Japanese From Zero - Book 3 - Japanese Letter Translation.

It's been a while since I had time to post anything on my blog.  So with this post I hope to fix that issue.

I am still busy learning Japanese (very slowly).  So far I am still enjoying learning.  I have been reading through the Japanese From Zero Books series.

So far I am finding them very good.  I have read through Books 1 and 2 of the series.  They taught the reader Hiragana and Katakana, some very basic grammar, and a collection of vocabulary words.

Both books 1 and 2 followed the same format and were very clearly written.

I am currently working my way through Book 3 which moves on to teach even more grammar and vocabulary to the reader, but also starts the process of introducing Japanese Kanji to the readers.

So far I am enjoying Book 3.  As I was reading through it one of the tests of comprehension and understanding was to read Japanese vertical text, written in a hand written style.  I am more used to reading computer based font styles, so it took a few minutes for me to get used to the slightly different display styles.

So for fun I decided to translate the Japanese letter into English as best as I am able.  See below for a screen shot of the letter that I had to convert.

Japanese From Zero - Book 3 Translation Exercise.

Below is my English translation of the Japanese letter above.

0. To teacher Makami.
1. Hello, long time no see.
2. Is everybody well?
3. Everybody here is well.
4. Today Las Vegas is very hot.
5. Yesterday was also very hot.
6. It was our first time in Las Vegas.
7. (We) came from Japan 3 days ago.
8. It took 11 hours by plane to get up to Las Vegas.
9. My mother shops everyday.
10. The day before yesterday in the evening, my elder sister and I, at a shopping mall bought a cute mini-skirt and shoes.
11. (They) were very cheap.
12. My father likes to gamble a lot.
13. I don't have much money and because of that I do not like it.
14. (We) return to Japan tomorrow.
15. Well, please take care of yourself.
16 From Kudo and Mariko.

Okay, so that is my best effort at a quick translation.  I am not sure if I got it all right, especially line 16, but never the less I do like the translation tasks.

Later on it Book 3 it will ask me questions that I have to answer from the letter. So I can only hope my translation abilities are good enough to be able to answer the questions.  I may update this post with my answers if I get time.

I will try to post more often on my blog in future, but for now, I will consider this post complete.

Please feel free to comment on my post and correct any issues you find.