English-Japanese: Technical translations

Japanese language as a way into the niche

Japan’s economy is growing faster than it has for years. On the one hand, the technology sector is a pillar of this growth. Components for computers, vehicles, radio, telephony, turbines and much more are in demand. On the other hand, Japanese people often find it difficult to speak German and English. In other words, translations are an important element in building a smooth partnership or acquiring a customer.

Trading partners are focusing on niches that Japan fills particularly well. This is why English and Japanese translation is also a niche market with low volume at PRODOC. However, we still translate regularly into this language.

Translator for English and Japanese

Japanese is a cultural and historical treasure trove of the country. The complex characters are borrowed from Chinese. As the phonetics of the Chinese characters did not match, around 2500 common words today generally have a Japanese reading. On the other hand, there are also one or more Sino-Japanese readings. To put it another way, this is a labyrinth that translators for English and Japanese need to be excellent at navigating.

From the 9th century onwards, the so-called syllabic characters developed. However, these fell into two syllable alphabets. On the one hand, the female script, the later Hiragana. On the other hand, the male script, the later Katakana. Today, grammatical endings are written in Hiragana. Katakana is used to write foreign words, especially those from Western languages.

In addition to this complex writing system, translators for English and Japanese also have to take the cultural aspect into account. In principle, Japanese has several languages side by side.

Firstly, the informal language, the everyday language that roughly corresponds to our “you”. Secondly, the polite language, Keigo. There is also Kotobagari. Within this relatively rough distinction, a system of different forms of politeness fans out, depending on the relationship between speaker and addressee, making translation of English and Japanese a particular challenge.

Technical translations into Japanese

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

Do you want to score points with your Japanese business partner? Then your translations should 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 the smallest details are always spot on. A sound technical education – usually in the form of a technical degree course – helps our translators to gain an excellent understanding of even very complex contexts. They will translate for you flawlessly, for example:

• 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 today: from top to bottom starting on the right and from right to left horizontally. However, modern texts are usually written in horizontal lines according to the Western model, so that no major layout adjustments are necessary here. As Japanese has no fixed hyphenation rules, the available space can be used optimally, which is particularly advantageous for translations from English into Japanese for printing.