Translation Assistance

[MBuzzy]

Anyone up for a challenge? My dad found these while going through my grandfather's WWII stuff. We tried an American Japanese linguist, but the characters are in an older Japanese kind of cursive. We would LOVE to have this translated if anyone can help at all.....

 

[David43515]

One of the English teachers I work with teaches Japanese writing as well. I`ll see if he can figure it out.

 

[David43515]

Okay, I talked with the English/Shoji teacher I work with a the high school. He couldn`t read them and said that most modern Japanese probably couldn`t either. So he called over the Japanese Grammar teacher to look at them. He said he hadn`t seen some of those characters since college, but he was able to give me a translation. The style of writing is very old, but also some of the charaters themselves are Chinese and not commonly used in modern Japanese, just in old literature.

The top flag: read from right to left "Fighting Luck Forever". Actually the first charater means "strike" the 2nd means "destiny or luck" the 3rd and 4th both mean "long" and doublying them like that implies eternity.

The smaller skript on the bottom of the upper pic is mostly family names, probably the people in that unit.

I`ve got class. I`ll explain the bottom pic next period.

 

[David43515]

Okay, I`m back. I beleive Komura sensei said that the bottom pic has two literary phrases that both essentially mean the same thing. The way he paraphrased it to me was "muzukashi da no ni, ganbaraba, dekiru yo." (Even though it`s difficult, if you hang in there, you can do it. Or to put it more elloquently, If you persavere, you can overcome any difficulty.) This is just my rough translation of his translation though, it`s not exact.

 

[Carol]

Bravo :asian:

I had been looking forward to hearing the translation myself. Thanks so much for sharing

 

[MBuzzy]

Incredible! Thank you so much for your help! I'm sending this to my father and grandfather, I'm sure that they will be thrilled! Thank you so much!