Problems with Japanese-translated English

[Nana Kato <nanakato -at- MA4 -dot- JUSTNET -dot- NE -dot- JP>]

Hello to you TECHWR-L subscribers!

 

I was allowed to join TECHWR-L only yesterday. Since I'm a VERY native

Japanese translating Japanese technical manuals into English,

I'm not sure if I'm an appropriate participant in this list.

However, I believe some kind subscribers would help me

and I may be able to offer some knowlege concerning

matters of Japan or other things in return.

 

I have typical problems in English that are often seen in

Japanese-translated English. (Many of you may have

seen funny (frustrating?) ones.) In addition to my shallow

understanding of English, a major factor that makes us

English hard to master is that we have few good reference

books on writing English. Most of the English grammer books

in Japanese are intended merely for students to get good grades in 

college entrance exams and are rarely practical. Even worse, with

their word-by-word meaningless translation style, they often

prohibit us from mastering natural flowing English.

 

So I thought it is a good idea to study English with style books written

by native writers for native writers and actually

bought some. (Chicago Manual of Style, Style by Joseph M. Williams,

The Elements of Technical Writing, etc.) They are very good books

and helpful. However I have furhter elementary problems, which

shall be naturally mastered by any naive people. I especially have troubles on

use of definite/indefinite article and use of prepositions. English

dictionaries help me a lot. But still they offer me only few examples.

I cannot tell for sure why some nouns go without "the" while

the same noun go with "the" in the same paragraph, or when descrbing

a grahical interface software, why "monitor" go with

"on" (on the monitor) while "window" and "dialog box" go with "in"?

 

The reason why such kind of things are hard for me might have

to do with my shallow knowlege on spoken English. But unfortunately

I can rarely have a chance to practice spoken English here in Japan,

I wish I could get reference books written by native people

for people with this kind of problems.

 

If any of you know books or other resources that will help me,

please let me know and I will very much appreciate you.

 

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Nana Kato
nanakato -at- ma4 -dot- justnet -dot- ne -dot- jp