English In Japanese Quotes & Sayings

Quickly, she pulls out a photograph from the same drawer. Two girls; one English, one Japanese. Their hair is in plaits, knees in the same position, peeking out under school skirts. There is no gap between their bodies. They look entirely different. Chinatsu is delicate, so flawless that she seems like a drawing, whereas Fleur is scrawny and ablaze with freckles. And yet, they look like sisters; the same posture, the same sadness in their eyes. She remembers that day. It was the worst and best of her life. — Sarah Dobbs

The Japanese have five different ways to say 'thank you' - and every one of them translates literally as resentment, in various degrees. Would that English had the same built-in honesty on this point! Instead, English is capable of defining sentiments that the human nervous system is quite incapable of experiencing. 'Gratitude,' for example. — Robert A. Heinlein

I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature the more the Japanese student must be astonished at the extraordinary predominance given to the passion of love both in fiction and in poetry. — Lafcadio Hearn

Good afternoon, class," he said.
I said a soft good afternoon, but no one else in the class joined me.
Dr. Green laughed. "I think my class is missing. Did no one show up today? I'll have to mark everyone as absent. I believe I said good afternoon."
The room chorused a low murmuring of 'good afternoon' in reply.
"This won't do," Dr. Green said. "I'm here to teach you Japanese. I can't very well teach you English, too. — C.L.Stone

Keiko, unlike Niki was pure Japanese, and more than one newspaper was quick to pick up on this fact. The English are fond of their idea that our race has an instinct for suicide,
as if further explanations are unnecessary; for that was all they reported, that she was Japanese and that she had hung herself in her room. — Kazuo Ishiguro

While Elstir, at my request, went on painting, I wandered about in the half-light, stopping to examine first one picture, then another.
Most of those that covered the walls were not what I should chiefly have liked to see of his work, paintings in what an English art journal which lay about on the reading-room table in the Grand Hotel called his first and second manners, the mythological manner and the manner in which he shewed signs of Japanese influence, both admirably exemplified, the article said, in the collection of Mme. de Guermantes. Naturally enough, what he had in his studio were almost all seascapes done here, at Balbec. But I was able to discern from these that the charm of each of them lay in a sort of metamorphosis of the things represented in it, analogous to what in poetry we call metaphor, and that, if God the Father had created things by naming them, it was by taking away their names or giving them other names that Elstir created them anew. — Marcel Proust

I love the Japanese director Shohei Imamura. His masterpiece in 1979 called, the English title was 'Vengeance is Mine.' — Bong Joon-ho

The best way to tell whether the Norwegian is a Norwegian is to say:
"Are you Swedish?"
Regardless whether you say this in English, French, Italian, Japanese, Urdu or Swahili, he will answer:
"Swedish? Me? I'm a Norwegian!"
Then you will be able to tell. — Odd Borretzen

Keanu Reeves learned a lot, respecting the culture. I was surprised when I first met him. He knew a lot already and he learned a lot. And also he learned Japanese. It's incredible. On the set, switching between the Japanese and English, even for us, is very hard. It's complicated. But the first time Keanu spoke in Japanese it was a very important scene between us, and more than the dialogue's meaning, I was moved. His energy for the film, completely perfect Japanese pronunciation. It was moving, surprising, respecting. — Hiroyuki Sanada

What does kiciciyapi mitawa mean?"
He kept his head on her breasts. "What?"
"You called me kicicyapi mitawa. It sounded so beautiful. It wasn't Japanese. What was it?"
"It's the voice of the Lakota. It would sound silly in English." He cupped her breast, his fingers moving lightly over her skin. His breath warm on her heart.
"I want to know. It didn't sound silly when you said it. It sounded ... beautiful. It made me feel beautiful. And loved."
He kissed her breast. "I called you my heart. And you are. — Christine Feehan

The Japanese garden is a very important tool in Japanese architectural design because, not only is a garden traditionally included in any house design, the garden itself also reflects a deeper set of cultural meanings and traditions. Whereas the English garden seeks to make only an aesthetic impression, the Japanese garden is both aesthetic and reflective. The most basic element of any Japanese garden design comes from the realization that every detail has a significant value. — E. J. W. Barber

Dad says there are more than three thousand letters in the Japanese alphabet, which could pose a problem. There are only twenty-six letters in the English alphabet, and I get into enough trouble with them as it is. — Rin Chupeco

Then he read the words of the scroll slowly, first in Japanese and then carefully translated into English:
'There is really nothing you must be.
And there is nothing you must do.
There is really nothing you must have.
And there is nothing you must know.
There is really nothing you must become.
However. It helps to understand
that fire burns, and when it rains,
the earth gets wet ... '
'Whatever, there are consequences. Nobody is exempt,' said the master. — Robert Fulghum

One feature of the usual script for plague: the disease invariably comes from somewhere else. The names for syphilis, when it began its epidemic sweep through Europe in the last decade of the fifteenth century are an exemplary illustration of the need to make a dreaded disease foreign. It was the "French pox" to the English, morbus Germanicus to the Parisians, the Naples sickness to the Florentines, the Chinese disease to the Japanese. But what may seem like a joke about the inevitability of chauvinism reveals a more important truth: that there is a link between imagining disease and imagining foreignness. — Susan Sontag

Consider the death of Princess Diana. This accident involved an English citizen, with an Egyptian boyfriend, crashed in a French tunnel, driving a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian, who was drunk on Scotch whiskey, followed closely by Italian paparazzi, on Japanese motorcycles, and finally treated with Brazilian medicines by an American doctor. In this case, even leaving aside the fame of the victims, a mere neighborhood canvass would hardly have completed the forensic picture, as it might have a generation before. — Mark Riebling

The secret of Soto Zen is just two words: not always so ... In Japanese, it's two words, three words in English. That is the secret of our practice. — Shunryu Suzuki

It's strange, but when I have to speak in front of an audience, I find it more comfortable to use my far-from-perfect English than Japanese. I think this is because when I have to speak seriously about something in Japanese I'm overcome with the feeling of being swallowed up in a sea of words. — Haruki Murakami

I have an all-Japanese design team, and none of them speak English. So it's often funny and surprising how my ideas end up lost in translation. — Pharrell Williams

Could the Burmese trade for themselves? Can they make machinery, ships, railways, roads? They are helpless without you. What would happen to the Burmese forests if the English were not here? They would be sold immediately to the Japanese, who would gut them and ruin them. Instead of which, in your hands, actually they are improved. And while your business men develop the resources of our country, your officials are civilising us, elevating us to their level, from pure public spirit. It is a magnificent record of self-sacrifice. — George Orwell

The big problem in translating is that we had to translate the language. People may not know that we record the podcast in Japanese, translate it to English and then actors play us on the podcast. I'm not actually Scott Aukerman, I'm the actor who plays his voice on the podcast. Unfortunately, it's cost prohibitive on a television show. — Scott Aukerman

I'm trying to talk to my kids in Japanese, because I'm not a pro English speaker. My wife speaks to them in English. That's her first language. I don't want my kids to feel the same as me when I was studying English. It was so frustrating. — Miyavi

I started to speak to him in his native tongue, "why would you want to sit with me?" He pressed his lips together, and his eyebrows screwed up. He ran a hand through his spiky black hair. "I don' speak Japanese," He said in English. "But My parents do." "Strange," I said. "A Japanese boy who only speaks English? — Rebecca Maizel

After the non-Japanese Carlos Ghosn was brought in by Nissan to turn around the struggling auto manufacturer, he made English the company's official working language. — Rebecca MacKinnon

The English and Japanese are the most inventive dressers in the world, but French girls are the most beautiful. I am still always amazed by the style of French girls, and the only reason is that they dress according to themselves and not according to fashion. They know what suits them. — Lou Doillon

What's that?' Thaniel said, curious. The postmarks and stamps weren't English or Japanese.

'A painting. There's a depressed Dutchman who does countryside scenes and flowers and things. It's ugly, but I have to maintain the estates in Japan and modern art is a good investment. — Natasha Pulley

Being hapa, or more specifically, half-Japanese half-Euro mutt (English, Irish, Scottish, Dutch, French, Welsh, German ... in case you were wondering), has definitely helped shape who I am. It's very cool to get to identify and learn about all these unique cultures and I think it's helped put the world in perspective. — Kina Grannis

Beneath the surface level of conditioned thinking in every one of us there is a single living spirit. The still small voice whispering to me in the depths of my consciousness is saying exactly the same thing as the voice whispering to you in your consciousness. 'I want an earth that is healthy, a world at peace, and a heart filled with love.' It doesn't matter if your skin is brown or white or black, or whether you speak English, Japanese, or Malayalam - the voice, says the Gita, is the same in every creature, and it comes from your true self. — Eknath Easwaran

My own view is that one cannot be religious in general any more than one can speak language in general; at any given moment one speaks French or English or Swahili or Japanese, but not 'language. — Susan Sontag

When I was a teenager, I thought how great it would be if only I could write novels in English. I had the feeling that I would be able to express my emotions so much more directly than if I wrote in Japanese. — Haruki Murakami

I write entirely in English; Tagalog chauvinists chide me for this. I feel no guilt in doing so. But I am sad that I cannot write in my native Ilokano. History demanded this; if it isn't English I am using now, I would most probably be writing in Spanish like Rizal, or even German or Japanese. — F. Sionil Jose

Increasingly, corporate executives who don't speak Japanese are coming into Japan. Unlike their predecessors, they expect their employees to be able to communicate in English. — Rebecca MacKinnon

the Japanese ministry of Education acted with inappropriate haste and unforgivable cavalierness, implementing drastic change before anyone realized what was happening. . . . In English it would be almost ad bad as enforcing a new spelling of philosophy as filosofee. — Minae Mizumura

America's new tea lovers are the people who have forced the tea trade to wake up. Elsewhere, tea has meant a certain way, a certain tradition, for centuries, but this is America! The American tea lover is heir to all the world's tea drinking traditions, from Japanese tea ceremonies to Russian samovars to English scones in the afternoon. India chai, China green, you name it and we can claim it and make it ours. And that's just what we are doing. In this respect, ours is the most innovative and exciting tea scene anywhere. — James Norwood Pratt

English is necessary as at present original works of science are in English. I believe that in two decades times original works of science will start coming out in our languages. Then we can move over like the Japanese. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

So you want another story?"
Uhh ... no. We would like to know what really happened."
Doesn't the telling of something always become a story?"
Uhh ... perhaps in English. In Japanese a story would have an element of invention in it. We don't want any invention. We want the 'straight facts,' as you say in English."
Isn't telling about something
using words, English or Japanese
already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention? — Yann Martel

Regarding R. H. Blyth: The first book in English based on the saijiki is R. H. Blyth's Haiku, published in four volumes from 1949 to 1952. After the first, background volume, the remaining three consist of a collection of Japanese haiku with translations, all organized by season, and within the seasons by traditional categories and about three hundred seasonal topics. — Reginald Horace Blyth

This conference on religious education seems to your humble servant the last word in absurdity. We are told by a delightful 'expert' that we ought not really teach our children about God lest we rob them of the opportunity of making their own discovery of God, and lest we corrupt their young minds by our own superstitions. If we continue along these lines the day will come when some expert will advise us not to teach our children the English language, since we rob them thereby of the possibility of choosing the German, French or Japanese languages as possible alternatives. Don't these good people realize that they are reducing the principle of freedom to an absurdity? — Reinhold Niebuhr

If I spoke no English, my world would be limited to the Japanese-speaking community, and no matter how talented I was, I could never do business, seek employment or take part in public affairs outside that community. — S.I. Hayakawa

A movie of mine is going to be released in Japan next year. I play a waitress who's a really regular girl in this movie. The English title isn't decided yet, but in Japanese it's I'll Get on the A Train Sometime. — Chiaki Kuriyama

During the 1980s, when Japan's economy was roaring and people were writing books with titles like 'Japan is Number One,' most Japanese college students didn't make the effort to become fluent in English. — Rebecca MacKinnon

God's side is determined not by geography, but by those who do His will. If Germans, English, Japanese, and Americans prayed right, they would all be praying for the same intention: Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. And what is that Will? The reign of Justice and Charity in the hearts of men. Through a prayerful contemplation of war we will see not soldiers of different nations in combat, but one great family, quarreling, fighting, wounding, and all in need of the peace and charity of Christ which we hope to obtain by our supplications. — Fulton J. Sheen