT and hope I never need to take it. What are your thoughts on it?

Sorry for the late reply! As I said in the Japanese forum, I leave the JLPT alone. Honestly, some of these tests just make me want to roll my eyes, ya know? I mean, yes, I am sure they give insight and can be helpful, but for me, a lot of these tests just put language in a box. It's like watching stagnant water; the more it is just left in one place, the staler it becomes, but once you open the channels and let the water move and flow, it can be refreshed and be in its natural state; when some of these test-makers and test-takers just focus on wording and grammar, language skills can become stale, but if you embrace the all aspects (learning wording and grammar while also not just limiting yourself to those areas), it feels so much more free! I used to really want to take the tests because I think a part of me felt like that would make the Japanese learning count, you know? Kind of like how I didn't think I could be a translator until I actually took translation courses. But, while I would still like to translation courses to understand a bit more about linguistic theory, just jumping right in and getting the experience has taught me things in ways that I never thought I could learn. I think we can connect this to our pagan work, too, because it's kind of like how when a Wiccan can learn a lot about the God and Goddess and Nature from books and seminars and associates, but when we personally delve in and experience the power of the gods firsthand, our eyes and souls are introduced to experiences that secondhand knowledge may not be able to give us, if that makes sense.

[Jembru]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

I came to post here, to avoid triple posting in the other thread, but realise I never replied to you. I absolutely agree about the JLPT. It's such an innacurate test of Japanese ability. I'd much rather see something more akin to the ILETS or TOEIC tests of English, that divide language skills into General or Academic, depending on what the individual is studying the language for. The JLPT seems to ignore the fact that Japanese is first and foremost a means of communication between individuals and that knowing that when your friends call you 'トイレ近い', they're teasing you for going to the toilet every 20 minutes after the second beer, is just as important (some might argue more so), than knowing that 以来 follows the te form, but たび(に) follows the plain non-past, while とたん(に) comes after the plain past form. As have just shown, reciting these rules is pretty simple if you know them.. but can I get these right when I'm speaking? Can I heck as like! Would an examiner know I can't get these right, based on the fact that I circled the correct verb form from the four choices on the paper, due to having time to actually think about the grammar? Nope, so my test score wouldn't reflect my communicative ability very well at all. Furthermore, If I know the word 'とたん' would the form the verb before it took make the slightest difference to my ability to translate a sentence from Japanese to English? Not at all! So like I said earlier, I really don't see what this test is proving besides that I can memorise a set of stagnant rules that have little bearing on my actual competence (or lack of).

Tests of English proficiency aren't perfect either of course, but they at least tend to be more function-based and while they of course test grammar knowledge, they usually offer optional verbal tests, which employers are often much more interested in. I'm sometimes tempted to take the JLPT, but with the cost of the test, the study materials, the time I'd waste learning grammar rules that only apply to written text, so I'd never need to say and could ignore while reading, travel and accommodation costs and the time I'd have to take off work, just don't seem worth it.

Right, rant over.

What I actually came for was to say that the translation threads are in full-swing. I'm really getting stuck into it. It's all a bit beyond my level, but with a little effort (stroke counting ^^) I can just about manage to hold my own. It's already really getting me to think about the nuances and how they'd best be carried over into English. We decided to split them into different texts so that one thread is one text, which means in the case of novels, so long as the OP continues to upload new pages, we could be working on these projects for months, or even years!

The best one is the one Jade recently started. It's the first book in the Harry Potter series! There is another novel translated from English, about dragons, which is really interesting linguistically, but I don't know the English story, or have access to the English version of the book, like I do for HP. I'm thrilled to be able to see how the original English text has been translated into Japanese. I'm trying to be creative and professional about my wording of the dragon story and Chibimaruko manga, but for HP, I'm being deliberately literal, because I want to see the orginal English, and then the literal translation of the Japanese, side-by-side, to compare! ^^

I really hope you'll have time to pop in and take up a line or two of these texts! There'll be more to come, and you are welcome to start one of your own.

Yoroshiku!

[Simatong]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

I came to post here, to avoid triple posting in the other thread, but realise I never replied to you. I absolutely agree about the JLPT. It's such an innacurate test of Japanese ability. I'd much rather see something more akin to the ILETS or TOEIC tests of English, that divide language skills into General or Academic, depending on what the individual is studying the language for. The JLPT seems to ignore the fact that Japanese is first and foremost a means of communication between individuals and that knowing that when your friends call you 'トイレ近い', they're teasing you for going to the toilet every 20 minutes after the second beer, is just as important (some might argue more so), than knowing that 以来 follows the te form, but たび(に) follows the plain non-past, while とたん(に) comes after the plain past form. As have just shown, reciting these rules is pretty simple if you know them.. but can I get these right when I'm speaking? Can I heck as like! Would an examiner know I can't get these right, based on the fact that I circled the correct verb form from the four choices on the paper, due to having time to actually think about the grammar? Nope, so my test score wouldn't reflect my communicative ability very well at all. Furthermore, If I know the word 'とたん' would the form the verb before it took make the slightest difference to my ability to translate a sentence from Japanese to English? Not at all! So like I said earlier, I really don't see what this test is proving besides that I can memorise a set of stagnant rules that have little bearing on my actual competence (or lack of).

Tests of English proficiency aren't perfect either of course, but they at least tend to be more function-based and while they of course test grammar knowledge, they usually offer optional verbal tests, which employers are often much more interested in. I'm sometimes tempted to take the JLPT, but with the cost of the test, the study materials, the time I'd waste learning grammar rules that only apply to written text, so I'd never need to say and could ignore while reading, travel and accommodation costs and the time I'd have to take off work, just don't seem worth it.

Right, rant over.

What I actually came for was to say that the translation threads are in full-swing. I'm really getting stuck into it. It's all a bit beyond my level, but with a little effort (stroke counting ^^) I can just about manage to hold my own. It's already really getting me to think about the nuances and how they'd best be carried over into English. We decided to split them into different texts so that one thread is one text, which means in the case of novels, so long as the OP continues to upload new pages, we could be working on these projects for months, or even years!

The best one is the one Jade recently started. It's the first book in the Harry Potter series! There is another novel translated from English, about dragons, which is really interesting linguistically, but I don't know the English story, or have access to the English version of the book, like I do for HP. I'm thrilled to be able to see how the original English text has been translated into Japanese. I'm trying to be creative and professional about my wording of the dragon story and Chibimaruko manga, but for HP, I'm being deliberately literal, because I want to see the orginal English, and then the literal translation of the Japanese, side-by-side, to compare! ^^

I really hope you'll have time to pop in and take up a line or two of these texts! There'll be more to come, and you are welcome to start one of your own.

Yoroshiku!

Can't wait to see more!