TECHNICAL JAPANESE TRANSLATION

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No. 10 — December 14, 1983

This is our tenth issue. The publication is uncopyrighted and free, but is meant for active, participatory readers. Readers who want to stay on the mailing list must either write something for publication or send in money, etc. to help pay for expenses. (Thanks to those who have sent in items for publication and/or money for the expenses, and dire warnings to those who send neither: your names will be removed from the mailing list after this issue.) Editorial policy is to serve as a network for exchanging both technical and cultural information which might be relevant to Japanese-English translators. Nothing, serious or frivolous, which I or the readers think might be of interest will be excluded. If you know any professionals who are not on the mailing list, please share your issues with them, or have them drop me a line if they want to get on the mailing list.

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FROM THE EDITOR:

In order to keep down costs, I produce this newsletter completely in-house, using my IBM Displaywriter and a leased Xerox 2600 copying machine. Since the equipment is in my own office, there is very little expense and no need to go to a printer. I donate the labor. Some readers have suggested that the mailing costs would be less expensive if the publication were printed on both sides of the pages. That may be true. Unfortunately, the Xerox 2600 is unable to print on both sides (or to print on lighter-weight paper), and in order to print on both sides I would have to pay a printer. Someday, when my current lease runs out, I may change to a copying machine which can print on both sides of the page. In the meantime, readers are assured that the publication is being produced in the least expensive possible way available to the editor. This issue is being printed in 15 pitch instead of 12 pitch. This smaller print will economize on space somewhat. Let me know which size of print you prefer.

If there is an asterisk before your name on the envelope, that means that I am not sure whether you wish to continue to receive the newsletter. You must write to me indicating that you want to receive it. Otherwise your name will be dropped from the mailing list. (See dire warning above.)

Those who need specific back issues should write me (enclosing a check sufficient to cover the postage) and specify which issues they want. Full sets of back issues are available for a donation of $20.00 or more (making hundreds of xerox copies is very time-consuming). DLP

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IN THIS ISSUE:

Tamiyo S. Togasaki, Librarian of The International House of Japan, writes about "Japanese Science and Technology Data Information." Information about the MIT-Japan Science and Technology Program and about its workshop about Japanese Scientific and Technical Information in the U.S. An article in the Nihon keizai shimbun states that the U.S. government is denying Japanese researchers access to information about research in emerging technologies. An interview with Margherita Tinti Abe deals with the translation business in Japan. Dan Kanagy comments on "lousy English." More "Tips for Novices" from Peter Lim of Vancouver, Washington. I have some comments of my own about them and about the possibility of "accreditation" of Japanese-to-English translators. Definitions of "dankai no sedai" and "mekatoronikusu" (abbreviated "mekatoro"). We discuss some "advice" given to J-E translators about English style and consider some structural differences between the two languages. We give some information from Ted Crump's paper about translators in the Federal Government. John Y. Hung writes about rates for translators, Jay Sordean gives his thoughts about being a translator, and Don Cyril Gorham writes about a J-E patent dictionary. Sharp's electronic translators (denyakuki). An annotated bibliography of doctoral dissertations on Japan and Korea, 1969–1979. A new Japanese-language word processor (the least expensive of all) is to be marketed by Canon this month. And we have the second part of a glossary of terms on chemistry and allied fields contributed by D.A. Fraser of London.

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JAPANESE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DATA INFORMATION
by Tamiyo S. Togasaki

The postwar growth of the Japanese economy has been paralleled by a like development of science and technology. As a propelling factor, education has been perhaps the foremost element. The fact that the Japanese are a pragmatic, practical people with no inhibitions against innovations and quick to take the group's goal as their personal own, may have some relevance. There is also an overriding need for Japan as a resource-poor country to export knowledge-intensive products to the world. Whatever the reason, there is no question that Japan is committed to technological competition with other fully industrialized countries and with other rapidly advancing countries as well.

Research Spending

According to the latest survey by the Office of the Prime Minister, research spending for the sciences in Japan in 1981 totaled ¥5,982,400 million (about 6 trillion yen) for a real growth of 9.7%. This increase was the highest so far and represents a fourfold increase from 10 years ago. Total research spending accounted for 2.36% of Japan's GNP, also the highest ratio achieved during the past several years. Compared with other major countries, Japan now places itself third after U.S.A. (¥15,228,800 million for 2.36% of GNP) and the USSR (¥7,318,700 million for 3.47% of GNP — 1980 figure) and is followed by West Germany (¥4,032,000 million for 2.67% of GNP).

From this total research expenditure covering all the sciences, the spending for the natural sciences occupies 89.7%, in the amount of ¥5,364,000 million, showing a real growth of 10.2% over the previous year.

Who spent this 6 trillion yen? Corporations spent ¥3,629,800 million (60.7%), universities spent ¥1,445,600 million (24.2%), and institutes spent ¥906,900 million (15.2%). What was the proportion of public and private sectors in sharing the expenditure? 72.9% was spent by the private sector, and 27% by the public sector, showing that the private sector share increased slightly over the previous year. As might be expected, corporations tended to spend more on research and development, 73.0% of their total; institutes spent 53.6% for R&D and 33.2% for applied research; and universities spent more than half (57.4%) for basic research.

Industries with large research spending include: the electric machinery industry with 27.7%; the transport machinery industry with 17.3%; the chemical industry with 17.0% and the machinery industry with 6.7%, showing that communications, electronics, automobile manufacture and synthetic fiber and pharmaceutical industries were the big spenders.

Personnel cost accounted for 47.5% totaling ¥2,842,300 million; the expenses for materials totaled ¥918,400 million (15.4%); those for purchasing intangible fixed assets ¥1,095,600 million (18.3%) and expenses for books and others ¥1,126,000 (18.8%). In terms of the number of persons engaged in research, there were 676,000 out of whom 588,000 were employed in natural science research.

With these statistics as background, one might ask a number of questions. Is this money being spent effectively? Is the S.T. information being utilized well and how is it communicated? How much information is transmitted abroad, etc. These are questions difficult to answer, yet one would benefit by exploring the problems — even superficially.

Limiting "information" to include only the written form of information, the amount of S.T. information generated in Japan is assessed as in the range of 3 to 4 million items a year. These include journal articles; patent information; technical reports; conference reports; and doctoral dissertation - in order of their quantitative output. it would take a titanic effort to control or systematize this enormous body of information and to aim at a wider circulation and a fuller exchange. It is assumed much of these research efforts are being duplicated even inside Japan, the percentage being put anywhere between 10% and 50%. Computer utilization for control and retrieval of information has now become imperative.

Data Bases

Compared with the U.S. and with Western European countries, Japan has lagged behind in the creation of its own data bases, depending mostly on data bases commercially available from other countries. According to statistics prepared by the authoritative EUSIDIC Data Base Guide for 1983, there are about 485 bibliographic data bases for scientific information in the world, and there are about an equal number (462 to be exact) of fact bases. The U.S. claims the most bibliographic data bases with 155, followed by England with 75, West Germany with 57 and so on. Japan has 8 while the USSR has 7. About a half of the data bases in the U.S. and Western Europe can be retrieved on-line and are commercially available. In the U.S., two such major distributors are DIALOG with its own DIALOG system, and SDC with an ORBIT system; both are available through the TELENET node to Europe, Japan, Australia and some Southeast Asian countries. In Western Europe, there is the Euronet system, a comprehensive data communication network servicing 9 EC and 5 other countries. It is called DIANE (Direct Information Access Network for Europe), and contains information from 45 data bases. In Japan the first on-line international service called VENUS-P was successfully installed on July 25 this year through KDD circuit to Paris and to Korea.

Kind of Data Bases Available in Japan

As stated before, Japan's home-made data bases are still small in number, but then the country can dip into the many commercially available data bases of other countries. The most comprehensive scientific information center is JICST (The Japan Information Center of Science and Technology) with its data base called JOIS. Similar in purpose to America's NTIS (National Technical Information Service), it collects data from more than 50 countries and annually prepares 400,000 abstracts in the Japanese language from 10,560 journals. 40.2% of its data is from Japanese journals, while 21.0% is American titles coming from such data bases as CASEARCH, REDLINE, TOXLINE and others. 10.9% comes from England Including INSPEC data base material. The JICST's 1983 budget is ¥7.4 billion. Although JICST data is intended for Japanese use, it also receives requests for information from abroad. Interestingly enough, 68% of such requests come from Korea and the most frequently sought information is on manufacturing and heavy industry — one prominent field being shipbuilding. This shows that the language barrier between Japan and Korea is minimal and that Koreans sometimes prefer to use the Japanese translations rather than the original language abstracts. The U.S.'s requests for JICST information account for 18% and are for more sophisticated technology.

In the field of patents, the PATOLIS system administered by JAPATIC (Japan Patent Information Center) combines domestic patents and foreign patents contained at the INPADOC data base, and will start on-line service beginning December, 1983.

Kinokuniya and Maruzen make available commercial LOCKHEED DIALOG on line. There are also other non-commercial data bases and those include Tokyo University's TOOL 1-R; Tsukuba University's IDEAS-77; Hiroshima University's HUNDRED and others. In addition, there are off-line data bases such as the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute's INIS.

These data bases, except for a few, consist of imported data base material and not of the domestic product. However, this does not mean that there is no Japanese input in data base material prepared elsewhere; in fact the input from Japanese scientific and technological sources into foreign data bases is by no means small. One rare, substantive report on this subject reports that 1,878 Japanese journals (21.1% of the total of 8,901 Japanese S.T. journals listed in the N.D.L. list) are indexed in nine representative data bases. Especially high percentages are recorded in bio-science, chemistry and medicine. If Japanese journal articles are even partly in English this raises the chance of being indexed in Western data bases three times, and those having abstracts in English have also a good chance of being included (63.3%).

Though not a part of any bibliographic information data base, two important files are worth mentioning here. One is a subject file on scientists at universities and other organizations, and the other is a file of the approximately 15,000 researchers who are recipients of Science Research Grants-in-Aid.

Another Japanese-made data base not devoted to the natural sciences is NIKKEPs NEEDS-TS and NEEDS-1 which include JOINT, strong in both economic and energy information. As a national bibliographic data base covering monographs, JAPAN-MARC developed at the National Diet Library, is patterned after the U.S. Library of Congress's LC-MARC.

The National Diet Library's Science and Technology Section is one of the largest depositories of the S.T. information. It has approximately 9,000 journals of which three-fourths are Japanese. The N.D.L. receives photocopy requests from many countries, and a survey conducted on the six-month period beginning April, 1981, covering 1,629 requests from more than 30 countries shows the following facts: the country that requested most frequently was East Germany with 417; followed by India with 201+; and Hungary with 175. The subject matter most requested was: petrochemical data at 31%; followed by machinery at 22%; medicine/pharmaceuticology at 21% etc. If this study is any indication, it confirms a general guess that journal articles are not relied upon for high-tech information and that industrialized countries look for such sources elsewhere.

NIST and SIS

NIST (National Information System for Science and Technology) is a comprehensive national plan proposed in 1969 to collect, prepare, and disseminate S.T. information. Its administrative responsibilities rest with the Science and Technology Agency, and its emphasis is on making available to the public such information. A 1980 plan by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture called SIS (Science Information System) is primarily intended to link university sources. Both information networks are still in their formative stages. The 1983 national budget allocation for the transmittal of S.T. information is ¥18,640 million out of which ¥7,612 million is for the Ministry of Education's project.

One of the new projects S.T.A. is promoting is machine-translation of Japanese language material into English. Some are hopeful regarding this device which is said to have achieved 80% degree comprehension. Some feel that more urgent is the need for a comprehensive dictionary of necessary technical terms, believed now to number more than 700,000. At any rate, the Japanese government is taking an initiative in preparing English-language information for overseas needs rather than waiting for others to undertake the costly and difficult work of translation of Japanese materials into English.

The "Invisible College"

The problem of the "invisible college" exists in any country and in any discipline. However, the problem is more acute in Japan and perhaps more widespread among scientists of advanced technology. As Japanese buy books rather than borrow them, scholars guard their information sources more zealously than their counterparts elsewhere, and researchers tend to keep their research results within their own institutes. One survey by a Japanese social scientist shows researchers and engineers are not interested in receiving international recognition but rather want to contribute to the organizations or teams to which they belong. Their loyalty rests with their home institutions. A communication network is developed among chosen individuals and colleagues in respective disciplines, sometimes making it unnecessary to rely on written or published sources. For example, in the fields of nuclear physics, scholars customarily circulate lists of preprints for exchange among colleagues. This phenomenon varies from one discipline to another, and one is hard put to draw any generalized conclusion. By and large, industries in any country are pressed hard for newer technology and tend to guard their know-how. In Japan the guard may be greater.

Conclusions

The difficulty of the Japanese language has been blamed as a major obstacle in communications and this is partly true even in the communication flow of S.T. information from Japan to countries overseas. Certainly, the high costs of translation often make it difficult to seek Japanese S.T. information. A set of working papers from MIT's workshop on Japanese S.T. information which appeared early this year identify some of the problems. However, this is not the only reason. The problems encountered in getting information from Japan are the same for the Japanese as for foreigners, and are inherent in Japanese societal organization.

Another factor often overlooked, is that information emanating from Japan is not necessarily found in Japanese journals, but in Western language journals and international journals. More and more researchers are trying to write in English, or at least putting their titles into English. Also in recent years, the fees involved in publishing articles make it less expensive to write for English-language (often American) journals, and more Japanese scientists are moving towards Western journals by economic choice.

[Ed. note: Tamiyo S. Togasaki is the Librarian of The International House of Japan. This article was published in the autumn, 1983 issue of IHJ Bulletin, a quarterly publication of The International House of Japan, and is reprinted here with permission.]

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WORKSHOP ON JAPANESE SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION IN THE U.S.

Reginald B. Gillmor, Ph.D., of the MIT-Japan Science and Technology Program, wrote (December 2, 1983) describing the program. The Program's primary aim, he says, is to foster a better understanding of Japanese scientific and industrial activities among American scientists, engineers, and industrial managers. One way it is pursuing this goal is by arranging for internships of MIT students and graduates in Japanese laboratories. Other activities contributing to the goal include the holding of seminars, workshops, and symposia on issues in Japanese science and technolo gy.

Dr. Gillmor draws our attention to a workshop (mentioned above in Ms. Togasaki's article) which was held at MIT in January, 1983 and was jointly sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The workshop focused on problems in the acquisition and dissemination of Japanese scientific and technical information (JSTI) in the U.S. One of the conclusions that the workshop came to is that a major source of difficulty is the paucity of technically trained Americans with a reasonable command of Japanese. It was felt that any long-term solution to problems posed by JSTI must include as a major element programs to equip technical people with facility in Japanese.

The full texts of the papers presented at the Workshop, summaries of the discussions, conclusions, and recommendations were published by the National Technical Information Service in March, 1983 under the title "Japanese Scientific and Technical Information in the United States" (PB83-179903). Copies of the publication can be obtained from National Technical Information Service, U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, VA 22161 (no price is listed).

The address of the MIT Program is:

MIT-Japan Science and Technology Program
Room E53447
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

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U.S. IS BEGINNING TO LIMIT FLOW OF ADVANCED TECHNICAL INFORMATION TO JAPAN; JAPANESE GOVERNMENT MAY BE FORCED TO INCREASE ITS RESEARCH BUDGET

In a front-page article in its December 6, 1983 edition, the Nihon keizai shimbun reports that the U.S. government is using a variety of methods to deny Japan access to information about "emerging technologies" such as composite materials, ceramics and computers. The source of the information in the article appears to be the Agency of Industrial Science and Technology of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

The article begins by stating that the U.S. government has begun to limit the outflow of information about emerging technologies to foreign countries, including Japan. The Export Control Law is being invoked, from the standpoint of national security, to prevent the participation of Japanese in meetings of American scientific societies such as that devoted to composite materials. It also imposes restrictions on delivering to Japanese researchers documents dealing with technologies developed under Department of Defense and NASA grants. The U.S. is also reportedly studying measures to prevent patents obtained with U.S. government assistance from being licensed overseas.

In the past, the newspaper reports, the U.S. did not prevent Japan from obtaining information concerning fundamental technological development. Having obtained this information freely, Japan was able, on the basis of it, to develop better products which it then exported back to the U.S., causing severe difficulties for U.S. businesses.

Now the U.S. has decided to limit Japanese access to technical information in fields of research and development where the U.S. is ahead of Japan, especially those which are important militarily, such as composite materials, ceramics and computers. The first measure taken was to limit participation in meetings of U.S. scientific societies to U.S. citizens. This is aimed to keep out all foreigners, but almost all the foreign researchers who attend such meetings are Japanese, and this measure is understood to be intended specifically to deny access to the Japanese. The only scientific society to which this measure has been applied thus far has been the society dealing with composite materials, but the Agency of Industrial Science and Technology expects that Japanese researchers will also be excluded in the future from meetings of other scientific societies dealing with emerging technologies such as ceramics.

It has also become difficult for Japanese to obtain monographs concerning research funded by the Department of Defense and NASA. Permission from the DOD and NASA must be applied for through the State Department in order to obtain these monographs. Since the beginning of 1983, such permission has not been granted, and it is impossible even to apply for it at the present time.

Japanese researchers engaged in fundamental research in composite materials, ceramics and computers at Japanese universities have even been refused permission to interview American researchers, performing research funded by the Department of Defense. Since most of the advanced research being done in the U.S. is funded by either the DOD or NASA, it has become almost impossible for Japanese researchers to find out anything about the latest results of advanced American research.

The U.S. government is also studying measures to prevent patents for technologies developed with U.S. government assistance from being licensed to foreign corporations. Government-sponsored patents have in the past been licensed without charge to non-profit institutions, but beginning next year exclusive licenses will also be granted to large corporations, and it is feared that Japanese corporations will be refused licenses to work such technologies.

Since fiscal year 1981 the Japanese Agency of Industrial Science and Technology has been fostering the development of emerging technologies such as composite materials, ceramics, and biotechnology under its program for research and development of basic technologies for the next generation of industries. However, budgetary cuts during the past year or two have made it impossible to provide adequate funding for such research and development.

The difficulties for Japanese researchers have been compounded now because it has become almost impossible to obtain information and monographs from American scientific societies. Such information has in the past been useful to Japanese research and development. The article concludes: "It is regarded as certain that, unless the [Japanese] government takes new measures, such as increasing by far its researchand development budget, the divergence between Japan and the U.S. in these emerging technology fields will increase more and more."

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INTERVIEW with Margherita Tinti Abe
by John D. Lamb

Margherita Tinti Abe is the owner-manager of Giunone Co., Ltd., formerly of Tokyo, now based in Nagoya, Japan.

Q: Give us a brief overview of your background.

A: I was born in Italy. Nine years ago, someone offered me a two-year contract in Japan as a designer in the fashion business. I worked in Tokyo, in the center of Ginza, for two years. In the company, the president and vice-president could speak a little English, but nobody else could. I mean, of course, they would say a few words in katakana, not in English, and it was really impossible to understand them anyway, so in the first two years, I found people speaking to me and I never knew what they were talking about.

Then a guy in the company started teaching us Japanese one hour a day before starting work every morning Monday through Friday. I had the remaining seven hours with all my Japanese friends around me and if I wanted to talk to them, the only way was to talk in Japanese.

After two years, I stopped working there and started helping a friend of mine who was translating for Shiseido. It was at that time that I started doing my own translation from English into Italian, and that's how I started working with languages. I had some friends who did the same for all the other languages. I had people asking me to work as a translator or interpreter, and I thought, "Why do we have to do it on our own?" So I formed this company.

Q: How does the translation business in Tokyo differ from the business in the outlying cities in Japan?

A: The business in Tokyo is a lot easier in one sense and a lot more difficult in another. It is a lot easier in the way that there are a lot of translators, a lot of foreigners and even if they go back, you always get new people to train. In the outlying districts, there are fewer foreigners and it's difficult to find anyone who is going to work as a translator. The same problem that exists in the outlying cities as in Tokyo, is that most of the foreigners stay in Japan for only a few years so they are not able to speak Japanese well enough to do really good translation. In Tokyo, if you don't have a special translator, you can always find a substitute. It's a lot easier to run a company in Tokyo, but it is a lot more expensive. Most of the time, as Tokyo has a lot of companies but it doesn't have any factories, the job is coming from out of Tokyo. Then you still have the problem that you don't have direct contact with the client. You talk to him on the phone and you never know exactly what you are or are not supposed to do. And that's a big problem.

Q: How has the business developed say over the last ten years or so?

A: The real translation business started about ten years ago. Many foreigners living in Japan started translation businesses on their own or working with Japanese. The freelance translators realized as soon as they started working directly for the client that it is silly to be only a freelance translator. The reason why is that if you are a freelance translator, the client is going to take off the 10% from your job, but if you are a company, then it's up to you and you get paid what you are asking.

Then most of the freelance translators, who started their businesses around ten years ago, around five years ago started opening enterprises and companies abd business centers and so on. To start a private company in Japan costs about ¥100,000. You need only two other people with you and then you can be recognized as a company. You can do it at home with your home telephone. Then you can take out all the expenses from the company account so it's a lot more convenient.

Five years ago, at the time when I started my own company, hundreds of new companies started in Tokyo, and most of them were run by ex-freelance translators.

Then the translation panic started. This meant that people running companies never let the translator know where the job was coming from or who the client was. Many times it happened to me that I got the original text to be translated, and the name of the client and even the name of the maker was cancelled all over the text. People got really scared and never let the client know who the translator was either. In Tokyo, the translation panic is still going on. Many translators leave Japan once a year to go back to their own country. They are supposed to leave someone who is going to keep doing their job, and this is the worst time. You see, many translators try not to introduce anyone because they are afraid that when they come back they won't have their job anymore.

Q: How about rates?

A: When I started working, English to Spanish translation was ¥3000 a page for a 25-line double-spaced page. About two years later, there were a lot of South American people who would work for ¥1500 a page just to get the job.

Most of the Japanese translations were made by Japanese because very few foreigners in Japan were able to translate from Japanese into English or to read Japanese. But lately, in the last five years, more and more foreigners have started translating. There have been a lot of international marriages, especially between American men and Japanese women. So the women read the Japanese and make a rough translation and the men edit it. From that time on, a lot of foreigners started working in Japanese-English translation and this caused a big increase in prices for Japanese-English translation. Until then, J-E translation was the lowest paid in Japan. The first price list I wrote for my company, the charges were ¥3000–¥4000 for French, Italian, German, Spanish and all the other languages, and ¥2000–¥3000 for J-E.

Now, most Japanese don't speak French, German or other languages. J-E has always been the problematic language because most of the companies working on J-E translation are run by Japanese. Many times these Japanese don't speak any English. They work in the Japanese system as salesmen using freelance translators. The clients mostly don't speak English, but they have been studying English for ten years, as all Japanese do, so they will never accept what the translator does. They are always going to check it word by word. Most Japanese are very precise, so they will complain anytime you make a sentence shorter than the original sentence, and they will complain anytime you use two different words for the same Japanese word, and they will complain anytime you use some word that they didn't learn in their ten years of English study.

Q: How do women fare in the translation business here in Japan?

A: Very few women work in the translation business. In the technical fields — that covers about 80% of the translation business — I would say a number close to 100% are men. Most of the time, the client asks you directly that the translator be a man.

Q: Have you ever been refused work because you're a woman? Or have you ever been refused work for your agency because you said that a woman would be doing the translation?

A: Well, refused, no. Once I was going to use a woman and they told me not to. At the time, I told the client OK and I still used the woman! The client never found out that I used her. She was English, you know. Here in Japan there is even a problem between English and American. Most of the time, the client demands expressly that the translator should be American, not English. They say they can tell from the translation if the translator is English or American. I've used an English translator many times and they never found it out. But there was one time we did a special manual for Toyota. We had the English lady doing the first part. I told them "he" was English, because I said she was a man, of course. Then they said they didn't want an English person doing it, so please find an American translator. The second part of the same manual was done by an American translator and they checked it all. Finally, they said that the first translator was a lot better than the second one.

Q: What do you know about machine translation, Bravice and the use of computers in translation?

A: Well, computer translation started about 4 years ago. They had a big exhibition in Harumi (Tokyo) where they showed the computer for translation. At the time, it was a shock for all the big translation companies because they thought they wouldn't have jobs anymore. It was about a year before Sharp started making the little portable translator/calculators. Later, it became clear that you need an operator who knows the language in order to correct the translation the machine does.

Now there is computer translation, but the meaning of it is different from what it was when it started. A lot of companies work on computers, but they translate only manuals that are almost the same all the time. The machine is not translating. The machine is picking up from its own memory the sentences that have been translated before. It is going to give you exactly the same translation that was used before and that translation was made by a translator, not by a machine. Any changes will be translated by a translator and put into the machine's memory.

Q: Is this what Bravice is doing?

A: Yes, that's what Yamamoto is doing too. I should say that Toyota and Yamaha are probably the only companies who still have a big quantity of translation, and they are not using a computer.

Q: What do you have to say to people who want to translate in Japan?

A: If you are going to work in Japan, trust is the most important point. Never run away. Whenever the client has a problem, always be prepared to discuss it and talk it out with them.

At first, they'll criticize your work a lot. But if you keep coming back and talk it out with them, you'll reach a point where they trust you. Then, after that, they may never check your work again.

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MORE ABOUT "LOUSY ENGLISH"

Dan Kanagy of San Francisco writes the following (November 11, 1983) about "lousy English":

I do have a final comment about lousy English. The way English is used by the Japanese used to annoy me to no end, imagine my surprise to find myself defending it during my recent trip to Japan. I do not take the aesthetic position, but argue from Japan's history. One of the stances in which Japan feels comfortable in relating to the world is the senpai/koohai relationship. During the years that China was top dog, all sorts of things were taken in, including a system of writing. For some of the kanji both the meaning and the reading were preserved. In some cases, the meaning was kept, but given a Japanese reading. In other cases, a character was needed for a particular Japanese word and any available Chinese character was used. They are, of course, the ateji.

Now that the United States is Japan's cultural senpai, Japan is adding a fourth set of characters and vocabulary to the three character sets derived from Chinese. We are mistaken if we see this as adding English to Japanese, for the process is remarkably similar to what happened to Chinese in the past. in some cases, the meaning and reading of the additions remain close to their English origin. In other cases, words are cut apart and pasted together in some mysterious fashion leaving us hybrids such as roman, pasocon, or Let's Do.

We are wasting our time if we attempt to channel or correct the influx of vocabulary derived from Japan's fourth character set. We would be trying to hold back a wave powered by two thousand years of history. A better task for us would be to educate people to correct the mistaken notion that facility with this new vocabulary is equivalent to a facility in English. They are two different cans of worms.

I sometimes wonder how the Chinese felt as they observed what use the Japanese made of their language. Perhaps we are just repeating a thousand year old argument about the lousy Chinese of the Japanese.

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TIPS FOR NOVICES
by Peter Lim

I have read your tips to novices with great interest because everything you say is so true and realistic. Particularly your comments on the importance of a good collection of dictionaries. I know you could have gone on and on but you condensed your tips because of the space.

I would like to pick up where you left off on this subject because it is a very important subject, not only to novices, but to every translator at any level of competence.

As anything else in life, a translator ought to know where he stands in a tight professional community, especially as a technical Japanese translator. This will enable him to see clearly where he stands with. respect to other translators and present him with a clear view as to where he has to go. And naturally he can assess what needs to be done and how much effort and time are required to reach where he wants to go.

Let us, for the purpose of this discussion, arbitrarily make some classifications of the levels of translators.

Novice — He can read simple textbook Japanese, understands a fair amount of kanji, but heavily depends on the dictionary. As a result, he spends more time with the dictionary than actual translation of the text.

Amateur — He has passed the "novice" stage so that he now spends more time translating than looking words up in the dictionary. He still spends a fair amount of time with the dictionary, and the translation does not progress as fast as he would like. Many of the neologisms and particularly arbitrary abbreviations present somewhat of a nightmare. When it comes to long, never-ending sentences, he keeps forgetting the beginning of the sentence by the time he gets to the end. He has yet to learn how to chop off the long sentences with confidence.

At this rate, he wonders how he can justify dollars per hour compensation. Somehow, given enough time, he can complete the assignment and it gives him a sense of achievement but not much in his pocket.

Pro — He has passed the "amateur" stage. It is a matter of speed. He knows where to look up the difficult terminology. He constantly is aware of his productivity. He can concentrate for an extended time and gather the momentum, which is essential in this business. In most cases, he can arrive at a conclusion on a difficult word based on the context and content. Once he translates an article, he remembers most of the difficult passages. After completing the assignment, he feels good and confident, and he honestly thinks that he earned every penny of it. In a way he thinks, perhaps, he deserves more, and wonders how he can expedite the translation process.

Veteran — He certainly has gone through all of these stages. He can look back with a smile. But he is stuck with this profession, a translator. This could be bliss if he takes a healthy outlook, because he can translate better than anything else, and most likely better than anybody else. This is how a man is separated from the boys. If a veteran only takes a healthy perspective and takes advantage of this profession, he will be respected and sought after.

A veteran's concern is beyond how he is going to complete the assignment. He is more concerned about how to improve the linking of the two languages and bring people on both sides closer through translation. He looks words up in the dictionary once in a while, in most cases to confirm rather than trying to find the meaning. Occasionally, he disagrees with the author of the text and feels like writing a letter to the author suggesting a better way to express the material.

By now some of the readers will begin to see the light. If I.G. of San Diego feels that he is either a "novice" or "amateur," by all means he should try to get to the "pro" status as quickly as possible. It is no fun to stay in the "amateur" status too long.

Let us now see how we can make the transition from "amateur" to "pro" status.

  1. Ideally, a language should be learned at an early age, preferably when one is a baby. This is the very foundation of the "Suzuki method of teaching violin." Professor Suzuki Shinichi adopted the idea from the process of learning languages to violin teaching. What can we, grownups, do then? We simply have to go through the same process, just like children learning a language. In this sense, I would suggest that one should pick up grade school textbooks, the ones used in Japan by Japanese children, and master them all the way through. We simply have to pay the price. There is no short cut. If we skipped the grade school stage that the Japanese are going through, we simply have to make up. You would be surprised how much you can utilize what you learned from grade school textbooks. My daughter who is in the 6th grade proof-reads and types some of my translations.
  2. If you want to be a technical translator, it helps to understand some of the fundamentals in each field of science, engineering and technology, though it is not mandatory. It will help the translator to follow through the content and be with the author. To do this, if you are not exposed to the technical field, pick up high school science books and get yourself interested in the technical materials. Then, if there is enough interest, enroll in a local community college (for practically no tuition) and take basic technical courses. You would be surprised how quickly you can open your eyes, and everything suddenly looks interesting when you translate.
  3. There is nothing like a network of close professional friends. Modern science and engineering being so diversified, it is virtually impossible for any individual to be versed in all fields. First try to establish good contacts among your fellow translators. By the nature of their profession, they are most likely to be eager to help you out. Secondly, establish contacts with technical professionals in all fields. Foreign students and foreign post docs are a good source of help.
  4. Read other people's translations. You can learn about how other people tackle translating. I make it a habit of reading other people's translation whenever possible. I always learn something from their work.
  5. Look for Japanese people in your area. Carry out conversation in Japanese and try to be a part of their community. They will certainly be interested in Japanese-speaking foreigners, if your approach is sincere. Again, Japanese students and post docs in the nearby university would be an interesting source to tap. Of course, if you can afford it, the best thing is to go to Japan and live there for a while. Even if your translations are to be confined to technical matters, it is important that you understand the Japanese people. Remember, it is man who uses language. Man is a product of a historical heritage and a particular social community. Translation is conveying the author's thoughts to the reader through a language that the reader can understand. Notice that the language is a medium. What is conveyed is the author's thoughts.

* * *

EDITOR'S COMMENTS

Yes, I do begin to see the light, thanks to Peter Lim's original four-level system of classification of levels of translators according to their proficiency (novice, amateur, pro and veteran). This is obviously based on wide experience and much original thought, and I think it is a very valuable contribution to our understanding of our profession. It is obvious to everyone who knows about the translation business that there is a world of difference between a novice translator and a veteran. No amount of complaining by beginners can change the hierarchical structure in the business. This situation has even been compared to a "star system." in the film or music industries, the treatment given to a star is quite different from that given a beginner, and a similar situation exists in art, literature, and (mutatis mutandis) in translation too. We should not let our anti-elitist sentiments prevent us from seeing that excellence is always rewarded in preference to mediocrity. And why should it not be so? If you were building a house, would you go to a veteran carpenter or to an amateur? The beginner would complain about the low pay and do a poor job, while the veteran craftsman would do a superb job and cause you no problems. Rather than worrying about the quality, wouldn't you rather pay a bit more to a master carpenter and be sure that the job will be done right?

I agree very much with the statements in the final paragraph. I know there are many translators who claim quite seriously that they can translate narrowly specialized technical literature quite well without being able to speak or understand the spoken language and without having any direct knowledge of the Japanese people. This is true, so long as they restrict their work to those jobs which contain only a narrowly restricted range of technical words which they can understand. However, I also know that many "technical" documents which we are called upon to translate contain whole passages written in colloquial language, such as when specialists are holding informal discussions in the down-to-earth language which they habitually use in everyday speech. A translator who has no understanding of ordinary colloquial speech, let alone of the Japanese historical heritage and the social context in which the specialists are writing, will become completely lost if called upon to translate a technical document which contains sentences in colloquial diction. No amount of technical dictionaries will be of any use in such a case.

If it is true that translators can be classified according to the four-level scheme proposed by Peter Lim, what can we say about the "possibility of establishing an accreditation program for Japanese-English translations?" (This is a question asked by Hisashi Kubota in No. 9, p. 15.) I have some questions about accreditation. What is its purpose? Who would administer it? Would it be free of charge? And if aspirants were to pay for it, who would profit from the fees?

If the purpose is to differentiate between different levels according to some realistic scheme such as that outlined by Peter Lim, it would be a useful contribution to the profession, since any aspiring candidate would be able to tell from the results of the testing exactly what level he or she had reached in the hierarchical scheme. A high grade in a hierarchical accreditation system would definitely increase a translator's prestige, although I doubt whether employers or agencies would pay much attention to it.

However, if on the other hand the accreditation were a uniform, one-level system aiming merely at setting some uniform, minimum standard, it would be of no use in differentiating between translators of various levels of proficiency. The only people profiting from such a system would be those who would charge money to administer the tests to the aspirants. Incidentally, there is an organization in Japan which calls itself Nihon Kagaku Gijutsu Honyaku Kyokai and which administers qualifying tests and gives out a title called LTT ("Licensed Technical Translator"). The test costs ¥15,000 to take, and you can also acquire the qualification automatically by taking a correspondence course for nine months. The "license" is advertised unashamedly as "Your Status Symbol in Computer-Assisted Translation (C.A.T.) Age."

A "veteran" translator would have little incentive to obtain accreditation of this sort if he or she would merely be classed on the same level with novices and amateurs whose only qualification was paying money for a test or a correspondence course. Why would Luciano Pavarotti need to compete in an amateurs' contest for opera singers? In a profession where excellence, not mere competence, is prized above all, what advantage would there be for veterans to accept the same status as the mediocre? In fact, if the accreditation were easy enough so that novices could obtain licenses, the possession of accreditation (a "status symbol") would be a stigma rather than an honor for any experienced professional translator, and to avoid guilt by association it would be advisable for veterans to boycott it.

Lest anyone should accuse me of elitism, I want to add that I think more effort should be paid by agencies and by educational institutions to the task of training technical translators. Ordinary language teaching in universities is usually monopolized by teachers who are specialists in literature and who dislike science and technology, and the graduates tend to be able to translate nothing but the humanities. Technical translation, I think, can only be taught by a technical translator. Experienced translators would be glad, as Peter Lim nays, to assist in such a worth-while endeavor, although many of them might be skeptical of a correspondence course which would promise students a meaningless title such as a "Licensed Technical Translator." DLP

* * *

DASAI AGAIN

Alan Gleason of San Francisco writes (Nov. 22) about "Dasai":

I have discussed this issue with my wife, who is Japanese and has spent the past 15 years in Tokyo, but originally hailed from south Chiba-ken and is therefore very sensitive to the implications of the word. She said she found the suggestion that it comes from "datte Saitama" interesting, but dubious, and believes it is simply a combination of da, as in dame or dasaku usually meaning something bad, useless, hopeless, etc. with an arbitrary adjectival ending, sai, which also has a negative connotation from words like kusai, urusai and so on. Who knows?

* * *

メカトロニクス

メカニクス(機械工学)とエレクトロニクス(電子工学)との結合で生まれた和製英語。機械の電子化という意味。産業用ロボット、VTR、ATM(現金自動支払い機)などがその代表的製品。

半導体、特にLSI〔代規模集積回路)技術の発達でマイクロコンピューターやその周辺素子が安価に供給されるようになったのが、その開発と普及を促す原動力となっている。従来機械に高度、複雑な機能を加えてその内容を一新させているほか、全く新しい製品を続々と生んでいる。さらに単体機器だけでなくFA(ファクトリーオートメーション)、OAなどシステム商品の形でもメカトロニクスは急速に普及している。

 三菱重工業は今後の経宮戦略の中心を「ハイテック企業」への変身に置いていく方針を固めた。メカトロニクス、新素材バイオテクノロジー(性命工学)など先端技術を最大限に取り込んだ機械新製品の開発を進め、製品の高付加価値化を追求しようというもの。このため同社は近く技術本部にメカトロ技術者を集結させた「メカトロニクスセンター」(他称)を新設するのをはじめ新素材、バイオでも研究開発拠点づくりを急ぐことになった。さらにロボットの制御用などに組み込むマイクロコンピューターの内製化にも乗り出す。わが国重工業の頂点に立ってきた三菱重工業も新しい産業革命のうねりの中でり、「ハイテック化)へ経営路線を切り替えることになったものとして注目される。

日経産業新聞、11月26日付より抜粋

* * *

DANKAI NO SEDAI

The following definition of "dankai no sedai" (see inquiry in No. 9, p. 21) was written by Mr. Naoki Matsuura and forwarded by Hiroaki Sato of New York:

団塊の世代 語源。作家、社会評論家堺屋太一〔元通産省勤務)の著書「団塊の世代」による。これは堺屋の造語で、本の内容は、第二次大戦直後のベビー・ブームの時に生まれた世代が老令に達し、老人人口が非常に大きなウェイトを占めるに至った時の社会を描く未来小説。 団塊とは、字義の通り、大きなかたまり、集団のことであるが、「団塊の世代」という場合、上記のベビー・ブームの世代のことで、青少年時代には受験戦争と非行、60年代後半には学園紛争、結婚後は「ニュー・フナミリー」といった経験を持つ。この世代は、その量的規模もあって、その時々に文化面、消費面で独特の流行をつくり出してきた。 松浦直樹定義

Incidentally, I found the following description of the "dankai no sedai" in the November 27, 1983 issue of the Nihon keizai shimbun. According to the article, this post-war baby-boom generation includes 11,300,000 persons in their early thirties (age 32–36) who were born between the years 1947 and 1951 and who make up about 10% of the entire Japanese population.

[Scanned Image]

* * *

MINERALS GLOSSARY

Christopher S. Lotuaco, who compiled the mineral name glossary in No. 8, replies (Nov. 18) as follows to the comments by Lucile S. Davison in No. 9, p. 14:

The mineral glossary I've sent and published in the last issue hs errors as pointed out by Ms. Davison. Aragonite is certainly arareishi and kasumiishi is nepheline. Hotaruishi (蛍石) is fluorite and hyoshoseki (氷晶石) is cryolite. However, shakudoseki (赤銅石) or sekidoko (赤銅鉱) is cuprite, and rinkeiseki (鱗珪石) or rinsekiei (鱗石英) is tridymite. Both rinkeiseki and sekiei are hexagonal crystalline sbustances, but in order to distinguish tranparent and colorless sekiei and opaque and white or gray keiseki, rinkeiseki instead of rinsekiei is generally accepted, at leasat in the chemical fields.

Lucile S. Davison writes the following (Nov. 19) about dictionaries:

Naturally, my dictionary sources for the mineral terms discussed in the ninth issue would be of interest. My geology foreign language vocabulary actually is in Russian because I abstracted Russian petroleum geology articles for Chemical Abstracts for years. Around a year ago I passed up translating Japanese material on seismic investigations because I have no Japanese geology dictionaries.

However, good foreign language general and chemistry dictionaries list many minerals. (We chemists regard minerals as chemicals and rocks as mixtures of chemicals.) So I had found the minerals in Lotuaco's list by means of Sanyo's Trilingual (English, Japanese, Chinese) Glossary of Chemical Terms, Iwanami's Physics and Chemistry Dictionary, the Japan Ministry of Education, Japanese Scientific Terms Chemistry, Nelson's Japanese-English Character Dictionary, and Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary.

I (DLP) also want to add that I have what appears to be an even better source of information for the earth sciences, including mineralogy. It is a three-volume Japanese dictionary published in 1970. You will find a very full listing of all the minerals you need in volume 2, which also contains full definitions and descriptions of them all in Japanese. I would recommend this three-volume dictionary especially to those who are planning to specialize in geology or mineralogy. Each volume cost 2,500 at the time of publication back in 1970. For all I know, the dictionary may have come out since then in a new edition. I have only volumes one and two and have not seen volume three or the index-supplement. Here is a complete bibliographic description of the dictionary in Japanese:

新版 地学辞典 全3巻 編集者 片山信夫・森本良平・木村敏雄・竹内均 発行所 古今書院 
東京都千代田区神田駿河台2の10  昭和45年発行  
第1巻:地球物理学・資源工学・土木地質学・気候学  
第2巻:鉱物学・岩石学・鉱床学・地球化学・火山学  
第3巻;地質学・古生物学・地形学・土壌学
別冊:地学用語集を兼ねた英独払の絵素引

* * *

ADVICE TO TRANSLATORS

Mori Toru's advice to translators at a SWET workshop on September 10 was mentioned in our last issue (No. 9, p. 10–11). His advice included "scuttling" rhetorical terms, replacing passive with active voice, breaking down long Japanese sentences into shorter units, and so on.

Anthony J. Leggett, in an article called "Notes on the Writing of Scientific English for Japanese Physicists" published in the Nihon Butsuri Gakkaishi (vol. 21, no. 11, pp.790–805), deals with some of these problems which we translators have to deal with in translating Japanese texts into English. Leggett speaks, among other things, of fundamental differences in patterns of thought between Japanese and English:

At first sight, it is tempting to think that the problem of writing good English is solved if one can write good Japanese and then give a perfect translation. I believe this is not necessarily true. 'Japanese English' has the peculiar property that it can be grammatically perfect and yet, if not completely unintelligible, at least 'opaque' and baffling to the average English reader. This property is often shared by English translations (even by expert translators) of articles written originally in Japanese; it is clearly, therefore, not due to bad translation. I believe, therefore, it is necessary to recognize that some patterns of thought which are acceptable in Japanese may be unintelligible or puzzling in English (and, no doubt, vice versa). Moreover, ways of saying things which make sense against a Japanese background may either be nonsense or give quite the wrong impression when interpreted against a Western European one. (For instance, if you state a conclusion tentatively or indefinitely, a Japanese reader will understand that this is because you do not wish to be too blunt or assertive, but a European reader will often conclude simply that you are not really sure about it.) (p. 791)

The article by Leggett was sent to me by Shimomura Kohei, who wrote (Nov. 17, 1983) that he and Doi Yasuro are using the article as a text and have obtained many useful suggestions from it in writing their long monograph on writing English which is now being serialized in the magazine Kogyo eigo. It is also possible that Leggett's ideas about "patterns of thought" may have suggested to Shimomura and Doi the words "ishiki no kakumei" which they use in the title of their monograph. Two sections of this monograph have already appeared in the November and December, 1983 issues of the magazine.

In the November, 1983 issue of Kogyo eigo, Shimomura and Doi advocate writing English (or translating into English) on a paragraph basis. Rather than translating "word to word" or "sentence to sentence," they argue in great detail that one should grasp an English text in terms of paragraphs. (Kogyo eigo, November, 1983, p. 18–21)

Shimomura and Doi also say that the personal pronouns "I," "you" and "we" are never used in English scientific and technical writing. This is, they say, because there is no such thing as scientific and technical writing dealing with individual persons. (ibid., p.25–26)

Ferd T. Stoer, Jr., also discusses this question of personal pronouns in an article "Writing a technical paper in English? [V]" (Denshi Tsushin Gakkaishi, vol. 66, no. 5, May, 1983, pp. 480–482). He also comes out against the use of these pronouns but gives a different reason for not using them. This is the advice he gives to Japanese who are writing technical papers in English:

"One reviewer may have indicated that you should not use first person pronouns in your manuscript. These first person pronouns are "I", "we", "our" and "us." The reviewer is correct in his statement, of course. These first person pronouns are not to be used in your technical paper! (Even if you have seen them used in other technical papers, their use is incorrect, no matter who uses them!! And no matter what country the user comes from!!) The reason they should not be used is that their use would indicate that you think you are "superior" to the readers. Remember, you are not in any way "superior" to your peers who will read your paper, you were only fortunate enough to develop or discover something before someone else developed or discovered the same thing. These first person pronouns are easily omitted or replaced in your manuscript. Do so." (p. 481)

Ted Ohtani, a translator working at the AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, N.J., has a dissenting comment (dated November 18, 1983) on some of these words of advice:

In the November issue of Kogyo Eigo, I find an article "Eibun Sakubun wa Ishiki Kakumei de!" written by two authors. In this article the authors say something similar to what Mori is saying in the ninth issue of your newsletter. That is, they insist that we translators need to "rewrite" (mentally or physically?) a Japanese document to be translated because, they say, it is usually written in poor Japanese. Mori says that we may have to chop, shuffle, or combine original sentences to make a well translated document. I certainly agree with them in this point, but only to a limited extent. The Kogyo Eigo article proposes a concept of paragraphing. Do you remember English 101 you had to take in your freshman year? While I think I can totally agree with the author that each paragraph (a translated paragraph) should have a central theme. I really don't know to what extent I am free as a translator to restructure or create sentences which are absent in the original in order to make a better document. In other words, I want to hear from other Japanese-to-English translators concerning this freedom. Besides, who would be able to spend extra time to restructure an entire paragraph for the sake of translation? If someone who has written a draft in Japanese is asking me to put it into English and offering me the freedom to change whatever is necessary in the text, then, of course, I would be willing to follow what the authors are saying and would charge a lot for the job.

Another matter I want to ask other readers about concerns the use of "we" mentioned also in the same article. They say that there is no such thing as "we" in technical writing. The truth is rather contrary to their claim, as you know. Ferd T. Stoer, Jr. of NTT in Japan also says that we should not use "we." A funny thing about his view is that most of the IEEE's publications contain this "we," as I have checked. I am not a judge here, but a student who wants to learn about the use of this personal pronoun in technical papers. When I was working in a publications department at a national laboratory, one of the editors of the departnent told me that there was a time when they were to avoid the use of this word but it was changing. Some of the Bell Labs research people say that Steer's reasoning of not using we is a little bit absurd. Could you give me your authoritative advice?

I (DLP) am not on authority or a judge on the matter, either. First of all, I think Ted Ohtani may be misinterpreting and even trivializing Shimomura and Doi's arguments when he says that they (S. and D.) argue that translators need to "rewrite" a Japanese document to be translated "because it is usually written in poor Japanese." On the contrary. My understanding is that Shimomura and Doi are delving much deeper into basic cultural differences and are trying to follow through Leggett's line of thinking, which holds that there are differences in thought patterns between English and Japanese.

For example, Leggett writes: "In Japanese it seems that it is often legitimate to state a number of thoughts in such a way that the connection between them, or the meaning of any given one, only becomes clear when one has read the whole paragraph or even the whole paper. This is not so in English; each sentence should be completely intelligible in the light of what has already been written. Moreover, the connection between one thought and the next should be completely clear when it is read; for instance, if you deviate from the 'main line' of the thought to explore a side-track, this should be made clear at the point where the sidetrack starts, not where it finishes." (Leggett, op. cit., p. 791) And elsewhere, Leggett says: "Japanese seems to have a strong tendency to avoid too definite or assertive a statement, possibly because it is thought presumptuous to impose one's own views on the reader without conceding that there are possible alternatives. This notion is completely foreign to most Western readers, and they will usually be unable to make the 'mental jump' necessary to appreciate it; if you state your opinion vaguely because you want to leave room for various possible interpretations besides your own, they will often simply take this as a sign of vague and muddled thinking." (ibid., p. 792)

Obviously we are dealing here with cultural differences. Rather that concluding, simplistically, that the Japanese are writing "bad Japanese," we should try to reach a deeper understanding of them on the cultural level and recall that Japanese people do not like to appear to be assertive in stating their opinions, and that is why they prefer expressions which would appear imprecise, ambiguous or inexplicit to Western readers. They are not writing "bad Japanese"; they are just trying to be polite.

How much freedom does a translator have to restructure an entire paragraph so that it reads more smoothly in English? I don't know really, but I am sure we can all agree that it is necessary to break up the long sentences. There are fundamental differences between the Japanese sentence and the English sentence. Leggett writes: "...it is very much less wearing on the nerves to read a succession of short sentences, with the connection between each properly indicated, than to have to try to sort out a long and ill-constructed one. The shorter the sentence, the less the chances of serious ambiguity. So, if your sentence is more than 40 words long, you should think seriously whether you cannot break it up with at least a semicolon ...; as to the average length of a sentence, 20 words is a good average to aim at and even 15 is probably not too short. Remember in any case that the English sentence is a system of strictly limited capacity. It can tolerate only a few subsidiary clauses and these must all be fitted tightly into the sentence structure.There is no analogue of the Japanese 'suspensive' construction in English." (ibid., p. 793) (I think he means by "suspensive" construction a sentence in which there are numerous clauses each ending in the renyookei form of the verb, with a verb in the sentence-final position in the shuushikei.)

About the use of first person pronouns in technical writing, my understanding is that in very formal scientific writing (in both English and Japanese) the author(s) of a paper refer to themselves as "the author(s)." If they are referring back to themselves, they use the third person pronoun "they." In patents also, "I" and "we" are not used. The writer(s) refer to themselves as "the inventor(s)." Naturally, this sounds very formal and stilted, but that is the accepted practice internationally. On the other hand, I should think that in any type of informal writing, such as an in-house research report meant for private circulation among other specialists, an operator's manual, a catalog of products, or advertising copy, one should feel free to write in a more relaxed way and use the first and second person pronouns if that is appropriate. The practice may be changing in some fields, as Ted Ohtani points out. But, as we can see from Stoer's article, many editors still insist very emphatically on avoiding the use of "I" and "we" in formal scientific papers which are meant to be published in prestigious journals. What do editors at translation agencies have to say about this?

Finally, Ted Ohtani writes:

One last thing. Instead of complaining about bad Japanese sentence structures, phraseology, paragraphs, etc., we should tell Japanese Kokugo no Sensei to start teaching children how to write sentences that can be understood by other people. As you know, they spend so much time on literature and Keigo no tsukaikata, but not much on syntax. Of course, I am referring only to those materials written for purposes other than literary works including novels, poems, etc. I certainly don't want to read Matsumoto Seicho's novels with every paragraph starting with a conclusive sentence, in fact, a wonderful aspect of the Japanese language is that a sentence like "Watashi wa Unagi." is as perfectly correct as "Chotto sokomade." as a reply to a question: "Where are you going?"

Here again we come back to cultural differences. I'm not sure whether complaining to the Kokugo no sensei will do much good. The structures of the two languages are quite different, and translators should perfect techniques for translating them accurately rather than demanding that the Japanese change their language habits. I would like to mention some other difficulties in J-E translation which may be derived from structural differences between the two languages.

One of the perennial difficulties with Japanese-to-English translation is that a Japanese sentence does not require a clearly expressed subject. In English it would be almost inadmissible to have a sentence without a subject. We say: "I am happy." But in Japanese they say ureshii. That one adjective is a complete sentence and makes perfect sense. Even in Japanese scientific and technical writing, there are many subject-less sentences. The translator must either put them into the passive voice in English or else supply a subject for them, usually by getting it from the context.

Another type of ambiguity which I find frequently troublesome in J-E translation is the Japanese simple present tense, which Samuel E. Martin calls the "imperfect" or "nonpast" form (suru instead of shite iru). This tense can be used in a future sense, as in "Ore mo shinu" (I too will die). If a Japanese author says: "... ni tsuite kentoo suru," one can assume that he is probably thinking in a future sense and is promising that the matter will be studied, but a certain amount of ambiguity still remains. Sometimes a single paragraph will contain sentences ending in both the simple present tense (suru) and the past tense (shita). It would be impossible to assume that the sentences in the present tense had a future sense and the ones ending in the past tense had a past sense. They must all be in the same tense, otherwise the entire paragraph will not make any sense.

To amplify further what I said above about the differences between Japanese and English sentences, let me conclude this article by quoting the following delightful description from Samuel E. Martin (A reference grammar of Japanese. Yale University Press, 1975, p. 35):

Ōide...has compared the Japanese sentence to the furoshiki, that marvelous carryall kerchief which will expand or contract to just the size needed for the traveler to carry his belongings — and which can be tucked neatly away when not in use. It is of little concern that the contents may get rumpled in transit (or that the parts of the sentence may lose their overt signals of reference), since they can always be pressed out at the end of the journey (as the listener can infer the missing marks of reference). The English sentence, on the other hand, is like the unwieldy suitcase of the West — too big and too small at the same time, cruelly heavy, and cluttered with verbal coat-hangers piously designed to keep the contents unwrinkled to the very end of the journey.

This metaphor of the furoshiki and the suitcase seems to be a fairly good description of what we technical translators are trying to do when we translate Japanese sentences (or paragraphs) into English ones. We are trying to take items wrapped elegantly and delicately, but perhaps not very logically, in a furoshiki, rework them cruelly to conform to an alien standard of logical expression, and fit them willy nilly into an uncomfortable cluttered suitcase, a true Procrustean bed where all the nuances must be carefully spelled out and ambiguities must be ironed out. We chop, we shuffle, we squeeze, we wrench. Let's hope we do not impoverish the contents in this process.

* * *

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING

Richard Willis: "Big Blue Goes Japanese," BYTE, November 1983, pp. 144-163. A thorough description of IBM Japan's 5550 Multistation by Richard Willis (POB F, Goleta, CA 93116), who "heads a small consulting firm specializing in electronic systems for production test and control applications. He received his MSEE from Caltech in 1973 and has been studying Japanese at the University of California, Santa Barbara."

Lee Smith: "IBM's Counteroffensive in Japan," FORTUNE, December 12, 1983, pp. 97–102.

* * *

ALSO NOTED (IN PASSING)

"The Japanese Conspiracy," by Marvin J. Wolf (Empire Books, New York, 315 pages, $13.95). According to the Wall Street Journal (December 2, 1983), this book "at times flirts with the 'yellow peril' level of critique. But it is worth looking into for its carefully footnoted stories of some of the less savory approaches Japanese industry has taken to success."

"Kensei," a novel by Steven Schlossstein (Congdon & Weed, 320 pages, $14.95). A novel "about industrial espionage, racial competition and a Japanese grab for world domination." Unfavorably reviewed by Stephen Clayton in the Asian Wall Street Journal(November 21, 1983, p. 15). According to Clayton, the novel is being advertised massively and is coming out in an enormous first printing. "It probably will sell well in the U.S. and Europe, where concern with the Japanese threat and unfair industrial competition is now fashionable .... If it does sell, this book will be instrumental in miseducating a whole generation of pulp novel readers about Japan and the Japanese."

* * *

SOME NEW PUBLICATIONS

The Nikkan kōgyō shimbun Sha has compiled a directory of Japanese research institutions and will publish it in mid-December. The directory is called Nihon no kenkyusho yoran has 280 pages, and costs ¥18,000. It contains information about 276 research institutions operated by 155 companies. Government-operated research institutions are given in an appendix.

The 1984 edition of Gendai yogo no kiso chishiki (Jiyu Kokumin Sha) was published on December 2. This year's edition contains 35,000 words, two thousand more than were in the 1983 edition. The 1984 edition costs 1,980 and has 1,548 pages. More than 500,000 copies will be published.

The 1984 edition of Honyaku jiten (published by the publishers of The English Journal) was published on November 16. It costs ¥980.

Iwanami Shoten published on December 6 a new, third edition of its Japanese dictionary Kojien (editor Niimura Izuru). The new edition contains 12,000 new entries, including new words and slang words. 2,688 pages. Sells for ¥5,400 until April 30, 1984, after which the price goes to ¥5,800.

The Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, the 9-volume English-language dictionary containing some 10,000 items, went on sale on November 24. The cash price for the full set in Japan is ¥130,000 ($557.94 at a recent rate of exchange). Sets are currently available for $550.00 at Kinokuniya bookstore in San Francisco.

* * *

SOME COMMENTS ON RATES FOR TRANSLATORS
by John Y. Hung

A few years ago, I began free-lance translation work. I was translating highly technical articles from Chinese and Japanese into English, and I was very dismayed to be paid for &15/K. The work involved translation, typing the finished drafts, etc. Being very conscientious, I went to technical libraries to react all the reference work listed in the papers which I was translating, in English and other western (the ones that I have reading ability) languages. I found that I was averaging a fee equal to the minimum wage. It was, and still is, my personal belief that the translated work should read like a technical paper written by an author whose mother tongue is English. I think that the client should be aware that one always gets what one paid for. Translators should not demand unreasonable fees, if he or she wants work. On the other side of the coin is the fact that a good translator worthy of good fee would have to know both the source and target languages well enough to undertake the third element in this undertaking, the work to be tranel ated. It take a lot to be translating aerodynamics today. laser tomorrow, computer simulation the day after that, ...Obviously, this kind of work calls a great deal of knowledge and skill. I don't that just anyone who knows a foreign language and English would automatically qualify for translation work.

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THOUGHTS ON BEING A TRANSLATOR
by Jay Sordean

When I first started studying Japanese 13 years ago, it occurred almost as if by accident. However, I was hooked on the language, and it, along with "its" culture and people, have been close companions and friends ever since. It has been a door into new worlds and discoveries about myself and my capabilities. And having it, Japanese, as a tool, I've been able to make a living for many years and to pursue activities and adventures I've needed to. My friends and acquaintances related to my Japanese experience are also an important and vital aspect of my existence — they bring me joy and sadness, laughter and tears, gifts and the chance to give. You know, just the usual things life has to offer.

Moving right along to other realms of personal ramblings, I will say that Japanese translation provides me with an opportunity to help bridge the world of one abstraction to that of another; to follow in the footsteps of others in the age-old profession — the great scholars, traders, healers, teachers, spiritual questers — who created the foundation of today's "small world" based on international communication.

At this point I want to make an appeal for personal contact with others who are translating works or articles on acupuncture, T'ai Chi Chuan, or Kanpoyaku. I know of a couple of people doing this work, but feel a need for more communication with others. This field of Oriental medical translation is poorly (if at all) funded and seems to me to be riddled even more than the general field of translation with secrecy and lack of cooperative effort. Am I wrong?

I applaud the direction that Technical Translation newsletter is going as it helps to smooth off the sharper edges of competitiveness and secrecy within the translation profession and to open up access to information available to isolated groups and individuals in the Japanese translation field. It renews my feelings of satisfaction in being a part of a unique minority who've devoted vast amounts of time and personal resources to learning the hidden powers of language and in doing the best job of translating as possible, as behoves the integrity of someone who calls himself or herself a translator.

Jay Sordean
505 23rd St. Apt. 4
Oakland, CA 94612

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LETTER FROM ENGLAND

F.D.R. Apps of Ingatestone, Essex, writes (Nov. 29):

"I started off as an individual translator but business has grown to the extent that I regularly send quite a lot out. Obviously I think first of people here in England, but sometimes enough time is available to send work further afield. In particular, I am now translating a book about semiconductors and have some hopes of more work of this type. I have in mind rates of about 10.00 per 1000 Japanese characters (translation from Japanese into English) for this type of work.

"Another aspect which sometimes comes up is translation into Japanese. There is no particular problem in getting the stuff translated into Japanese, but the typing is quite expensive. I see from your newsletter that you and some other people have Japanese typewriters and would be very interested if you or anyone interested in producing typed translations of English into Japanese would write to me, giving a specimen of their typing and rates per 1000 English words and per 1000 Japanese characters. I don't get a lot of such work, but because I advertise quite widely for translation work from Japanese into English I inevitably get some the other way round. No doubt I might get more if I had some more possibilities for dealing with it. I look forward to hearing from your readers."

Mr. Apps' address is:

Ingatestone Translations
57 High Street,
Ingatestone, Essex CM4 OAT, England

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TRANSLATORS AND TRANSLATIONS IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: A SPOT CHECK

A copy of the above paper, by Ted Crump, was kindly sent by Richard Wilson of Stone Mountain, Georgia. The paper was presented at the 1983 National Convention of the American Translators Association, Atlanta, Georgia, October 20–24, 1983. The paper gives the rates paid to translators for government agencies and government-sponsored agencies. I would like to abstract some of the information of interest to our readers. It will be interesting to see how the rates compare with rates paid by private agencies in various parts of the country.

In September and early October, 1983 Ted Crump called various federal offices to find out how many staff translators they employed, what their grades are, what languages are involved, and so forth. He found that the U.S. Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS), 1000 North Glebe Road, Arlington, VA 22201, is probably the largest supplier of freelance work in the country. It contracts out to over 1,100 translators at this time. JPRS falls under the CIA, as does its sister organization, the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). JPRS deals with unclassified material, acting as a translation broker for the CIA and for other branches of the government. It saves the government money with this function, since it provides the translations at cost.

The total annual volume is now approximately 70 to 80 million words. The work is done entirely out-of-house. None of the staff translators translate. Russian is the top language, followed by German, then Polish and Spanish, and then Japanese, Chinese and French. Top dollar paid for out-of-house translations is for Sci-Tech Japanese and Chinese, for which up to $75 per 1,000 words (camera-ready) is paid. Top for Slavic is $50/K, for Romance $40/K. Contractors are not started at these rates; when someone applies for contract work he is first given a test and then, if the test is satisfactory, is offered work at a rate somewhat near the bottom. $22/K is the absolute "rock bottom"; translators who seem more promising may start at $25-30/K. JPRS likes to leave itself room for flexibility and to "bring the translator along." Some contractors with JPRS are said to make quite a good living. There is plenty of work, and those who can handle it are offered as much as they like. Contractors are compensated for time spent on research, paste-ups, etc., and a differential is paid for cameraready copy. An individual develops through a rate range, and when enough are bumping the top, the ceiling on that language is raised. There were increases in ceilings last year and again this month. Two weeks is the average time limit expected on turn-around.

In fiscal year 1983, $3 million was paid out to contractors. If this figure is divided by 80 million words, it yields an average of $37.50 per thousand, which, according to Ted Crump, is about double what one of the largest private translation agencies in Washington pays its freelancers. There is a limit on how much JPRS can pay an individual contractor in a given year. This limit is equal to the top step of a CS-15 salary, or $57,500. Translation in general is on the increase, and not on the decrease. Corporations dealing with the Japanese, for example, are requiring more translations and are competing with JPRS for services of freelancers. On the other hand, fluctuations of the economy do not affect the pool of available translators, some of whom fall back on JPRS when other work is not available.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Scientific Library - Translations Branch, Washington, D.C. 20321, uses only one contractor, Leo Kanner Associates, P.O. Jinx 5187, Redwood City, California 94063. Out-of-house translation is approximately 800,000 words per year. Kanner is paid $30-50/K, depending on delivery time (more paid for quicker delivery), with $53/K for Oriental languages being the highest fee paid by the Branch.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 600 independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20547, has no staff translators, although it administers approximately $80,000 – $90,000 of translation work from headquarters annually, with another $60,000 – $70,000 used by field centers. The translations are accomplished by Leo Kanner Associations and Scitran on Small-Business Set-Aside Contracts and consist of almost 400 technical translations per year with a total volume of about 2½ million words. $29–$52/K is paid, based on the delivery type. In one recent quarter 730,000 words were translated, comprising 79 technical reports, about of half of which originated in Russian. One-fifth were in Japanese, but this is not typical.

U.S. Army Foreign Science and Technology Center, 220 7th St., Charlottesville, VA 22901, has a staff of ten translators. For out-of-house translations, the FSTC tends to go to large contractors. At present it is paying $19-25/K for all languages except Japanese and Chinese, for which it pays $30/K. Four contractors, including JPRS, plus some active-duty military units, presently provide the out-of-house translations. Dollar volume is about $200,000 per year. The translations are considered "adequate."

Other agencies described in less detail in the paper (or which did not appear to do very much Japanese-to-English translation) were the Department of State, the Library of Congress, the Department of the Navy's Naval Intelligence Support Center, the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Census Bureau, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Voice of America, the Social Security Administration, and the National Institutes of Health.

* * *

PATENT DICTIONARIES

Besides the three patent dictionaries mentioned in the last issue, Don Cyril Gorham, Silver Spring, MD., adds the following:

Yukisato IIDA has published a companion volume to his Engl-Jpn dictionary. It is "The Japanese-English Dictionary of Patent Terms" (Wa-ei Tokkyo Yogo Jiten). The words "New Edition" appear on the title page; however, the introduction indicates that it was prepared sometime immediately before Apr 1982. The colophon states, simply, published 6/28/82. In any event, it is 265 pages long, and as in the earlier Eng-Jpn version, has sample phrases shown. The same Hatsumei Kyokai published it. Yen 3,300. No appendices in this one.

I have found, for my purposes, these two dictionaries by IIDA to be more than adequate. I like them.

* * *

MORE ON DAT, DATSUN

Don Cyril Gorbam, whose father was long associated with Nissan before World War II, writes (Nov. 23) about the etymology of Datsun:

The Economist had the story fairly straight. The three individuals concerned, all financial godfathers to the KAISHIN SHA (automobile company), Osaka in 1911 were: Kenjiro DEN (later a Privy Counsellor) for D, Rokuro AOYAMA (a childhood friend of the president of the firm - Masujiro HASHIMOTO) for A, and, finally, Akitaro TAKEUCHI for the I. These initials were used to signify the Jpn term Datto (the rapid hare, see Kenkyusha for more). The term DAT was applied to an auto as early as 1925, put out by the DAT JIDOSHA SEIZO K.K. In 1932, the NISSAN interests bought out the factory; the next year, DATSUN was so named for the reasons indicated in your item. NISSAN is this year celebrating its fiftieth anniversary.

* * *

電訳機

Sharp Corp., a pioneering manufacture of electronic calculators, in autumn of 1979 developed its first electronic translator using an extension of the "liquid crystal" electronic calculator technology which Sharp had developed in 1973.

Sharp's first electronic translator, called the IQ-3000, was announced in September, 1979. It uses four 12-kilobyte CMOS memory chips and contains a vocabulary of about 2,500 English words, about 300 English word combinations, and about 5,000 Japanese words written in katakana. The IQ-3000 has E-J and J-E dictionary functions, learning ("quiz") functions, and calculating functions. It uses a 5x7 dot matrix liquid-crystal display.

The next model, called the IQ-3100, was developed for use by Japanese traveling overseas. Marketed in May, 1980, it is a multi-lingual translator containing 152 conversational sentences useful for travelers and about 2,000 words. The sentences are in English, but by replacing language modules they can be translated into nine languages: Japanese kana, Japanese romaji, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch and Swedish.

In May, 1981 Sharp announced the IQ-5000 with voice synthesizer functions. It is able to output synthesized pronunciations of approximately the same words and sentences as the IQ3100. It also is aimed at overseas travelers.

Other models marketed by Sharp include the IQ-3020, which lacks calculator functions but has a 6,000-word vocabulary, increasable to 22,600 words by means of added modules; and the IQ-150 and IQ-200, which are small-size, low-cost electronic dictionaries.

The latest product in this line is Sharp's IQ-600 Voice Synthesized Dictionary, which has a 5x9 dot-matrix liquid-crystal display and contains 2,600 English words and 3,600 Japanese words. The pronunciations of 1,300 of the English words can be listened to with headphones. The IQ-600 does not have calculator functions but has quiz functions, can play 15 melodies, and has a built-in AM radio. It came out in February, 1983. "A word can he either typed into the unit's keyboard or spoken into its built-in microphone. The machine will enunciate a spoken translation while a written version simultaneously appears on its liquid-crystal display." It costs $290. (Omni, Nov. 1983, p. 28) (Nikkan kōgyō shimbun September 27, 28, 29, 30, 1983)

* * *

DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS ON JAPAN AND ON KOREA, 1969-1979
An Annotated Bibliography of Studies in Western Languages
Compiled and edited by Frank Joseph Shulman. Published Dec. 1982.
University of Washington Press, Seattle, Washington 98105
xvi, 473 pp. Cloth $35.00 Paper $14.95

This bibliography is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, annotated, classified listing of doctoral level research dealing with Japan, Korea, and both Japanese and Korean ethnic communities outside of Asia. It contains entries for 3,301 doctoral dissertations, indexed by author, degree-awarding institution, and selected subjects. The dissertations were accepted by institutions of higher learning in North America and Europe (including the USSR) as well as Australia, Hong Kong, India, Israel, the Philippines, and South Africa, between 1969 and 1979. Virtually all academic subjects are covered, ranging from anthropology, economics, and political science to history, literature, and the natural sciences.

The volume supplements the author's Japan and Korea: An annotated bibliography of doctoral dissertations in Western languages 1877–1969 (American Library Association, 1970).

* * *

CANON ANNOUNCES THE LEAST EXPENSIVE JAPANESE-LANGUAGE WORD PROCESSOR

Canon, Inc. has announced that on December 20 it will begin deliveries of its newest Japanese-language word processor, the Canoword Mini 5, which will sell for 298,000 ($1,278.97 at a recent exchange rate), considerably less than Fujitsu's My OASYS2, which sells for about ¥180,000 ($2,060.09) and has until now been the least inexpensive Japanese-language word processor. The Mini 5 will be a single-component unit resembling a typewriter with a built-in 24x24 dot matrix printer and a liquid crystal display (21 characters, one line).

The Mini 5 has a built-in system program, eliminating computer-type loading operations to start it up. The inputting operations and the kana-kanji conversion operations are separated (the system is called the hira-gaki nyuuryoku hooshiki). This means, apparently, that the entire text is input in hiragana, and conversion is performed later. The standard dictionary has 26,000 words. Documents can be stored externally by using an audio cassette deck. The printer is a thermal printer with an output of 20 characters per second.

How does the Mini 5 compare with the My OASYS2? The My OASYS2 uses floppy disks, and files can be stored and expanded. The Mini 5 does not use floppy disks, and the user must connect a cassette deck to the unit to store documents. On the other hand, the My OASYS2 printer has 16x16 dots, while the Mini 5 printer is 24x24 dots, offering a higher quality printout.

This year's market for Japanese-language word processors is predicted to amount to 80,000–100,000 units, as opposed to last year's 40,000. During the first half of the year, the major manufacturers (Fujitsu, Toshiba, NEC, Sharp, Canon, Ricoh and Hitachi) each claim to have attained sales records of around 10,000. Canon says that it intends to manufacture 2,500 units of its new Mini 5 word processor per month. (Nikkan kōgyō shimbun, Nov. 15, 1983)

* * *

GLOSSARY OF CHEMICAL TERMS

This is the second part of a glossary of terms on chemistry and allied fields contributed by D.A. Fraser, 22 Cresley Road, London, N19 3JZ. (See No. 9, p. 16-17 for my introductory comments.) Mr. Fraser will be glad to have corrections or confirmations.

guramisidin Gramicidin (pesticide)
gyakuryū reikyakuki reflux condenser
gurobā-san Glover acid
gurisu nuki grease extractor
gyōsyūzai coagulant or flocculant
hagiware stratification
haiatu counterpressure or back pressure
haidei slime or sludge
haiisi ligand
haii anion zyūgō coordinated anionic polymerisation
haiokisa Hyoxa (trade name for oxidant)
haitesuto high-test molasses
hakkinzi platinum loop
hakai enerugi breakdown energy
hakka gensyō whitening phenomenon
hakkin kaimen sponge platinum
hakuenka sublimated white lead
hakuti shori clay (treatment)
hakusō kuromatogurafi thin-layer chromatography
hakutoyu kerosene
hakuen white common salt
haku osi application of film coating
hangan slate, shale (版岩) or porphyry (ハン岩)
hankakōhin semifinished or intermediate product
hanseihin semifinished product
hansei kokusu semicoke
hannōkei reaction system
hasami shindō scissor vibration (during polymerisation)
hansui hemihydrate (gypsum)
haru seru sikenhō Hull cell method
hansyaritu reflexibility (coal)
happō sekkō porous gypsum
happōsei porisutiren expanded polystyrene (foam)
hanzyūgōtai prepolymer
hasikakezai crosslinking reagent
hasikake porietiren crosslinked polyethylene
hasseiro gas generator or producer
happō seikei expansion moulding
happō sutiroru styrene foam
happōtai plastic foam
hasseki color reaction (in spectrometry)
hasikakezyozai vulcanization activator
heikan ring closure
hassuizai water repellent
happō konkurito cellular concrete
hatunetsusei bussitu pyrogenic substances
henkaku shindō deformation vibration (in polymerisation)
hekisapurasu Hexaplas (trade name for polypropylene adipate)
hensei modification, denaturation
hidanseiritu specific modulus
hentaiten transition or critical point
hentaiondo conversion temperature
henzyō kokuen graphite flakes
hibiro paste (textiles)
hige kessyō whisker
hikyōdo specific tensile strength
hiraaki hakai tensile failure
hirōeki spent liquor
hizyūhakari hydrostatic balance
hogai extrapolation
hōkabutu inclusions (e.g. in minerals)
hōkōzokusei aromaticity
horuharudo Volhard synthesis
horutizan Fortisan (regenerated cellulose)
hōrō huritto enamelling flit
horogeruroso holocellulose
horumotion formothion (ag. chem.)
horyūsei reservation (of plasticizer)
hōsanishi sassolite
hōsyagarasu borax glass
hōsyasen jyūgō radiation-induced polymerisation
hozonryō preservative
fūkai weathering (of crystals), efflorescence
hōsyō bubble cap
huiton phytone (peptone)
huki-tuke spraying (of paint)
hukkyoku depolarization
hukugenryō submaterials (plastics man.)
hukkyū hosin reverse course
hukukakusan ambipolar diffusion
hukugō firuta multilayer filter
hukuketusgō multiple bond
hukusei ryūan ammonium sulphate as byproduct of coking ind.
hunmatu powder
hunzai dust (ag. chem.)
hunmutō graduating tower
hurabonoido flavonoid
hureon freon
hurisu (hanno ) Fries reaction
husenkōsei racemism
husitu gluten
hussan hydrofluoric acid
husso jyusi polyfluoroethylene resin
huronsan furonic acid
hurorisiru "Florisil' (in chromatography)
hutōeki antifreeze
hutōnetutai athermanous substance
huyō gasu lighter than air gas
hyōten reference point (on scale)
hyōtenhō cryoscopic method (of determining molecular wt)
hyōhakuhun chloride of lime
hyōzyun keiki calibrating device
ikō gensyō migration phenomenon
ikyoku kagōbutu heteropolar compound
india-pēpa cigarette paper or rice paper
infure-syon firumu blown film
ionkōkantai ion exchanger
ion syōsitu deionisation ion
kōkan maku ion-exchange membrane filter
irippe si Ilippe butter (fat)
isen migration (in dyeing)
isōkei bunkai heterogeneous decomposition
isyūkō easily enriched ore
itidan teishin one-stage drawing
itizi hannō first-order reaction
itiziku teisin uniaxial stretching
ityōken heterocyclic (compound)
kaatukan digeste
kado zyōtai transition state
kaburi scum (calcium)
kagō chemically combined (hydrogen etc.)
kagaku tyūtyaku chemisorption
kaibunsiki batch system (activated sludge)
kahōwa supersaturation
kaidansiki nōsyukuhō cascade concentration process
kaikan zyūgō ring-opening polymerisation
kairi kyūtyaku dissociative chemisorption
kairo hunsai pulverisation in open cycle
kaisizai initiator
kaisyoku cavity erosion
kaitō glycolysis
kaisituzai modifier
kaisituyu reformate
kaisitu gasorin reforming gasoline
kaikō deamalgamation
kakezuri suspension
kakōhi conversion cost (plastics man.)
kakuban diaphragm, membrane
kakusitu keratin
kakyō bridge-building, crosslinkage (polymers)
kami yasuri emery paper
kamotu yu cargo oil
kangen bunkai reductive cleavage
kannō kikan induction period of reaction (感応期間)
kannōsiken organoleptic analysis (感応試験)
kankōdo photosensitivity
kankazyūgō cyclopolymerisation
kankyō ōryoku kiretu environmental stress cracking
kannō hannō induced reaction
kanryū reflux, perfusion (biol.)
kangen nendo reduced viscosity
kanmizai sweetening agent
kanmiryō
kansiki kōri dry ice
kansō tikan dry-relaxed (fibres)
kantaru Kanthal (alloy)
kansyōsiki interference color
kanyu fish oil
kanzen gasu ideal gas
kanzen hiryō compound fertiliser
kanzen ryūtai ideal liquid
karagenan carrageenan
kara peretto color pellet
karanuri dry mixing
kari garasu potash glass
karisie natural Chile saltpetre
karubariru Carbaryl (ag. chem.)
karumosu Calmos (trade name for rubber compounding agent)
kasei hiryō compound fertiliser
kasi lubrication, oiling
kasia yu Cassia oil
katan carbonization
kassei odei activated sludge
kasui kairi hydrolytic dissociation
katōsei flexibility
katudōryō active mass
kayakuryō powder weight
keibisei very fine (microfine, micronized)
kazō pseudomorphism

* * *

CORRECTION

The English name of the Korean research institute identified by the initials KAIST is Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, not Korean Agency of Industrial Science and Technology (p. 3, No. 9).

* * *

Let me know if any of you turn up information which might be of interest to professionals working in the field, and I will incorporate it in another issue. Keep those tidbits coming in. Continue to address editorial correspondence to me. Readers in Japan will receive their copies from the Japan distributor. November 15, 1983

Donald L. Philippi
715 Tenth Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94118
(415) 752-7735

Distributor for Japan:
John D. Lamb,
Chumaru Danchi 2-913,
Chumarucho 1-1, Kita-ku,
Nagoya 462 JAPAN

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