Translation can be a trick business and there are a lot of different things that need to be kept in mind while working. For example, in technical translation, you want to avoid flowery language and instead make sure that you are translating the concepts written in a straightforward way with little to no room for interpretation. With literature, you are allowed more leeway with how you translate things since you are trying to match style and ideas rather than the words.

Things can differ slightly depending on what language you are working with, but it’s always important to remember your audience and the area that you are translating. This post will cover some basic things that you will want to keep in mind while translating from English to Japanese.

1. Honorifics. Depending on what you are translating, you will have to think about how you will write names. Japanese is a language that places much importance on politeness and hierarchy, so when translating from English to Japanese, it is important to make sure that you are able to incorporate honorifics into your translation if necessary. For example, while in English, there is only really one way to say “Your Company,” there are several ways to say it in Japanese, but if you are talking to a valued customer, you wouldn’t just say “Your Company.” You would say something that would be equivalent to saying “Your esteemed company” in English. It is important to do this to not only show respect, but also allow others to know the status of the relationship, that is, the hierarchy of the relationship.
2. Kanji versus Hiragana/Katakana. For those of you that do not know, the Japanese writing system has three ways to write out their words. Kanji are Chinese characters while Hiragana and Katakana are more similar to the English alphabet in that each individual character can be used to spell out words. The difference between Hiragana and Katakana though is how they are typically used. Katakana is often seen in contexts where foreign words are being spelled out while Hiragana is typically more for Japanese words. Together all three of these make up the Japanese writing system.

However, when translating, it isn’t always clear when you should use either. You can use hiragana or katakana instead of Kanji and vice versa. Then there are situations where there might be a word in English that most Japanese speakers know, thus it doesn’t need to be translated into Japanese, and can just be phonetically written out in Japanese. For these distinctions, it is probably best to check with the client if you are not sure about which they might prefer, but typically you can just check online to see which version of the word is used more in the context of the original document.

3. Subject. In Japanese, it is normal for names or subjects to be dropped from sentences, so it can become a little difficult sometimes to determine with absolute certainty who or what is being talked about in certain sentences. For example, consider the following: “Sarah is out walking her dog. She will be back later.” If you were translating this into Japanese, you might use Sarah, but other than that, you would exclude “her” and “she.” You might even leave out “Sarah” depending on what the previous sentence was. Knowing when to drop the subject is an important skill to have and is easier for those who are native Japanese speakers than it is for English natives who learned Japanese.

There are many more important things to be careful of when translating English to Japanese, but this is just a short, and brief introduction into translating English to Japanese. I hope if you are starting out as an English to Japanese translator that you will find this short post helpful.