English to Japanese translation

Konnichi wa – Language as a stepping stone

Japan’s economy is growing faster than it has in years. Part of this growth is the technology sector. Components for computers, vehicles, radio, telephones, turbines and much more are in demand. However, Japanese people often find it difficult to understand English, so that translations are an important building block for establishing a smooth or new partnership.

Trading partners rely on niches that Japan fills particularly well. Accordingly, PRODOC’s Japanese translation is a niche with little volume – but one with a comparatively large number of clients, so we regularly translate into this language.

Wadoku – Translators for English and Japanese

Nihongo, as the Japanese call their language, is a melting pot of culture and history of the country. The complex characters, the Kanji, are borrowed from Chinese. Since the pronunciation of the Chinese characters did not coincide, about 2500 common Kanji today usually have a Japanese reading; the kun-yomi, and one or more Sinojapanese readings, the on-yomi – a labyrinth that translators for German and Japanese can navigate perfectly.

From the 9th century onwards, the Kanji developed into the syllable characters known as Kana, which disintegrated into two syllable alphabets: the women’s script, later known as Hiragana, and the men’s script, later known as Katakana. Today, grammatical endings are written in Hiragana, Japanese words for which there is no kanji, and as a small stroke over the kanji the sound of the same. Loan words, especially those from western languages, are written in Katakana.

In addition to this complex writing system, translators for Japanese must also take into account the cultural aspect. Japanese in principle has several languages next to each other: the informal language, the everyday language, and the honorific speech, the Keigo. In addition there is the Kotobagari. Within this rather rough distinction, a system of different forms of honorific speech is revealed, which are based on the relationship between speaker and addressee and make the translation into Japanese a particular challenge.

Technical translations into Japanese

Japanese live politeness in everyday life. This also means that they would never tell you that a translation is flawed – even if they can hardly understand it. A reliable translator for English to Japanese is therefore crucial for the success of your projects.

Do you want to impress your Japanese cooperation partner? Then your translations also take cultural aspects into account, which are very often expressed in linguistic subtleties.

You can therefore rely on translations for English and Japanese from PRODOC. Only native speakers translate for us. This ensures that even small details are always spot-on. A sound technical education – usually in the form of a technical course of study – helps our translators to gain an excellent understanding of even the most complex contexts. Among other things they provide error-free translations of:

• Websites
• CMS data
• PIM data and catalogs
• Software and user interfaces
• User manuals
• Brochures, flyers, and newsletters

In Japan, writing is still done in both directions: from top to bottom, starting on the right and from right to left in the horizontal. Modern texts, however, are usually written in horizontal lines according to the Western model, so that no major layout adjustments are necessary here. Since Japanese has no fixed hyphenation rules, the available space can be used optimally, which is particularly advantageous for printing translations from German into Japanese.