Swet Columns
May 30, 2018
Word Wise: Animals and Plants
By Richard Medhurst
Moving away from this column’s usual focus on individual words, this time I’d like to consider translation of animal and plant names. One reason this is a tricky area is that the way Japanese and English group words together may be different. A flower known in English by one name might have several different names in Japanese or... more
April 3, 2018
Word Wise: Appealing to Your Better Judgment
魅力 Miryoku
by Richard Medhurst
Among the versatile words that Japanese copy writers reach for most, 魅力 and the adjectival form 魅力的 are seen particularly in tourism texts. Depending on context, translators could talk about “the appeal of traditional ryokan inns” (旅館の魅力), “the charms of Hakodate” (函館の魅力) or “an attractive town” (魅力的な町). It is also possible to talk about a sight being... more
March 7, 2018
SWET 2018 Member Survey Report
Report by Winifred A. Bird
This February, as SWET approaches its 38th anniversary, we conducted an online member survey to get a better sense of your interests, your relationship with the organization, and your hopes for its future. Seventy-nine of you filled it out, a response rate of about 50 percent. A summary of the results follows. To view the full... more
January 22, 2018
Worth Waiting For
Reviewed by Anna Husson Isozaki
Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence. By Lisa Cron. 272 pages. New York: Ten Speed Press, 2012. ISBN-10: 1607742454; ISBN-13: 978-1607742456.
Lisa Cron’s Wired for Story is the writing guide I was searching for during years of buying others, reading them, and... more
December 15, 2017
Word Wise: Making Assessments
評価 Hyōka
By Richard Medhurst
Japanese words with distinct, similar meanings can be troublesome. This is especially true when they have small but crucial differences. The primary dictionary definitions of 評価 tell us that this word is used to decide the value of something or someone. This suggests English words like to “assess” or “evaluate.” With 専門家の評価, we have an expert’s “appraisal” or... more
August 15, 2017
Word Wise: Focusing on Translation
を中心に o chūshin ni
By Richard Medhurst
When choosing how to translate を中心に, there are two basic sets of options I regularly consider. If a product is described as 女性を中心に人気, this could be translated as “particularly popular with women,” “mainly popular,” “especially popular,” “primarily popular,” and so on. On the other hand, I may render研究課題を中心に, as “focused on research issues,” or “centred... more