English to Japanese - Blog

Nagomi

admin — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 20:01:07 +0000

Another Japanese word found in England
Nagomi　（和み）

This word is used as a name of a food restaurant in London.
It is a noun for verb “Nagomu （和む）”.

Nagomu is translated as calm down; relax; be soothed; be comforted and so on. So, it is a good word to describe a comfortable space to eat where you can relax.

Write Your Name in KANJI

admin — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 10:56:14 +0000

I am often asked how to write English names in Kanji.

I’d like to introduce you to a book regarding translating names:

Write Your Name in KANJI

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Write-Your-Name-Kanji-Nobuo/dp/0804833346/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276942773&sr=8-1

This book is really good as it gives several options for each name: a kana transcription, a purely phonetic transcription, a purely denotative transcription, a phonetic & denotative transcription, a phonetic & eulogistic transcription, and an attention-getting transcription.

For example, for Stephen, they give options: 王冠　須手位文　守定位豊運　巣締蚊 etc.

Homonyms*

admin — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 20:21:43 +0000

There are many homonyms in Japanese. The below is a
true story from my husband. For many years he wondered why Japanese people often said “hanashite” in situations where they wanted to escape from villains in movies, e.g., horror movies. He thought “hanashite” meant “talk/speak to me.” So he couldn’t understand why the victims wanted to talk to their captors, presumably to persuade the villain to release them. In fact, in this context, “hanasite” does not mean “話して(talk/speak to me) ” but
“離して” “release me” or “leave me alone.”

Of course, vocabulary like “hanasu” (to talk/speak) is taught quite early on in Japanese language courses, but students of Japanese rarely go on to learn words such as “hanasu” (to release) later. You need to be careful with homonyms, especially when watching horror movies late at night!

*Homonyms: Two or more words having the same spelling or pronunciation but different meanings and origins (Oxford dictionary)

Wagamama

admin — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:28:09 +0000

I come across quite a few Japanese words in the U.K. and I would like to introduce you to some.

Wagamama

As you know, “Wagamama” is a name of a famous chain of oriental restaurants.
The word “wagamama” is a Japanese word (わがまま in Hiragana, 我侭 in Kanji).
If I directly translate it into English, it means selfish(ness) in English.
As it is in English, wagamama is originally a negative word in Japanese.
I presume it was used in order to express a situation in which you can eat as much of your favourite food as you like.

Another good word which means “your choice” and comes to mind is “okonomi” (おこのみ、お好み）. You can use “okonomi de” in order to mean “according to your taste”.