Ahmet Simonov

(Hiroshiro Takagi / Photo by Hidemichi Kakuwaya / Special to Kyodo)

Hiroshiro Takagi is the founder of the Japanese-English translation club, and the main translation assistant for the Japanese-English translation group Jigoku Kanzentakure (‘The Japanese Society of Translation’). “At times Japan is not as friendly as we would like, but sometimes the Japanese aren’t so friendly,” he says. Takagi was born in Japan, so this is his first time coming to the US. “It is a really great feeling to share a language with people who speak your language at home but have no idea how to pronounce your own.”

And in addition to all that, it’s important to Takagi because that’s how he learned to love translating. “Japanese people usually love it when I translate books. Even if they don’t understand the Japanese words the first time, they like that I know how to spell them, so I always try to do that again after they understand me.” Takagi has a master’s degree in Japanese studies. “I translate when there’s something I’d really like to read and it might not be translated in English, but I want to read it.” And then he’s off to the next person, no matter how bad, or even if they don’t translate to him at all. “There’s always someone you want to meet, someone you want to ask about a new book or a new movie, someone who you want to get to know more with your language.”

(Hiroshiro Takagi photo by Karen Bunch, photo via Hirohiko Takagi’s Facebook page)

“It’s like if you read a book in English, you want to know what was actually said in this book or at least understand the plot,” says Takagi. Because Japanese readers understand words much deeper than English speakers and so the books are much longer, Takagi has to write his translations by hand, even though it’s not difficult to translate Japanese into English. “My life is a whole lot slower than it is in English because it’s so much harder,” he says. “For instance, I was reading these books for the first time and I was a bit nervous because I was still learning Japanese.” In reality, it’s an amazing thing for Takagi, because in addition to translating books, he’s an advocate for Japanese language