Japanese translations

The Japanese Translations of the Swallows and Amazons series were made by Jingū Teruo and Iwata Kinzō.

Japanese titles and their meanings in English

(Some of these names are really cool.)

1. Tsubame-gō to Amazon-gō = "The Swallow and the Amazon"
2. Tsubame no tani = "The Valley of the Swallow"
3. Yamaneko-gō no Bouken = "The Adventures of the Wild Cat
4. Nagai Fuyuyasumi = "The long winter holiday"
5. Ōban kurabu no muhosha = "The Outlaw of the Coot Club"
6. Tsubame-gō no denshōbato = "The homing-pigeons of the Swallow" (which is odd, since Swallow does not appear in the book)
7. Umi e deru tsumori janakatta = "To go to sea was not the intention"
8. Himitsu no umi = "The secret sea"
9. Roku-nin no tanteitachi = "The six detectives"
10. Onna kaizoku no shima = "The islands of the she-pirate"
11. Sukarabu-gō no natsuyasumi = "The Scarab's summer holiday"
12. Shirokuma-gō to nazo no tori = "Polar Bear and the mysterious birds" (Shirokuma-gou or "Polar Bear" is the name for Sea Bear)

Found in translation

see main article List of differences in Japanese and English versions

An interesting feature of the Japanese language is that words for kinship (brother, sister etc) usually denote relative age. Arthur Ransome's translators have determined that Jim Turner is Molly Blackett's younger brother and that Dorothea Callum is Dick Callum's older sister. These age relationships are not spelled out in the English versions, so the translators either needed to guess or deduce the age differences from context.

Some of the language is a little more colourful, for example Ted Walker's "Damn!" (as if he really meant it) (SW1) is translated into a word (much ruder in either language) which starts with 'S' in English.

Nancy's swearwords

Nancy's piratical outbursts are translated in the following way (equivalency determined by comparing the exchange at the ends of Winter Holiday and Nagai fuyuyasumi):

• Shiver my timbers! = Atariki shariki!
• Jib-booms and bobstays! = Odoroki, momonoki, sanshonoki!
• Barbecued billygoats! = tamageta, komageta, hyorigeta!
• Galoot = Tonmama