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1. RV Life
If you drive around Japan, now and then you will probably see a small RV, a recreational vehicle. Small RVs are like little cabins for camping. They are small, but they have space for sleeping, showering, and cooking. Those of us at Aaron Says have never seen a 40-foot RV in Japan with a toad, but you can see them in America. A 40-foot RV would be slightly over 12 meters. A toad is slang for a car that you tow behind your RV. If you drive somewhere in a 40-foot RV, you will probably not want to drive the RV when you have to go grocery shopping. So, many people with RVs have a toad. RVs come in all sizes, ranging from under 20 feet up to about 40.
Some years ago, most RV owners were senior citizens. Today, however, Americans of all ages live and travel in RVs. Some people use them for vacations and other people actually live in them, spending their time traveling around the United States and Canada. If you are interested in reading about what it is like to live in an RV, take a look at http://www.rvtravel.com/. They have a great newsletter.
While most Americans live in houses and apartments, there are millions of Americans who do not. Some of live in RVs. More and more Americans are living alternative lifestyles today.
2. User
At Aaron, there are some words that we see used again and again. User is one such word. When Japanese to English translators translate 利用者, they normally translate it as user. Sometimes in English利用者 should be translated as user, but often it should not. If you take a look at Eijiro on the Web, which you can find at http://www.alc.co.jp/, you can find 116 examples of how
利用者 is translated. Many of these examples use words such as customer, consumer, and passenger. An ATM利用者 is an ATM customer, an オンライン利用者 is an online consumer, and a 航空機利用者
is an airline passenger.
In Aaron Says, we write only about specific examples if they are language problems that we see over and over again. How can you avoid making such mistakes when you translate? Well, possibly you can't, but certainly you can reduce the number of such mistakes. If you read more and more English, you will see more and more examples of the expressions normally used.
We have one other suggestion about reading. Most of us these days live exceedingly busy lives. We know that most people do not have the leisure time to read each day for several hours. However, most of us do have time to read a newspaper for fifteen minutes each day, just one article. Reading for just fifteen minutes each day equals a significant amount of reading at the end of each month.
As always, we recommend that you develop the habit of reading English regularly. You will become a better translator.
3. Parentheses
English translated from Japanese uses parentheses much more frequently than English written by native speakers. Native speakers tend to use parentheses less frequently for at least two reasons. The first reason goes back to elementary school. When we first start writing in elementary school in America we use parentheses often. They are convenient for sticking information in. So we use them. Then, our teachers from elementary school to higher education tell us not to use them so much. So, many Americans don't use them much because they remember their teachers telling them not to.
The second reason we do not use them is because they do not make for good writing, which is why our teachers tell us not to use them. Parentheses break up sentences, making them more difficult to read and understand. They are interrupters. They do have places that they should be used, but it is very frequent for an American writer to write for many pages without ever using parentheses. Most Japanese to English translations use parentheses. Instead of parentheses it is often possible to use a phrase with a comma, a separate sentence, or dashes.
Examples
Avoid the use of parentheses:
She was the youngest winner (at fifteen years of age) that year at the Olympics.
A phrase with a comma:
At fifteen years of age, she was the youngest winner that year at the Olympics.
A separate sentence:
She was fifteen. That year, she was the youngest winner at the Olympics.
Dashes:
She was the youngest winner -- at fifteen years of age -- that year at the Olympics.
When and how should parentheses be used? Of course, you can consult a grammar book for an explanation, but we recommend that you read English and see how they are used. The more you read..
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