It’s All Relative

As it turns out, there are lots of people out there who don’t speak any Japanese at all! So over the summer, I put on my big-girl suit (I don’t remember, it probably wasn’t a suit) and finally managed to convince some poor fool to pay me to translate Japanese for them. By which I mean I went to go talk to the curator of a private collection of samurai armor in my city and tried really, really hard to sound like I knew what I was talking about. I was actually asking for a job… but instead I was asked to translate papers that sometimes came with the armor they purchased (turns out the curator only speaks French).

Now I work a completely separate, full-time job, and every once in a while I get a request to translate documents (mostly auction materials) for this collection, which I do in the evenings. So although I’m getting paid, I’m not sure I would consider myself a professional translator. But since I’m sure there are plenty of Japanese students out there who have something they want to translate (books, manga, song lyrics, whatever), I thought I’d share my approach. I’d also love to hear what other people do, because frankly I’m pretty new at this.

*The collection I translate for will remain nameless for privacy reasons and because I don’t want anybody to steal my job.

Getting Ready To Translate

After dinner, I sit down to work. I open the e-mail, and take a moment to freak out when I can’t read anything on the page. Honestly, these articles should be considered way above my level, but this is the kind of situation where you “fake it ‘till you make it”.

The first thing I have to do is convert the images my client sends me into text. (Standard practice is to charge by the character, so at the very least I need it for an accurate character count). I can try a text-converting program or just type everything up myself, depending on the quality of the image. This time my client has sent me both the image and the converted text (plus a botched Google translation, to remind me that she needs me). I copy and paste the text into a Google Doc and prepare my workspace.

This involves opening several tabs: Google Translator, Jisho.org, and Kotobank.jp. I also turn Rikaichan on in my browser, which is especially useful because I can wave my mouse over any word in the Google Doc to get a definition. If this seems like cheating to you, wait a little while and you’ll see why I don’t waste time on relatively common vocabulary.

1. Rough Draft

Remember this: the key is just to get English on the page.

Now that it’s time to actually start translating, I wave my mouse over the first unfamiliar word (unfortunately, it’s the title of the article). Uh-oh. Rikaichan is only defining the individual characters. “Iron earth” is not an acceptable description for a helmet, so I copy and paste the phrase into Google Translator.

Still no good. Jisho and Kotobank don’t give me anything either so I put a star next to this and move on.

I spend 15 minutes trying to find the meaning of 車患 before I look at the original image and realize the text converter has badly misread 鯱. This is why you always need to double-check converted text. I go through and correct all of the misread kanji before continuing. (鯱, by the way, is しゃちほこ/shachihoko, a mythical dolphin/whale/fish thing. Nagoya Castle is famous for the two golden shachihoko on its roof).

鯱の胴体部は背を中心に鉄薄板に鱗を打出した二枚を左右から合わせ
形成し、これに眉庇を兼用する鯱の頭部の鬼面を被せ…
For the body of the dolphin / in the middle of the back / in iron lacquer / two plates with embossed fish scales / join on the left and right to take form / these scales also serve as mabisashi / and the dolphin’s head / covers a demon’s mask

Unlike English, the Japanese language does not frown upon run-on sentences. I think they would actually rather add modifiers to an existing sentence than make a new one if the subject of the sentence is the same. For this first draft I am trying to stay as close to the original Japanese meaning as possible, so I separate ideas with “/”. Later I will rearrange everything to make more sense with English grammar.

A lot of words I come across are jargon, specific to ancient Japanese armor. They either don’t appear in a Japanese-English dictionary or have a second, more common meaning. That’s when I go to Kotobank, a Japanese-Japanese dictionary, to find the more obscure definition. You can do this even if you still have a lower vocabulary level, because all you have to do is use Rikaichan on words you don’t know.

The key to getting this far is making educated guesses about the meanings you don’t know. If you’re still not sure you understand, you can try a search using the romanization of the word (in this case, マビサシ comes out to mabisashi). You might find something like this:

Number 12 is “Forehead plate – mabisashi (眉庇). Mystery solved! Thanks Wikipedia.

Everything I’ve written about so far has taken place in the first sentence of the text! Granted, it’s a run-on sentence that takes up most of the first paragraph, but you can see why this might take a while. And that was just the first draft–it has English words but makes no real sense in English. Plus, there were several words (I’m looking at you, 鉄地) that I couldn’t translate the first time around. Hopefully they’ll make more sense as I figure out the context that they are written in.

2. Second Draft

An English sentence like the one below isn’t exactly easy to understand:

For the body of the dolphin / in the middle of the back / in iron lacquer / two plates with embossed fish scales / join on the left and right to take form/ these scales also serve as mabisashi / and the dolphin’s head / covers a demon’s mask / on the left and right / large scales and koshimaki boards / are hammered into place with rivets.

This is actually where Google Translate is the most helpful, believe it or not.

Okay, so a key part of Google’s translating algorithm is based off of statistical survey of websites and documents that are written in multiple languages. The algorithm compares the English version with the Japanese (or Spanish, or Arabic) version to see how the words correspond. If, in several different sources, 日本 (nihon) corresponds with “Japan”, then that is how Google will translate it. The program is getting more sophisticated over time, and it can now recognize some common grammatical structures. This means that I can sometimes put a chunk of text into Google translator to see how the grammar is most commonly translated.

I’ll go ahead and use a different (shorter) sentence. Here, “鬼面の眼球には鍍金板が嵌入され” comes out to “Plating plate is fitted to the eye of the devil mask”. Uh… yeah, that doesn’t make sense. But I already figured out in my first draft that “in the eyeball of the kimen (a special armor term) / gilt strips are inlaid”. So now I can write “Gilt strips are fitted to the eye of the kimen”. That makes sense, right? This isn’t a foolproof method, but as one of several references, it can be helpful. I go through the whole first draft like this, to get a working English version. Sometimes I do a third draft as well.

3. Cleaning Up

Translating is more of an art than a science. The articles I translate need to be functional, because my client is trying to understand more about the piece of armor. There may be phrases I don’t understand (what the heck is 鉄地?!) and I need to come up with a reasonable guess. In the case of 鉄地 I decide to ignore the 地 (chi, earth) character because I thought “iron helmet” was more to the point, and “iron earth helmet” would have just been confusing. If I’m particularly concerned about something, I’ll include “Notes” in my translation. For instance, once a passage had several typos, including a wrong date and a wrong location. I translated the information as it was written, and corrected it in the Notes.

As a last resort, sometimes I just have to ask a native speaker of Japanese. There are lots of things I don’t know because I didn’t grow up in Japan, so if I absolutely can’t figure something out myself (whether a given location is, in fact, a typo, for instance) I’ll get in touch with one of my Japanese friends.

Waiting for the moment that you understand absolutely everything perfectly means never using your Japanese. Whether it’s for fun or for profit, it’s a good idea to take chances and use your Japanese, whatever level you’re at. Even if it didn’t have the added benefit of improving your Japanese, it’s rewarding to actually use a skill you’ve worked so hard to get.

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Bonus Wallpapers

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Your best friend and worst enemy.

We’ve all been guilty of using online translators at one time or another. Maybe you were just translating some Japanese you found online, or trying to figure out what that Jpop song just said. Or maybe you were using online translators to finish your Japanese homework. (Don’t worry, I won’t tell your sensei.)

And even though we’ve written about how you really shouldn’t use online translators and how they can go terribly wrong, I won’t judge you. I definitely have used Google Translate late at night for my homework for Japanese class. But have you ever wondered about how online translators actually work, and why you shouldn’t use them?

There are two main ways that computers translate one human language to another: one based on rules, and one based on something a little more complicated.

Rules, Rules, Rules

The first and older one is based on rules. A computer is programmed with the basic rules of a language and is given a dictionary. Then, when somebody puts in some text, the computer translates the text according to those rules and gives you a rough translation.

However, that’s proven to be a really crappy way to translate things because pretty much every single language in the world has tons of exceptions to its rules and a lot of the time, a translation will just end up with something that’s garbled and nonsensical.

Friends don’t let friends use Babel Fish.

A great example of this is Google’s early version of Google Translate. In the early days of Google Translate, Google founder Sergey Brin got an email written in Korean from a Google fanboy. But when Brin plugged in the email to Google Translate, he got the translation “The sliced raw fish shoes it wishes. Google green onion thing!” Not quite what the author had in mind.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

The other, more recent way that computers translate one human language to another is with huge databases of official, human translations. That means that these programs are given translations from places like the United Nations and the European Union and use those to make translations. This kind of translation is called statistical machine translation.

Statistical translation is what Google Translate currently uses, which is why it sometimes seems better, more natural than other translators. (I’m lookin’ at you, Babel Fish.) And statistical translation definitely works well with Google’s way of doing things: statistical translation requires lots of disk space (for the databases) and computing power, which Google has in spades.

Why Online Translators Suck

But there are big problems with both methods. There’s a lot of nuance in language that’s hard for a machine to catch, machines have problems with metaphors, and there are things like slang and different dialects that even a native speaker might have a hard time with. So while machine translations have come a long way since Sergey Brin heard about Google’s “green onion thing,” there’s still a long way to go before us humans are rendered obsolete. (Humans: 1, Computers: 70,136,459,345.)

And what lies ahead for translation tools? It’s hard to say at the moment. At this point, computer scientists are trying hard to make statistical translation better and better by adding more and more information to pull from. But like I pointed out above, this method has its limits.

It’s hard to think of a way that translation tools can stay ahead of the curve, so it looks like for the foreseeable future, human translation will reign supreme.

If you’re interested to read more, check out these two New York Times articles: “Google’s Computing Power Refines Translation Tool,” and “I, Translator.”

P.S. In point, in the continuation of Twitter.
P.P.S. As our for the sake of, the favorite, Facebook.

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Believe me when I say that I understand the inclination towards using online Japanese-English translators, but trust me, you’re much better off just doing your best on your own. Why? I’m glad you asked (if you didn’t, humor me, please). There are three main reasons:

They Don’t Work

Online translators are generally unable to translate anything properly and will likely make you sound like either a robot or a lunatic. Harsh, but true. I have a theory, actually, that the people who’ve created these programs have done this on purpose, just for kicks. After all, if you don’t know enough Japanese to translate your English text yourself, how will you check whether the translated version sounds correct or not? You can’t. It’s a brilliant and diabolical scheme, no?

To illustrate my point, here’s a snippet of the Japanese folktale, Momotarō (桃太郎):

成長した桃太郎は、鬼ヶ島の鬼が人々を苦しめていることを知り、鬼退治を決意する。両親から黍団子を餞別に貰い、道中にそれを分け与えてイヌ、サル、キジ を家来に従える。鬼ヶ島で鬼と戦い、見事に勝利を収め、鬼が方々から奪っていった財宝を持ち帰り、お爺さん・お婆さんの元に返り、幸せに暮らしたとさ。

Now, here’s the “translated” version from Babelfish and Google Translate, respectively:

Momotarou who grew the ogre knows that the ogre of the island has tormented the people, determines ogre suppression. From the parents you receive the millet dumpling in the parting gift, distribute that in the road and attend the dog, the monkey and the pheasant in the servant. That the ogre it fought with the ogre with the island, supplied victory beautifully, it carried back the treasure which the ogre keeps taking from the people, the grandfather returned to the origin of the grandmother, lived happily.

and

Momotaro growth by the demon Onigashima bedeviling people to know that the determination to rid demon.黍parting gift from the parents to貰いball, it distributed along the way that dogs and monkeys, pheasant subject to the rule. Onigashima battle with a demon and the impressive victory, the Demons will treasure these people to go away from the elderly man to return to his grandmother’s original, and lived happiness.

While you may be able to glean the meaning of the original paragraph out of this jumbled mess, it’s largely incoherent, and it doesn’t sound natural. Can you imagine the confusion that would result if the English versions were translated back into Japanese using the same programs? I shudder at the thought. So, my point here is, unless you want your translated Japanese to sound like that translated English, don’t use online translators. They just don’t work, and will leave your readers, pen pals, teachers, etc scratching their heads in bewilderment.

They’ll Make You Lazy. And Fat.

Well, maybe just lazy. Even if translators did work, you’d still be doing yourself a disservice by using them. Relying too much on those kinds of programs will only serve to set you back in your Japanese studies in the long run—actually learning the language, no matter how hard it is or how long it takes, is so much better than the instant gratification that you’d get by not doing any of the work yourself.

Also, dependence on online translators isn’t really practical in the real world (e.g. actually visiting Japan or answering questions in class). Except, maybe, if you have an iPhone. But still. Don’t do it.

It’s Dishonest

It’s just not nice to mislead the person you’re presenting your translated material to.

So Basically…

If you’re someone who already uses online translators, you’re probably more than a little peeved at me right now, which is understandable. But as much as you may think that my goal was to portray you as a jerk, it wasn’t. I just want to encourage you to stop and discourage others from starting. Sadly, I’ve used online translators a bit in the past (high school, haha), so I’m speaking from experience. For all the aforementioned reasons, it’s just not a good thing to start.

This is what happens when Gojira and King Kong use online translators to chat:

A Possible (If More Time Consuming) Alternative

If I’m going to tell you not to use translators, I should give you some other options for what to do if you need something written in Japanese but don’t know exactly how to do it, right?

First, give it your best try. Write out your sentence, paragraph, whatever, in the best Japanese you can. For now, you can put in English words/phrases where you don’t know the Japanese ones. Then, fill in the gaps—grammar, vocabulary, particles etc by using a dictionary, online Japanese lesson pages, or one of the many Japanese Learning/Translating Communities on LiveJournal (if you use these, you should still do most of the work yourself). Make sure you get rid of the English, too.

I’m going to backtrack a bit to note that I feel it’s best to stick to the grammar points and sentence structures you know already and try to only look up new vocabulary words. It’s really up to you, though. The thing you should definitely try to do, though, is learn (rather than just copy) the vocabulary/grammar that you look up, so that you don’t have to look it up again.

Next, depending on your situation, you could have someone check it. This can be your teacher, penpal, or even one of us (if it’s not more than three lines and doesn’t need to be done quickly) as a last resort. If you’re writing something that seems too trivial to be checked (e.g. a short comment on someone’s blog) or that doesn’t have time to be checked (e.g. an instant message), it’s probably best to post it as-is. A mistake or two is definitely not the end of the world.

This applies to a longer block of text, as well. If you’re self-conscious (try not to be!) about what you’ve written, you could always preface it with something like “Please excuse any mistakes”.

Good luck, you guys!

Thoughts From Koichi

Don’t expect to be able to write in Japanese right away. It’s something that comes with time and practice. Don’t get discouraged when you’re trying to write something in Japanese and it just doesn’t come out right away. That’s because you haven’t studied enough. I know we want everything right away, but it’s really best if you just keep studying. Things will fall into place, I promise! Eventually you’ll be able to write fairly well, just don’t expect it to happen when you first start you Japanese studies. That’s all I’ve got to add, I think.

Momotarō Text Source: Wikepedia JP

Picture Sources: Unknown

Edit: Let’s not link to too many translator sites in the comments, please.