News

Kaga Metal Inlay Translation Handbook Published

Metalworking craft comes up in writing about art and craft all over Japan and editors and writers hunger for reliable bilingual reference materials, preferably with illustrations. Such a guide is now available online as the Kanazawa Craft Arts Translation Handbook: Kaga Metal Inlay. This fine resource focuses on Kaga zōgan, one of the crafts for which Ishikawa prefecture is well known. It is the fruit of two years of collaboration by craftspeople, specialists, translators, editors, and others teamed up under an organization called The Creation of... more

Swet Columns

Chanoyu/Tea

A Chanoyu Vocabulary: Practical Terms for the Way of Tea Paperback, A5 size, 280 pages. Kyoto: Tankōsha, 2007. ISBN9784473033987

This gem of a dictionary has been around for well over a decade. Currently in its third printing, it remains the one and only comprehensive chanoyu dictionary available, providing concise and accurate “to the T” (pun intended) English definitions of 1,642 terms that come up in the realm of chanoyu. By “comprehensive” I should say I mean wide-ranging, for while it cannot... more

Articles

Inclusive Language and Translations

From the SWET Newsletter Archive/Editors’ Corner

Many journalists and writers are working hard these days to free their prose of sexist bias. When they don’t, editors often must help them out. A translator, who must take into account the characteristics of two languages at once in the routine course of her work, has special problems in this regard.

The preceding sentence illustrates one of the characteristics of the English language that translators and editors need to take into account:... more

SWET Spotlight

Manga Lettering and Translation

By Susan E. Jones

One of the fantastic aspects of SWET is its inclusivity. Not limited to just one part of the long process of publishing in English, it welcomes writers, translators, editors, and other wordsmiths who contribute in various ways to the finished product. The SWET Talk Shop on August 22, 2020 looked at the skilled craftspeople who are contributing to manga-production by giving the floor to three dedicated manga letterers: Sara Linsley, Brandon Bovia, and Phil Christie. Lettering appreciator... 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.