Chambers Japanese Translation Services established in 1995 is one the oldest and the most well established International translation services company in Singapore, located @ Peace Centre # 03-09, Singapore 228149 , Chambers Translation Service provides accurate and reliable translation services for more than 80 languages including Japanese Translation Services for all types of documents

A group of trained Japanese Translators is providing prominent services in Chambers Japanese Translation Services. Japanese documents are translated with accuracy and confidentiality by our Japanese Translators, who possess a good track of record in Japanese Translations. Our Japanese linguists are mastered in translating Legal, Financial, Medical, Chemical, and Technical documents

We can translate documents from Japanese into English and from Japanese into more than 80 other languages including English into Japanese

Chambers Japanese Translation Services only hires professional Japanese translators who have a good track record in providing customers with high quality translation, we take care to ensure each translated document meets each client’s needs. Our trained Senior Japanese translators proof read carefully and check each translation we produce, to ensure our valued clients get accurate translations

Standard Japanese Language is in fact the dialect of Tokyo and is called hyōjungo (標準語, lit. “standard language”) or kyōtsūgo (共通語, lit. “common language”). Although there are numerous dialects existing within different prefectures in Japan, the dialect of Tokyo continues to hold its ground as the nation’s lingua franca. This is possible with continual efforts by the government to promote the application of Standard Japanese Language as the official language for mass media communication, administration, politics, education, commerce and other nationwide dealings above all other dialects in Japan.

Written Standard Japanese is normally interwoven with 3 writing systems and they are:

1. Hiragana: Using a syllabary (phonetic writing system). The symbols are curvilinear in style and used in children’s writing and to represent function words.
2. Katakana: Using a second syllabary or phonetic writing system. These symbols are more linear (straight ) in style and used for place, names and words of foreign origin, globally accepted terms such as technological or scientific terms and onomatopoetic (sound imitative) words.
3. Kanji: Using ideographic writing system with borrowed Chinese Characters, each conveying an idea, most of which is written in sets of 2 characters.

Every kanji has a radical (bushu) which is a sub-element of the kanji character. It is also possible for a Kanji to be written with just a radical, for example, the whole kanji character 疒 is also the radical 疒. Radicals express the general nature of the kanji characters. A radical gives you the clue to the whole character’s origin, group, meaning or pronunciation.

In Japanese dictionaries, kanji characters are usually organised under the radicals they belong to. There are 214 radicals. The radicals are grouped according to their positions in the character in the following 7 groups:

1. hen: The radical is found at the left side of the kanji character. For example, the radical 礻is found at the left side of the kanji character 私 so the Kanji character 私 is under the “hen” group.
2. tsukuri: The radical is found at the right side of the kanji character. For example, the radical刂 is found at the right side of the kanji character 剃 so the kanji character 剃 is under the “tsukuri” group.
3. kanmuri: The radical is found at the top of the kanji character. For example, the radical 宀 is found at the top of the kanji character 宋 so the kanji character 宋 is under the “kanmuri” group.
4. ashi: The radical is found at the bottom of the kanji character. For example, the 2 Kanji characters 意 and 思 which together means “meaning” is grouped under “ashi” as they share the same radical 心 that is found at the bottom of both the kanji characters.
5. tare: The radical is found at the top and at the right side of the kanji character. For example, the 2 Kanji characters 疒 and 疔 are grouped under “tare” as they share the same radical 疒that is found at the top and at the right side of both the kanji characters.
6. nyou: The radical is found at the right side and at the bottom of the kanji character. For example, the radical 廴 is found at the right side and at the bottom of the kanji character 延 so the kanji character 延 is under the “nyou” group.
7. kamae: The radical is found encompassing the kanji character. For example, the radical 囗 is found encompassing the kanji character 国 so the kanji character 国 is under the “kamae” group.

After the World War II, the Japanese Ministry of Education finalised the number of official kanji characters to 1,945 which is called the jōyō kanji( (常用漢字).

The 1,945 kanji in the jōyō kanji includes:

1. 1,006 kanji tested in primary school (known as kyōiku kanji)
2. additional 939 kanji tested in secondary school

In Japan, by law, newspapers using kanji outside the jōyō kanji list must append them with furigana which is an accompanying smaller font kana or syllabic characters. Examples of kana characters are the hiragana or katakana.

If the Japanese characters are lined up in a page horizontally, the smaller furigana characters are written above the kanji character it refers to. If the Japanese characters are lined up in a page vertically, the smaller furigana characters are at the right side of the kanji character it refers to. Here’s an example whereby the Kanji character is 例 and the furigana is れい.れい 例 or 例れ い

Currently, a total of 1,926 kanji characters are tested for all 4 levels of the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) for non-native speakers.

Besides the above 3 forms of writing, Japanese is sometimes written in rōmaji (Roman letters) for the convenience of non native learners in reading and conversation when time is limited. There are various Rōmaji systems for transliterating Japanese into Roman alphabets. One of which is the modified Hepburn system (used below).

Here’s an example of a simple sentence with all of the above writing systems shown.

“I am going to Canada” 私はカナダに 行きます。

The rōmaji words are Watashi wa kanada ni i-kimasu

The kanji characters are Watashi 私 and i- 行

The hiragana characters are wa は , ni に and kimasu きます

The katakana characters are kanada カナダ

As mentioned above, Japanese characters can be lined up in a page in 2 ways:

1. Horizontally, from left to right repeatedly beginning from the top of the page and ending at the bottom of the page (similar to English) or
2. Vertically, from top to bottom (thereby creating a column) repeatedly, which is either a phrase or sentence, beginning from the right of the page and ending at the left bottom of the page (similar to Mandarin which is the Standard Chinese language)

Japanese numbers can be written in either of the following manner:

1. Arabaic numbers (e.g. 1, 2, 3) especially if the text layout is in the horizontal manner
2. Native Japanese Numbers (either all in hiragana characters or a mixture of Chinese and hiragana characters)
3. Chinese Origin numbers (all in kanji)

Origin of Japanese Language

There is no conclusive agreement among linguist and historians with regards to the origin of Japanese Language and people. This is due to the fact that Japan lacks a writing system prior to the arrival of kanji and has no historical records earlier than the 5th century when Chinese characters were introduced.

Standard Japanese Language has immediate link to Japonic (or Japanese-Ryukyuan) language family. Despite the uncertainties on its distant relations, a few possibilities have been narrowed down as to the origin of the Japanese Language. They are that Japanese is related to the:

1. Altaic language family which may include Turkic, Mongolian, Manchu-Tungus, Japonic and Korean languages (Presently, this is the most widely accepted theory) or
2. Papuan or Austronesian language family which may include Malayan and other Pacific languages or
3. Southeast Asian language related to Vietnamese, Tibetan, Burmese

Japanese vocabulary has expanded to include words from Chinese since the 5th Century (Yamato period). A huge number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. From the 16th Century, Japanese continued to borrow words from Indo-European languages, namely Portugal and Dutch, the Netherlands in the 17th century and then English from the late 19th century.

Global Status of Japanese Language

The status of a language, in this case Standard Japanese, is determined by the a) population size of users, their b) economic and c) political power and d) historical factors, that is, whether the language is the dominant language of the nation.

a) Size of users

As of 2008, Standard Japanese is still one of the world’s major languages and is spoken by approximately 127.3 million native speakers in Japan and also by about 9 million non-native speakers. (The following list is from George Weber’s article “Top Languages: The World’s 10 Most Influential Languages” in Language Today (Vol. 2, Dec 1997)) Globally, the total number of Standard Japanese speakers including non-native speakers compared to other major languages is as follows:

1. Mandarin (1.12 billion speakers, Native: 1.1 billion, Non-Native: 20 million)
2. English (480 million speakers, Native: 330 million, Non-Native: 150 million)
3. Spanish (320 million speakers, Native: 300 million, Non-Native: 20 million)
4. Russian (285 million speakers, Native: 160 million, Non-Native: 125 million)
5. French (265 million speakers, Native: 75 million, Non-Native: 190 million)
6. Hindi/Urdu (250 million speakers, Native: 250 million, Non-Native: 0 million)
7. Arabic (221 million speakers, Native: 200 million, Non-Native: 21 million)
8. Portuguese (188 million speakers, Native: 160 million, Non-Native: 28 million)
9. Bengali (185 million speakers, Native: 185 million, Non-Native: 0 million)
10. Japanese (133 million speakers, Native: 125 million, Non-Native: 8 million)
11. German (109 million speakers, Native: 100 million, Non-Native: 9 million)

Apart from Japan, Japanese Language is spoken in other parts of the world such as in:

1. Brazil whereby there’s a population of about 1.4 million of Japanese from Japanese ethnic origin, or immigrants from Japan according to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics).
2. United States, especially in California and Hawaii whereby there are 1.2 million people from Japanese ancestry according to the US Census Bureau retrieved in 2008.
3. Peru whereby the estimated Japanese population was 90,000 in 2008. Peru has the second largest population of people of Japanese descent in Latin America after Brazil.
4. Australia, especially in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Cairns whereby there are 30,778 Japanese-born residents (excluding Australian-born persons of Japanese ancestry) according to the 2006 Census. Of this number, 24,373 spoke Japanese at home. A total of 40,968 Australian residents have declared Japanese ancestry. Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Philippines whereby there are

Small Japanese communities with intermarriages and those of Japanese ancestry.

b) Economy

Japan is the 2nd largest economy after the United States by nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of USD $4.909 trillion in 2008 in the world as reported by World Bank. In terms of GDP based on purchasing power parity (PPP), Japan ranks 3rd after United States and China with a value of USD $4.356 trillion in 2008 in the world from World Bank statistics. Japan’s GDP per Capita (Nominal) was USD$39,573 with a ranking of 16th in 2009 according to IMF (International Monetary Fund). Referring to Tokyo Reuters Article dated February 15, 2010, Japan’s economy grew faster than expected in the 4th quarter of 2009 at the rate of 0.6 percent growth in contrast to the negative growth in last previous 7 quarters. Corporate investment rose 1.0 percent, the first gain since Q1 of 2008.

Japan reported a balance of trade surplus equivalent to 544.2 Billion JPY in December of 2009.

Exports have been the driver of Japan’s economic growth in the past six years. Japan imports raw materials and processes them into high technology products. Japan’s major exports are consumer electronics, automobiles, semiconductors, optical fibres, optoelectronics, optical media, facsimile and copy machines. Its main trading partners are The United States, China and European Union.

Imports from US (Japan’s major trading partner) based on 2006 statistics from the US Census Bureau in Foreign Trade Statistics and CIA World Factbook are civilian aircraft (US$3.5 billion), medicinal equipment ($2.7 billion), industrial machines ($2.3 billion), telecommunications equipment ($2.1 billion), semi-conductors ($2.06 billion), corn ($2.0 billion), pharmaceutical preparations ($1.8 billion), computer accessories ($1.75 billion), measuring, testing & control instruments ($1.69 billion), organic chemicals ($1.4 billion), military apparel & footwear ($196.3 million), precious metals ($871.6 million), copper ($222.2 million), fuel oil ($75.6 million), aluminium ($304.9 million).

The Japanese jobless rate fell to 5.1 per cent in December as companies are firing less due to recovery of exports from 2009, according to Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

The unemployment rate was 5.2 per cent in November.

c) Politics

In the international arena, Japan is an important member of the UN (United Nations), the IMF (International Monetary Fund), the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), and the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). Japan maintains close relations with developing countries by being involved in economic development projects with international organizations such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.

Japan’s foreign economic policy has been a balancing act between satisfying OECD principles on capital liberalization and the nationalistic fervour within the country. There has been more efforts made during Prime Minister Koizumi’s period (2001-2006) to free up Japan’s market and allow greater investment flows into and out of Japan.

Through GATT, Japan has negotiated detailed international agreements on import and export policies with various countries and has always met its obligations including that of The United States.

Japan has a strong presence in the Asian Development Bank, the multilateral lending agency established in 1966 that made soft loans to developing Asian countries. Japan traditionally holds the presidency role. Both Japan and the United States have had the largest voting rights in the Asian Development Bank.

d) Historical Factors

Before the 5th Century, there were various dialects due to the mountainous island terrain and Japan’s long history of both external and internal isolation. During the Yamato period (5th Century), there were successful efforts made to unify these fragmented clans and to create a language that would help in the uinification process. Hence, the proto-Japanese language was born. This proto-Japanese language continued to evolve to include influences from China and other countries with which Japan has trading relationships and a writing system was developed.

Eventually in the 12th Century, a harmonised writing system that uses Chinese characters, kana phonetic script and Japanese language structure had been completed in the Heike Monogatari (Tales of the Heike). Since the 17th century Japan’s standard language is based on the dialect of Tokyo in the Kanto region, as Japan’s political and economic centre was moved from Kyoto and Osaka to Edo, present-day Tokyo. Hence, the Tokyo dialect has superseded all other dialects.

The usage of the Standard Japanese language (based on Tokyo dialect) is given further importance by the government by giving this Standard Japanese language legal and official status. In addition to these efforts, Standard Japanese language is continually applied in mass media, education and international conferences. These days, more young Japanese have also adopted this Standard Japanese language as their sole local language.Translation for the Japanese Market

Japanese Translation services

Chambers provides Japanese translation services for a number of fields including legal Japanese translation services, medical Japanese translation services, technical Japanese translation services, and financial Japanese translation services. Chambers also provides Japanese Interpreting services, includes Consecutive Japanese Interpretation, Simultaneous Japanese Interpretation and whispering Japanese Interpretation.

Japanese Translation Services

If you would like to sell your products or services to the Japanese speaking market it is essential to translate details of your products and services into Japanese. To convey a good and accurate impression of your company contact our Japanese translation services , Japanese translators and Japanese interpreters on +65 63391886 for Japanese translation Services or Japanese interpretation services.