TRANSLATIONS INTO JAPANESE / TRANSLATE INTO JAPANESE
HOW MUCH DO JAPANESE TRANSLATIONS COST?
The price for translations into and from Japanese is set individually for each order. Several aspects are taken into account when setting the price – the price for consecutive interpretation and simultaneous interpretation is based on time, location, travel expenses, daily allowance, technical support in simultaneous interpretation, number of interpreters, etc. The price of written translations is determined by the volume of the material to be translated, translation deadlines, the complexity of the text content, repetitions in the text, graphic processing and formatting, proofreading, the editor’s fee, as well as other additional services chosen by the client.
IS THERE A PRICE LIST FOR TRANSLATIONS?
Yes, the price list for both translation and interpretation (simultaneous and consecutive), localisation and adaptation services from and into Japanese is an integral part of our cooperation agreement with our clients. Skrivanek Baltic translation project managers always provide detailed information on the price of a translation before starting each new translation project. The quotation is usually ready within 30 minutes. For written works, the number of words in the source text, repetitions, complexity of graphic elements and other parameters are taken into account when setting the price. In order to receive a quote, send the translation material to our email.
SOLUTIONS, WHICH WE MOST OFTEN PROVIDE IN JAPANESE:
Looking for language solutions in Japanese? Contact us!
Or book an online consultation now!
TRANSLATIONS INTO JAPANESE / TRANSLATE INTO JAPANESE
HOW MUCH DO JAPANESE TRANSLATIONS COST?
The price for translations into and from Japanese is set individually for each order. Several aspects are taken into account when setting the price – the price for consecutive interpretation and simultaneous interpretation is based on time, location, travel expenses, daily allowance, technical support in simultaneous interpretation, number of interpreters, etc. The price of written translations is determined by the volume of the material to be translated, translation deadlines, the complexity of the text content, repetitions in the text, graphic processing and formatting, proofreading, the editor’s fee, as well as other additional services chosen by the client.
IS THERE A PRICE LIST FOR TRANSLATIONS?
Yes, the price list for both translation and interpretation (simultaneous and consecutive), localisation and adaptation services from and into Japanese is an integral part of our cooperation agreement with our clients. Skrivanek Baltic translation project managers always provide detailed information on the price of a translation before starting each new translation project. The quotation is usually ready within 30 minutes. For written works, the number of words in the source text, repetitions, complexity of graphic elements and other parameters are taken into account when setting the price. In order to receive a quote, send the translation material to our email.
SOLUTIONS, WHICH WE MOST OFTEN PROVIDE IN JAPANESE:
- translation of various documents into Japanese;
- urgent translations;
- notarised translation;
- website translation;
- proofreading of Japanese texts;
- adaptation of texts and production of creative texts;
- DTP – graphic design services;
- Japanese interpretation;
- Individual Japanese language courses.
Looking for language solutions in Japanese? Contact us!
Or book an online consultation now!
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE
- The origins of the Japanese language are still uncertain, as are those of the Japanese people themselves. Japanese is believed to have evolved from Altaic and Austronesian. It is an isolated language, although there are theories that it may also be related to Korean. The global importance of the Japanese language is linked to the highly developed Japanese economy.
- The Japanese have two names for their language – the most common name is nihongo, which is literally translated as “Japanese”, but kokugo, meaning “national language”, is also often used.
- The legal status of Japanese is not regulated, however, it actually functions as the national language of Japan.
- Japanese is traditionally divided into three dialects: eastern, western and Kyushu. They include more than 100 regional variations, depending on the classification. The Eastern dialect is a Tokyo-area dialect that was created as a blend of literary language and several dialects and is actually considered the foundation for standard Japanese. In addition to the three dialects, there is also a separate Ryūkyū dialect spoken on the southern islands of Okinawa. Due to its geographical and 450-year political separation from the rest of Japan, as well as its considerable distinction from other dialects, Ryūkyū can be considered a separate language.
- The need for a Japanese literary language arose in the second half of the 19th century, with the onset of westernisation and the emergence of a centralised state. Due to the 1872 administrative reform, there were 261 feudal units throughout Japan, and the process of standardising the language included the equalisation of dialects. It also sought to reduce the split between the written and spoken language that had developed over the centuries. In fiction, newspapers and business texts, a new style of language was sought. Under the influence of Western European sciences and culture, many new works were created, including abstract words and scientific terms, sometimes calqued from Western European languages.
- The speed of spoken syllables in Japanese is almost eight syllables per second. It surpasses Spanish, French and Italian in pronunciation fluency.
- In fact, Japanese is considered one of the most unique languages in the world, with no direct derivative language from which it has descended. Other such examples include Sumerian, Korean and many Amerindian languages.
- There is no plural in Japanese. In Japanese, there is no difference between “there is an interpreter” and “there are interpreters”, so it can be difficult to tell whether someone is saying that one interpreter has come to see you or that there’s a team of interpreters.
- The famous cherry blossom season is very important in Japan – it’s not just about taking selfies and flower pictures on Instagram. Sitting under cherry trees is another age-old tradition. Families and friends gather for a picnic during full bloom and reflect on the impermanence and beauty of life.
- Everyone knows that video games are popular in Japan – Japan is home to console and games giants such as Nintendo, Sega and PlayStation. Some of the first games to enter the Western world came directly from Japan – the Super Mario series, The Legend of Zelda and, most popularly , Pokémon.
- Probably, the most obvious fact about Japanese culture is the regular bowing, or ojigi. Whether it’s a wave to a store clerk or a deep bow to the boss at work, it’s actually the most important gesture in Japanese body language. The number of times you bow and the depth of it show your respect for the person you are bowing to. Even friends in Japan bow to each other!
- One of Japan’s best-known cultural exports, anime, is recognised worldwide. Anime is the name given to Japanese animation that is either hand-drawn or digitally produced. Although Japanese anime accounted for 60% of global animation in 2016, its biggest influence has been on contemporary Japanese culture. If you’re travelling around the country, look out for anime statues, snacks in themed packaging and advertisements for anime characters.
- Japan has many interesting food traditions, but slurping noodles is one of the most fun. When Japanese diners slurp their noodles loudly, it is considered both a sign of enjoyment and a compliment to the chef. So next time you order ramen or yakisoba in Japan, feel free to slurp to your heart’s content.
- Health is important to Japanese culture, and the country’s tradition of morning exercise reflects this. Radio Taiso, introduced by Emperor Hirohito, is a radio exercise programme that has been broadcast daily since 1928 – it is played every morning for 10 minutes and is mostly followed by schoolchildren and the elderly.
JAPANESE SCRIPTS
Japanese scripts are the scripts used to write text in Japanese. There are two phonetic alphabets (hiragana and katakana), as well as a character system called kanji, which is derived from the Chinese script. Kanji (kan – (Han dynasty), ji – characters; literally “Han characters”) are Chinese characters used in modern Japanese writing, along with hiragana and katakana syllabic characters. Chinese hieroglyphics came to Japan with market goods – mirrors, swords, seals, coins, etc. Hieroglyphs often have several possible pronunciations, usually depending on the context. The number of Kanji characters could be around 50 000, each with its own meaning. These hieroglyphs are very complex, with some words being spelled in several hieroglyphs.
Hiragana and katakana were created to ease the complex writing of Chinese characters. For example, the word “I” can be written 私 in kanji, わたし in hiragana, and ワタシ in katakana. Hiragana is a Japanese syllabic alphabet (each symbol represents a syllable, not a sound), and is one of the Japanese writing systems, along with katakana and kanji. The Hiragana alphabet has 46 symbols (plus some obsolete ones). Together, hiragana and katakana form the kana system, in which a single mark expresses one mora (a phonological unit smaller than a syllable, the number of which in a syllable determines the length of the syllable). Katakana is the other one of the two syllable writing systems in Japanese. Unlike hiragana, which is widely used to add endings to words written in kanji to clarify the pronunciation of kanji, or to write words that do not have their own kanji, katakana has a more specific use; it is used:
- in the rendering of foreign proper nouns;
- to show onomatopoeia;
- animal and plant names in scientific texts;
- for stylistic purposes.
This transcription is also used in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Latvia. This system is used to represent Japanese words in non-academic texts and Japanese personal names, places, etc. in all texts. This transcription has no official status and may change over time. The three writing systems are used together to write Japanese, sometimes even in the same sentence. Kanji is combined with hiragana to form words and sentences, while katakana is used for foreign words and to add emphasis.
HOW DIFFICULT IS JAPANESE?
Japanese might be one of the world’s most difficult languages to learn. However, this has not stopped people from trying to learn it. From films and music to video games and anime, the world of Japanese media has constantly been in the global spotlight, and more and more young people are becoming interested in learning Japanese, so if you want to be a secret spy whose Japanese sounds like your mother tongue, you’ll probably need thousands of hours to learn it, but to be able to speak Japanese independently (roughly at B2 level), you will need at least 88 weeks of training. Students of Japanese say that it will take 800 lessons to be able to watch an anime and fully understand it.
WHERE IS JAPANESE SPOKEN AND HOW MUCH?
The number of Japanese speakers is around 140 million, almost the same as the population of Japan. It is the mother tongue of around 125 million people, and these figures rank Japanese 9th in the world. Most Japanese speakers live in Japan. It is also spoken in areas that were once under the Japanese Empire – Korea, the Republic of China, and parts of the People’s Republic of China. There are also large communities of Japanese speakers in other countries, the largest being in California, Brazil, Peru and Hawaii.
JAPANESE TRANSLATOR AND INTERPRETER
The Skrivanek Baltic team of professional translators and interpreters provide translations of standard documents, complex technical translations into Japanese and notarised translations into and from Japanese. Skrivanek Baltic also provides proofreading and the stylistic improvement of Japanese texts. Of course, language experts can also provide information on cultural differences, Japanese business etiquette, history and traditions. For business clients, our most common translations into and from Japanese include website and e-commerce content translations, advertising slogan adaptations, translations of cooperation agreements, legislation, court rulings and business documentation. We also provide consecutive translation into and from Japanese for business or other conversations, conferences and other events, as well as online on Zoom and other online platforms. For individuals, we translate identity documents, marriage certificates, children’s birth certificates, education documents, passports, medical documents, etc. into Japanese.
JAPANESE FOR BUSINESS
Although China has outpaced Japan in recent years, Japan’s economy is still growing at a fast rate. The fact that Japanese is the mother tongue of around 125 million people makes it one of the most spoken languages in the world. For this and other reasons, knowing Japanese would be very valuable and useful, especially for entrepreneurs working in the automotive, communications or financial sectors. Japan is the world’s third largest car manufacturer and one of the world’s largest producers of mobile technology. According to FORBES, Japan is home to some of the world’s most powerful companies – Mitsubishi, Softbank, NTT, KDDI and others. The Japanese are active travellers – if you want to develop a tourism business targeting Japanese people, Japanese language skills will be of great value. Japanese is the only official language in the country. Since the Second World War, all Japanese have learnt English at school, and more and more people speak English. However, very few Japanese speakers are fluent in English; it is mainly scientists, businessmen and employees of various companies who are hired by Japanese companies as interpreters or English-speakers, as they will always be needed in a business environment. In particular, you should take into account the fact that the Japanese are too polite to tell you when they don’t fully understand something you’re saying. It is therefore advisable to submit your business proposal in written form to your potential business partner before the meeting. Japanese language skills and knowledge of business etiquette will be highly appreciated by the Japanese and will certainly open up business opportunities in this surprising, interesting and economically rich country. Japanese is largely unused outside Japan and therefore has little relevance in the global business market.
LATVIA – JAPAN COOPERATION
Japan is Latvia’s 30th most important export trading partner and the 35th most important import trading partner. In 2019, the balance of trade in goods was positive at around € 27 million. Latvia’s main export product groups are wood and wood products, optical appliances and machines, watches and musical instruments, and mineral products. The main groups of goods imported from Japan are machinery, mechanical and electrical equipment, plastic products and transport equipment. Latvia and Japan have enjoyed excellent scientific cooperation for many years. The Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis cooperates with Japanese pharmaceutical companies in drug development, and makes regular visits to various Japanese universities. The Institute of Solid State Physics at the University of Latvia cooperates with Japanese colleagues as well. Interestingly, Grindex started working with Taiho Pharmaceutical and Iskra Industry in 1965, and in 1972 signed a contract to supply Tegafur, an original anti-cancer pharmaceutical active ingredient, developed by Grindex, to Japan. Over the years, the Latvian company has gained recognition in the Japanese market, which highly values quality. One hundred kilograms of Tegafur are exported to Japan every month, accounting for about 5% of Grindeks’ total turnover. Cooperation in the field of Education is also important and constant. Since 1993, the Japanese Language and Culture High School in Riga has been an important centre for the promotion of Japanese language and cultural heritage in Latvia. In September 2001, the Japanese Language and Culture High School was merged with the Christian High School and renamed Riga Culture Secondary School. Japanese is included in the curriculum and is taught by Japanese teachers. GENGO is a Japanese language and culture studio accredited by the Ministry of Education and Science in Riga, offering Japanese language classes for people of all ages. The studio also publishes Japanese language teaching materials and dictionaries.
The Faculty of Humanities at the University of Latvia has a sub-programme on Japanese Studies in its Asian Studies programme – find more information here.
Japanese students can apply for scholarships to study in Latvia both within the framework of cooperation agreements between universities and individually. Several students at the University of Latvia continue their studies by earning a master’s degree in Japanese universities, and also go to Japan to improve their Japanese language skills. The number of students who receive scholarships to continue their studies in Japan each year is usually 2–6. It is important for Latvia to continue its successful cooperation with Japan as a country that honours cultural traditions. Given the fact that both Latvia and Japan have a rich cultural heritage, cooperation and exchange programmes between cultural and educational institutions in both countries are being developed – for example, Latvian artists regularly appear at various festivals and competitions in Japan or tour the country.
SOLUTIONS, WHICH WE MOST OFTEN PROVIDE IN JAPANESE:
- translation of various documents into Japanese;
- urgent translations;
- notarised translation;
- website translation;
- proofreading of Japanese texts;
JAPANESE LANGUAGE COMBINATIONS:
Japanese-Latvian; Latvian-Japanese; Japanese-Lithuanian; Lithuanian-Japanese; Estonian-Japanese; Japanese-Estonian; Japanese-Egyptian; English-Japanese; Japanese-English; Russian-Japanese; Japanese-Russian; Polish-Japanese; Japanese-Polish; Ukrainian-Japanese; Japanese-Ukrainian; Czech-Japanese; Japanese-Czech; German-Japanese; Japanese-German; Spanish-Japanese; Japanese-Spanish; French-Japanese; Japanese-French; Italian-Japanese; Japanese-Italian; Danish-Japanese; Japanese-Danish; Swedish-Japanese; Japanese-Swedish; Norwegian-Japanese; Japanese-Norwegian; Finnish-Japanese; Japanese-Finnish; Japanese-Finnish, etc.