Japan
Beef knitting combustion?
07/27/2011 Cheap translationsJapan
How does a simple plate of grilled beef and hamburger get so complicated as to end up as Beef knitting combustion and hamburg steak? The grilled beef is written in Japanese as a description of how it is cooked. Literally it is “beef – (metal grill) – heated/cooked”. It was translated as: The metal grill is pronounced “ami” in Japanese and this is the same pronunciation as “knitting”. The heated/cooked part used the same kanji that is used for burning things. Whoever translated (used it in its widest of interpretations!) did so word by word and came up with the senseless garbage that you see. The bright side is that …
Leaving Japan?
03/23/2011 Chinese peopleJapan
Japan is currently suffering in various ways after the earthquake and subsequent tsunami and problems at the nuclear power plants. Even with the inevitable disturbances to work that these problems cause, work—as life—must go on. And so, I left for China on Friday on a business trip that had been planned for several months. As always, I flew from Fukuoka in Japan to Qingdao in China, and I took the usual shinkansen from Fukuyama to Hakata (the main train station in Fukuoka). On boarding the train, I noticed that there were more passengers than usual and much more baggage than normal. There wasn’t any space left for me to put …
JIMTOF is international?
12/30/2010 Cheap translationsInternational businessJapan
While my company translates a broad range of fields, a lot of my own translation work involves machine tools, machining centers, and related technology. So, when the “Japan International Machine Tool Fair” is held, I try to attend. Not only is it a good way to meet up with a dozen or so clients in one day, but I also get to see the latest developments and technology. This year I flew out from China (just two nights) to Tokyo for the event. It seemed a lot to do for an exhibition, but it is only held once every two years. The usual players were there and, unfortunately, many of …
Safety?
Japanese has two words that are often used incorrectly or in the wrong context: “Anzen”, which means “safety” or “security”, and “Anshin”, which means “peace of mind”. Then again, perhaps this isn’t a phenomenon restricted to Japanese. Let’s take airport “security” as an example. How is your safety guaranteed by the “security checks” at airports? Over the past few years we have seen them become stricter and stricter. You need to remove your computer from your bag before the X-ray check, liquids are either limited by amount or totally prohibited, some airports require you to remove your shoes, and then there is the “metal detector” you walk through after putting …
Whose wife?
07/12/2010 TranslationJapanese
Japanese has a complex system of honorifics. This can be a wonderful thing when used correctly, but lead to absolute confusion when misused. One example of this is the word “wife”. There are a number of ways of referring to your own wife, with the most common probably being tsuma (妻), and another way of referring to somebody else’s wife which is okusan (奥さん). Even with the latter, okusan, it is unclear whose wife is being talked about without the relevant context or background to the discussion, but it is clear that it is not the wife of the person doing the talking. Although when referring to your own wife, …
