Translation of phrases

[Edward T.]

Can someone help me with the translation of this phrase?
私の旅
Also, in 18th century Japan, would this have been read top to bottom like
私
の
旅
Thank you for your help.

 

[Toritoribe]

my trip/travel/journey

It can be written vertically even now.

 

[Edward T.]

my trip/travel/journey

It can be written vertically even now.

Thank you very much, Toritoribe!

Is this the proper way to say "I go home" in Japanese?
私は家に帰る
Thank you for your help.

I am also trying to get the correct way to say "By one's death, many live" in Japanese. This is what I have, but I have seen variations that are completely different. Is this correct?
「彼の死のため、多くは残存する」
Thank you for the help!

 

[Toritoribe]

1)
Yes.

2)
I would say 一人の死により多くが生きる. The trolley problem in ethics has come to my mind...

 

[Edward T.]

1)
Yes.

2)
I would say 一人の死により多くが生きる. The trolley problem in ethics has come to my mind...

Thank you again for the help, Toritoribe! The trolley problem is a good example.

 

[Edward T.]

Gaido sono menimienai nanika. Is this referring to "something that guides unseen" or something unseen that guides us" in Japanese? Any help is appreciated.

 

[Toritoribe]

Did you see that phrase somewhere, or you made it? It doesn't make sense anyway since ガイド is not a verb in Japanese and the word order is wrong.

 

[Edward T.]

Did you see that phrase somewhere, or you made it? It doesn't make sense anyway since ガイド is not a verb in Japanese and the word order is wrong.

Actually, it was something I tried to make from using a Google translator engine. I wanted to say "Something unseen that guides" and I received two variations. How should it read? I appreciate the help!

Maybe the way I should attempt to phrase it should be "The unseen that leads us" since 'guides' is not a verb in Japanese? Or is there another word to use instead?

 

[Toritoribe]

Do not trust Google Translate. What is the object of "to guide"?

EDIT:

Maybe the way I should attempt to phrase it should be "The unseen that leads us" since 'guides' is not a verb in Japanese? Or is there another word to use instead?

I mean ガイド is used only as a noun in Japanese. There are verbs that correspond to "to guide" in Japanese, of course. You an check it in the dictionary.
guideの意味 - goo辞書 英和和英
guideの意味 - 英和辞典 Weblio辞書

 

[Edward T.]

Do not trust Google Translate. What is the object of "to guide"?

The object is a man who is referring to everyone "is guided by something unseen." Such as a spirit that is unseen, or a something beyond explanation. I hope that makes sense better than my Google Translate attempt!

 

[Mike Cash]

The object is a man who is referring to everyone "is guided by something unseen." Such as a spirit that is unseen, or a something beyond explanation. I hope that makes sense better than my Google Translate attempt!

I get the feeling we're going to be getting lots of questions in relation to the book you're working on. It might be better to start your own dedicated thread for that rather to use this one.

 

[Toritoribe]

Yeah, I moved our posts.

 

[Edward T.]

I get the feeling we're going to be getting lots of questions in relation to the book you're working on. It might be better to start your own dedicated thread for that rather to use this one.

I do have some questions about certain translations for the novel. Thank you for the suggestion!

Here is another try at it (Something not visible to the eye).
目に見えない何か
Do I have that correct translation with this one? Thank you for the help once again.

 

[Toritoribe]

Yes, it works fine.

 

[Edward T.]

Yes, it works fine.

Thank you! Is this the correct way it would be pronounced?: Menimienai nanika

 

[nihongootaku]

Yes it is the correct reading

 

[Toritoribe]

Yeah, it's usually written as "Me ni mienai nanika" (putting a space between nouns, particles, verbs, etc.), though.

 

[Edward T.]

Yeah, it's usually written as "Me ni mienai nanika" (putting a space between nouns, particles, verbs, etc.), though.

Thanks to everyone again for the help. I appreciate it very much. On a more important note, I hope everyone is safe after the quake that hit parts of Japan today. I saw it on CNN while ago and I will keep you in my prayers.

 

[Edward T.]

Is Megumareta "Blessed Few" in Japanese? When writing the first draft of my novel, I used the Google Translate and that's what it gave me. Now I'm skeptical. Thank you for the help!

 

[Toritoribe]

It just an adjective, meaning "blessed".
Are you going to write your novel using Google Translate? If so, I have to point out that there is no hope of success.

 

[Edward T.]

It just an adjective, meaning "blessed".
Are you going to write your novel using Google Translate? If so, I have to point out that there is no hope of success.

No, I actually finished the third draft of the novel during the winter. I am now trying to clean up and correct the Japanese language parts of the novel. There are not many, mostly just words and phrases. I know what the characters are saying, I just need to know how to express the words/phrases in Japanese. One of the main characters is actually an American citizen of Japanese heritage who is having trouble translating portions of an 18th-century journal written by a physician from Japan who marched with British General Edward Braddock to Fort Duquesne in 1755. So to answer your question, the novel is written and being revised, and I am now filling in the blanks for the language. And I really appreciate your help with this! I had no idea of the flaws of Google Translate until recently. 99.9 percent of the novel is in English, so correcting/filling in the 0.01 percent is my project right now!

Without revealing too much, here is a quick summation of the novel.

Retired businessman Henry Yamaguchi is obsessed by the tale of an eighteenth-century woodland girl described as “beyond understanding” in a journal written by a British army physician during Edward Braddock’s expedition to Fort Duquesne in 1755.
Claiming a “deity of the forest” intervened repeatedly during that British military campaign in North America, the journal of physician Shimazu Masahiro also reveals a young aide-de-camp named George Washington died while fighting the French and Indians. And what begins as a hobby to satisfy his curiosity instead turns into a life-changing crusade for Yamaguchi, the patriarch of a Japanese American family in present-day Granada Hills, California.
Yamaguchi’s pursuit leads to the diary of a colonial scout (Luther Smith) who also encountered the woodland girl during Braddock's expedition, and a peculiar old book—Watashi wa ienikaeru—written by Shimazu Masahiro’s wife. The scout’s diary includes an entry confirming George Washington’s death in the forest near the Monongahela River. The diary also connects Yamaguchi with Dr. Russell Smith, a descendant of the scout and a history professor who is haunted by bizarre nightmares of Indian torture.
The translation of Watashi wa ienikaeru produces an equally disturbing revelation, setting in motion a stirring sequence of events for both Yamaguchi and Smith.

 

[Mike Cash]

Japanese is a highly context driven language. Even if the words/phrases you have are "correct" in isolation, it is possible for them to be incorrect or implausible based on who is talking to whom and under what circumstances.

What is the nature of the way the Japanese phrases appear in the text? How are readers left to figure out what they mean?

 

[Toritoribe]

Retired businessman Henry Yamaguchi is obsessed by the tale of an eighteenth-century woodland girl described as “beyond understanding” in a journal written by a British army physician during Edward Braddock’s expedition to Fort Duquesne in 1755.
Claiming a “deity of the forest” intervened repeatedly during that British military campaign in North America, the journal of physician Shimazu Masahiro also reveals a young aide-de-camp named George Washington died while fighting the French and Indians. And what begins as a hobby to satisfy his curiosity instead turns into a life-changing crusade for Yamaguchi, the patriarch of a Japanese American family in present-day Granada Hills, California.
Yamaguchi’s pursuit leads to the diary of a colonial scout (Luther Smith) who also encountered the woodland girl during Braddock's expedition, and a peculiar old book—Watashi wa ienikaeru—written by Shimazu Masahiro’s wife.

In addition to MIke-san's suggestion, this is critically important information you should give us in the first place, since Japanese language in that era is quite, quite different from modern Japanese especially in written language.
e.g.
私は家に帰る vs. 我家へ帰らむ/我古里へ帰らむ
一人の死により多くが生きる vs. 個の死によりて多の生くるなり
目に見えないなにか vs. 見えざるもの

It's also important that the writer is a woman. It affects the style, too. Does she wrote it with considering to be read by people, or it's like a diary or something? This is also the key of the style.

 

[Edward T.]

Japanese is a highly context driven language. Even if the words/phrases you have are "correct" in isolation, it is possible for them to be incorrect or implausible based on who is talking to whom and under what circumstances.

What is the nature of the way the Japanese phrases appear in the text? How are readers left to figure out what they mean?

The words are, for the most part, in isolation, not in conversation. One of the phrases "My Journey" in Japanese is just what the character from 1755 called his journal.

The novel is 99.9 percent written in English, with just a few words and phrases of Japanese. I do understand what you are saying, but there is no "conversations" that take place in Japanese at any point in the novel. Thank you for the insights!

In addition to MIke-san's suggestion, this is critically important information you should give us in the first place, since Japanese language in that era is quite, quite different from modern Japanese especially in written language.
e.g.
私は家に帰る vs. 我家へ帰らむ/我古里へ帰らむ
一人の死により多くが生きる vs. 個の死によりて多の生くるなり
目に見えないなにか vs. 見えざるもの

It's also important that the writer is a woman. It affects the style, too. Does she wrote it with considering to be read by people, or it's like a diary or something? This is also the key of the style.

I apologize for not making it clear in my first post above that the words were for 18th-century Japanese. I knew there were differences in modern Japanese and the 18th-century, hence my question in the first post about vertical reading (watashi no tabu):
私
の
旅
Would this have been different if written in 1755? I will pull up some of the other words later as well. Thank you all again for being very helpful in this project!

 

[Toritoribe]

I'm not talking about "vertical writing vs. horizontal writing". Classical and modern Japanese are different in vocabulary, grammar such like conjugation of verbs/adjectives/auxiliary verbs, functions of particles, the word order, or many other things, as I listed in my previous post. For instance, 私 was never used as a male first-person pronoun in that era.
As for the title of books, it's usually named in the style 帰家日記, 帰家紀行 or like that, and the sentence such like 我家に帰らん was rarely (or almost never) used, not to speak of 私は家に帰る.

example of a real diary of a woman in the late Edo Period
御とのゐにま、いるぶしほわづらひ・みまひにつぼねへゆく、物いふ事いとくるしげにて、こよなくはあらぬわづらひなれど、いと心ぼそげ也、き
modern Japanese translation
お殿様が寝る時、足を痛められたので、奥方のところへお見舞いに行った。しゃべることも大変苦しそうで、具合はひどくはないけれど、大変心配そうだった。