Japanese Translation

Japan

Japanese translation (usually from English to Japanese or Japanese to English) is a common request we see at Verbio.

We provide Japanese translation of all types of documents, including marketing, technical, import/export, legal, employee handbooks, catalogs, insurance, financial and personal documents and vital records for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and more.

Text Expansion/Contraction

When translating from English to Japanese, you can expect the Japanese text to take up about 20% – 60% more space when compared to the original English text, depending on the subject matter. Alternatively, when translating from Japanese to English, the text is contracted by about 10% – 55%. This is heavily determined by whether or not there are pre-existing sinographic compound equivalents to the English text. In the case that there are pre-existing sinographs (or kanji), the text in Japanese may be shorter than in English. On the other hand, if there is not a pre-existing Japanese equivalent sinograph (or kanji), the word may be expressed using the alphabet for borrowed words, known as katakana. The reason for additional space being used is due to each syllable being included as a representation of the word, rather than a character or two which represents the word already.

What is Kanji?

Kanji is a Japanese writing system tracing back to Chinese in the 4th or 5th century AD, during the expansion of Buddhism into Japan. It was introduced at a singular trade port in Dejima when very few foreigner merchants were admitted into Japan. The majority of foreign merchants allowed at the trading port were the Dutch and Chinese merchants, inspiring architecture, arts, and language most of all. At this time, Japan had established its own spoken language, but had not established a writing system. Buddhist monks and their books were a great influencer to the early Japanese language. The Chinese characters were adapted to the existing spoken language in Japan. During this adaptation, many Chinese pronunciations were also adapted, causing a large variety of written words in Japanese to consist of both a Japanese and a Chinese-derived pronunciation, known as kunyomi and onyomi respectively. Due to the linguistic differences between Chinese and Japanese, kanji was later used to create the Japanese alphabet which is not used in Chinese.

The Japanese Alphabet (Kana)

Following the adaptation of kanji characters into the Japanese language, the written alphabet (or syllabic script) was eventually created. The use of cursive calligraphy and annotation allowed Japanese speakers to more readily understand the written Chinese-derived characters which were introduced into their language. The Japanese alphabet (or kana) came to consist of two separate sound sets, known as hiragana and katakana. Hiragana and katakana are based on the same sound sets, with their use differed by whether the word is of Japanese origin. Hiragana is used for Japanese words, while katakana is used for borrowed words, such as those adapted from English or Portuguese. You may notice the difference between hiragana and katakana by their writing style. Hiragana is of a cursive script, while katakana tends to be more angular. Each kana character directly corresponds with one sound in the Japanese language. There are a total of 46 common sounds/equivalent characters between hiragana and katakana, plus two additional sounds in katakana for use in adapting borrowed words.

Interesting facts about Japanese

• Japan has nearly 100 Million internet users and ranks 8th overall in usage across the globe according to The World Factbook.
• According the 2020 US Census, the United States has nearly 500,000 native Japanese speakers,  12% of which would qualify as limited English speakers.
• Japan has the 4th largest trade Economy in the world.
• Japanese is the 13th most spoken language according to recent data from the Ethnologue. There are 127 million native Japanese speakers around the world.

Why people translate to or from Japanese

• Improved business relations with Japanese companies
• Marketing, import/export, catalogs or manuals
• Advanced technology market
• Web, game and app localization
• Animations and comics (such as anime and manga)
• Training materials
• Personal documents or citizenship