Japanese Translation Service
The Blue South Japanese translation service covers both English into Japanese and Japanese into English. Japanese is the most difficult language to translate into and great care is taken to ensure a high quality end result.
All Blue South translators are native speakers who Translate in Location™ which means they live and are immersed in the culture of the language that they translate into. As business translations typically involve a specific subject area, we use Topic Targeted Translators™ who specialise in the subject matter of your business.
Modern Japanese uses four different scripts:
- Kanji 漢字 are characters of Chinese origin used to write, for example: nouns, stems of adjectives and verbs, and Japanese names.
- Hiragana 平仮名 is a purely phonetic syllabary, used to write, for example: inflectional endings for adjectives and verbs (okurigana 送りがな); grammatical particles (joshi 助詞); Japanese words that have no kanji assigned to them; Japanese words for which the author does not know the proper kanji, or for which the kanji rendition is not likely to be readable by the intended readership; indications of how to read kanji (furigana ふりがな); and Japanese words that have kanji assigned to them, but which are more commonly written in hiragana, either out of custom or for ease of reading. For example, takusan (many) is more frequently written たくさん than 沢山.
- Katakana 片仮名 is another purely phonetic syllabary, used to write, for example: foreign words and names, including Japanese words that originate from foreign languages other than Chinese (see below for more); onomatopoeia; emphasized words, much like italicized words in English text; words being spoken by non-native speakers of Japanese; and the names of plants and animals that are not otherwise commonly written in kanji.
- Rōmaji ローマ字 are Roman characters, used to write: acronyms and initialisms, for example NATO; Japanese names or other words intended for use outside of Japan (for example, Japanese names on business cards, in passports, etc.); company names, brand names or product names, etc. used both inside and outside of Japan; and foreign words and phrases that appear in an otherwise Japanese context, such as words that appear in advertising, on consumer goods intended for Japanese consumption, etc.
In the case of names for places, people, companies or products, these are transliterated into Japanese characters. Care is required in this process,
How do I get started?
To discuss your Japanese translation project call us on 0508 443 613 or Email Us
