In this instance, the use of translation memory will be absolutely essential. As you progress with a Japanese localization project, create a list of all key terms and styles.

The best thing to do in such a situation is to do your research and make sure that the tone you’re about to use is appropriate for the target market. Translating nuances is another level of trickiness. While English is considered a rather informal language with some formalities used in specific situations, the Japanese language booms with its variety of nuances and tones. While you can face problems with finding words that will epitomize the meaning of a concept, there is another challenge – the issue of the tone. Obviously, Japanese and English have completely separate linguistic origins, and many words in one language don’t have a direct translation in the other. This severely complicates the translation of text strings and results in the translation being far from correct, let alone perfect. Your UI will have to be adjusted specifically for these languages with the assistance of a linguistic expert.Īs you can imagine, all of those rules pose an additional challenge for translators, who often drop the topic from the sentence or skip the placeholder of a numeric value. They are character-based languages and in case you are translating your application, you cannot rely on the usual line breaking and word wrapping algorithms for displaying text. What is also worth mentioning is the fact that the Japanese do not use gender concepts for inanimate objects, but they do use specific counter words to describe a number of things, actions, or events.Īlso, Latin languages will use spaces to separate words, however East Asian languages such as Chinese, Korean, and Japanese do not. For example, there is no singular or plural indicator, so the translator needs to deduce what the text is referring to exactly. In short, this means that the subject is always in the main spotlight of the sentence and the structures are used to underline it. Japanese is a topic-prominent language that organizes its syntax to emphasize the topic-comment of the sentence. Very important when translating your content into Japanese is having the final version proofread by a native Japanese speaker – if possible a translator for the given language combination. When translating your website, it is very important for translators to see the source page to know the exact context. If you want to make sure that the translator performs the translation part as well as possible make sure to provide some reference files or guidance in case you already have some already defined terms. That’s why many businesses wanting to target the Japanese market do so with the help of an advanced translation platform. If it sounds complicated, it’s only because it is. This will require your correction of in-context phonetic readings of the kanji strings. As a result, the same kanji character can end up being placed anywhere. The problem is that kanji is often pronounced in different ways depending on the word or phrase. It consists of more than 2000 characters (2,136 to be exact), which sounds unbelievable compared to the 26 letters of the English alphabet.Īll of the three are sorted in the gojuon system used for indexes. That’s not so bad, right? Things get a bit more complicated with the third character set, kanji. Hiragana and katakana have 46 characters each. The Japanese language has three character sets and these three languages coexist in one sentence: To avoid this, you need to understand the basics. This falsehood results in many project delays and constant surprises about why the project is being sent back for yet another review. Keep It In Orderĭevelopers very often approach Japanese as if it was another regular language, thinking that source strings will be translated and target strings will fall into perfect harmony. That’s why we have decided to create a mini-guide to what you should know when starting to localize your assets into Japanese – just keep on reading! #1. One thing is for certain – it can be pretty challenging! On top of this, the Japanese seem to have their own unique criteria for assessing (and refusing!) any project that doesn’t meet their high expectations.

Usually, clients are in a complete state of shock when they find out that the process takes much more time than for most other languages, and even after the completion, the desired quality is still lacking. What you need to remember is the fact that Japanese translation projects have quite a reputation. If you have done your research and plan to conquer this market, you need to have the basic knowledge for localizing your digital assets into Japanese. The islands of Japan contain the world’s third-largest economy.Ĭonsequently, the amount of content produced and localized to and from Japanese can leave anyone a little bit lost at sea.

Japanese localizer emulator