News

No June IJET—One Year Postponement!

IJET-31, the 31st International Japanese-English Translation Conference, originally set for June 5-7, 2020, will be rescheduled to 2021 to a date to be announced.

The IJET-32 Toronto Organizing Committee has also been asked to prepare to host IJET-32 in 2022 on a date also to be announced later.

Held annually—one year in Japan and one year in another country (last year in Cairns, Australia), the International Japanese-English Translation (IJET) Conference is the premier annual event for the J-E translation community, run by the Japan Association of Translators (JAT).

As the global spread of COVID-19 continues, the... more

The mind is a mystery. It’s hard to draw a firm line between the domains of knowledge, emotion, and opinion. This uncertainty is reflected in language, including the Japanese word 意識, which covers a range of situations related to the mind. The English “conscious” is a good starting point for considering this term. If an accident victim is described as 意識不明, this can be rendered as “unconscious,” but 意識 can also refer to being “conscious” in the... more

Articles

EVENT REPORT: Press Trips and Language Tips for Travel Media

By Rob Goss

On March 20, 2019, twelve people, including five first-timers, attended the latest SWET Travel Writing Meetup in Tokyo at Book House Cafe, Jinbocho, for a presentation by photographer Phil Ono about the handling of style issues in place-name signage used around the country and a presentation by travel writer Rob Goss about press trips for travel writers and issues with translating and editing travel- and tourism-related Japanese into English. (Note: A report of Phil Ono’s part of the... more

SWET Spotlight

Howard Hibbett: Scholar, Translator, Editor

By Joel Cohn

Howard Hibbett's name was not familiar to the general public, but among Anglophone scholars and students of Japanese literature it was very much one to be reckoned with. His contributions touched us in a variety of ways; many of them extended our understanding of Japanese culture in new directions, and virtually all of his work—be it as a scholar, a translator, a critic, or an editor—was of the highest standard.

Probably he was... more

A Community for Japan-Related Writing Professionals

Based in Tokyo, Japan, SWET comprises people engaged not only in the three professions of writing, editing, and translating, but also in teaching, research, rewriting, design and production, copywriting, and other areas related to the written word in Japan.