English to Japanese translations and Japanese to English translations
Robertson Languages International offers English to Japanese translations and Japanese to English translations. It might be that you require an English to Japanese translation of a series of corporate communications for the Japanese office of a global corporation, or a Japanese to English translation of a user guide for a new product.
Our native speakers and trained linguists have a detailed understanding of the Japanese language and can therefore ensure accurate and contextual translation from either English to Japanese or Japanese to English. A translation qualification on its own is insufficient. Competence and an understanding of the disciplines of (for example) law, business, finance, medicine, science, engineering, etc., is required too. That is why for specialised translation work, we only use translators with relevant knowledge and industry-specific experience.
Japanese is spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and overseas emigrant communities. The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different scripts; kanji, hiragana and katakana.
Hiragana is used to write native Japanese words. Its origin lies in the early literary works which used Chinese characters completely for their phonetic values from the 8th century CE. At first, hiragana was scorned by literate men as Chinese was the "cultured" language. Women, on the other hand, used hiragana primarily since they were not allowed to learn the Chinese characters. Over time the volume and complexity of this system was reduced, giving rise to the current hiragana system
Katakana, which has its origin as a pronunciation aid for Chinese Buddhist scriptures, has evolved to become used for suffixes, particles, postpositions, etc., along with kanji used for word roots.
Between 5,000 and 10,000 Chinese characters, or kanji, are used in written Japanese. In 1981, in an effort to make it easier to read and write Japanese, the Japanese government introduced the jōyō kanji hyō (List of Chinese Characters for General Use), which includes 1,945 regular characters, plus 166 special characters used only for people's names. All government documents, newspapers, textbooks and other publications for non-specialists use only these kanji. Writers of other material are free to use whatever kanji they want.
For English to Japanese translations or Japanese to English translations, contact us today by calling +44 118 934 6000 or clicking the Red Button at the top right hand side of this page to request a quote.