Snowblazer

Hello all, I'm currently writing a story that takes place in Tokyo. Sadly I know nothing of the language or city for that matter. I can find information about Japan eaisly, however I'm not very good at learning languages. So does anyone know of any books or websites that can translate sentences into japanese using romaji?

cunning_stunts

Hello!
Sorry, I don't know of any books that can translate things into Japanese, and the translation websites are pretty poor quality.
You are here already. Why don't you tell us what things you want to say in Japanese and maybe someone here can help you.

cricket

Hey,

Good for you on writing! That can be quite a daunting task, especially if you're trying to write about a place you've never been, in a language with which you're unfamiliar. =)

It might be better not to worry about having whole sentences of Japanese among what I assume must be your English prose. Having long sentences of a different language in your prose can prove jarring to your readers. Why not find a way to work around this issue?

If your characters don't understand Japanese, it's just going to sort of wash over them like a waterfall. They may catch syllables here and there, maybe a familiar word, but for the most part it's just going to be nonsensical sound. Watch a movie in a language you don't understand, and you'll see what I mean.

If your characters have a translator, have them relate to native speaker through the translator. e.g. The policeman said something to our tour guide Natsuko in Japanese. Natsuko nodded gravely and then told us, "The trains are no longer running, and probably won't for the next couple days. There's been a severe earthquake and the tracks have been blown up by angry unemployed ninjas. It seems like we'll have to walk home in the rain."

If they're fluent in Japanese, don't bother translating stuff into Japanese. Just write it in English. Your readers should gather, based on the local, the nationality of the characters, etc. that they're speaking Japanese.

If you have your own reasons for wanting to put Japanese in your story, that's completely fine. These were just some ideas to hopefully speed things along, where you didn't have to worry about translations, etc.

Anyhoo, good luck with your story. =)