If you stick to the big bestsellers, the translations will be very good. The novels and movies will be better than video games. Except, Blizzard. I would assume Blizzard tends to do a better job on localization because they usually contract that work out to a Japanese publisher.

I have both The Hobbit and Harry Potter in Japanese form, and I've glanced through some of the Lord of the Rings books. Those are all fine. I've talked to a few Japanese that have read the Japanese version of The Audacity of Hope, and they haven't complained.

For books and movies, the localizations tend to be handled by foreign distributors and publishers. Those publishers and distributors make their money by making sure that popular novels/movies in English and Japanese are made accessible to the Japanese market. So, I wouldn't really worry about those.

I would worry if it was stuff from smaller publishers or distributors that want to do their own thing in-house. For the most part, anything you could go and pick up off the shelf in any Japanese bookstore is going to be A-OK. Anything that you could see at the Japanese cinema(most big American movies) is going to be okay.

Be careful with studying from translations, though. Realize that sometimes in order to capture the meaning, they may not be using the best or most standard Japanese. They may change the meaning slightly. You should supplement your study of translated novels with study of native books just to be safe.

Also, except for Harry Potter, the novels you listed are going to be kind of difficult for someone not at upper-intermediate level. For your first novel, I would suggest starting with something light, that is available easily in the English version to compare if you get lost. I suggest Le Petit Prince(The Little Prince, 星の王子様) because most versions of it are in the public domain. The older Japanese translation is good, but it's kind of difficult to read compared to more modern Japanese. If you buy the current Japanese version from Japan, it is very cheap, around 350円, and there's an English version available for free in the public domain that you can compare with.

It's a great first book to study for any foreign language. It's cheap. It's available. Most of it is easily comprehensible, but there are tougher, more philosophical, parts throughout the book. It's short, so it won't feel like you're slogging through at the beginning. Your first foray into Japanese novels is going to take you some time to understand and finish. Le Petit Prince, being a short book, will hopefully make you less discouraged than if you had picked up something like Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings might be the toughest book you listed. It can be difficult to read for native English speakers at times. The Hobbit, though, is less that way.

Last edited by erlog (2009 May 20, 10:41 am)