Japanese Translation Tips
by Donesh Gillin

Email the Author at gillind @ uwplatt.edu

Submit Comments for Posting to trpg @ z-builder.com

So for whatever reason you want to translate some Japanese. However, like most westerners you don't have any knowledge about the Japanese language. Well, thanks to Internet translators it is possible to translate Japanese if you have the time and patience.

First, a little information about the Japanese written language. The Japanese language has three written alphabets. Kanji are Chinese characters and will sometimes make up a majority of characters used. Hiragana is the second written alphabet and is used for Japanese words. Katakana is the third, and is used for foreign words. Katakana usually looks more angular than hiragana. All three alphabets will be used in the same sentence.

I will assume that if you are reading this you already have a computer and some sort of net access. The only other item you need to start translating Japanese is a Kanji dictionary. I would personally recommend the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary(ISBN 4-7700-2855-5). It has a unique and easy to use system for Kanji look up. It also has the Unicode characters for the Kanji. If you get any other Kanji dictionary make sure that it has Unicode characters. Without Unicode it will be useless. It will also take some time before you can easily find kanji in whatever dictionary you have. It is important to know all the methods your dictionary has to look up kanji. Sometimes it is much faster to look them up with a different method. Looking up kanji is something that will become much faster and easier to do with practice.

You also have to set up your computer so that you can type in Japanese characters. In WinXP this is an option in your Regional and Language Options control panel. In this control panel under the languages tab click on the detail button. Add Japanese as an input language. A language bar should now appear somewhere on your computer screen. This lets you switch between English and Japanese input. It also lets you switch between hiragana and katakana input. You input hiragana or katakana by typing the English letters which make up the Japanese one. So to input [the chracter for the Japanese "KA"] you type in ka. A complete list of the hiragana, and katakana can be found in some Kanji dictionaries, and most pocket Japanese dictionaries. To input kanji first type the Unicode for that kanji. Then hit alt-x. It should transform everything but the u in the Unicode to the correct kanji character.

So to translate just re-type whatever you would like to translate into your computer. Once you have a sentence typed bring it to an online translator. I would recommend Babelfish (http://babel.altavista.com/) and Jim Breen's WWWJDIC (http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/jwb/wwwjdic?9T). Babelfish will give you an English translation of the Japanese text. Jim Breen's WWWJDIC doesn't give you a direct translation but breaks apart the sentence and tells you what each of the words mean.

For the most part the Babelfish translation will work. If it doesn't there are a few tricks you can do. First take it to Jim Breen's translator. Sometimes the meaning of the kanji will be enough for you to translate it. Check to make sure that the sentence is typed in correctly, and that all the kanji are correct. Even a tiny error will cause the translator to fail. Also be careful to not have any spaces between letters. Japanese doesn't have any spaces between words. Including these can also cause the translator to fail. Sometimes Babelfish doesn't translate katakana words well. Fortunately, a lot of katakana words are really English words in Japanese. Use your katakana chart to switch the word over to English and you should be able to discover what it means. However, it will be slightly distorted. Finally, try playing with sentence. I have seen translations failing because of katakana word / katakana word. However, they work if you just take out the slash and one of the katakana words. If all else fails, skip the sentence ot try to find someone who reads Japanese to translate it.

The above system works, but it is very very very slow. I managed to type about two paragraphs in about two hours. You can speed up the process a little if your Kanji dictionary lists different Kanji pairs as well. While kanji have a meaning by themselves they also usually have a specific meaning when paired with another kanji. Most dictionaries will list these after the kanji entry. They will also usually give you the pronunciation of the kanji, and the kanji par. Splitting the pronunciation of the kanji pair, and looking up the unknown kanji by its pronunciation(Some Kanji dictionaries also list Kanji by pronunciation). Also be very conscious of kanji which are used multiple times in the same paragraph.

However, the real way to speed up any translation is through a Kanji OCR program. Several of these are available on the western market. A demo of one can be found here:
http://www.kanjikit.net/kocr/kocrdownload.htm

From the little I have experimented with Kanji OCR's do work rather well. In fact, I have noticed that they tend to make more mistakes with the hiragana and katakana much more than they make mistakes with the kanji. Always double check everything you OCR to make sure it was scanned correctly.

COMMENTS!

ANDY KITKOWSKI- I haven't ever used OCR programs, as I do most of my written translations by dictionary or PC, but I cannot recommend both Jim Breen's Online Dictionary tool that (Donesh linked to, above) and the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary enough. They are probably some of the best resources for Japanese learners available on the net or in print. The Kanji Learner's Dictionary, particualarly, has been a lifesaver for me since it was first released just a few years ago.

 

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