Minimum in equals minimum out

You’ll find them everywhere: free online translation services, low-cost human translation or freelancer portals, and companies claiming expertise in all languages and subjects. They’re all happy to take your content in one language and send it back in...

The problem with Japanese-Swiss relations

Switzerland Global Enterprise hosted their annual Impulse event in February 2017, this time on the topic of the “4th Industrial Revolution”. Guests included speakers from Credit Suisse discussing the performance of the Japanese economy, the Japanese...

What’s in a name?

Don’t be alarmed if a translator working from Japanese to English asks you how to pronounce (or read) a personal or place name. This isn’t a sign that they lack basic knowledge of the language, but rather a comment on how complex Japanese names can be. The...

How is Japanese written?

Japanese uses three alphabets: kanji, derived from Chinese pictograms, and hiragana and katakana (collectively referred to as kana) two phonetic alphabets made up of simpler glyphs. 薔薇 (kanji) バラ (katakana) ばら (hiragana) rose Katakana is most often used for foreign...

How are Japanese words written in English?

Japanese can be written in English letters using a system called romanisation, which maps Japanese sounds onto the Latin alphabet. There are several varieties of romanisation which produce slightly different versions of the same Japanese word due to differences in how...