先日のブログ、
英語と日本語で書き初めて20回目だったんです！
My last blog was the 20th since I began to write in Japanese and English!
I was moved to notice that!
私がブログを英語でも書いてみようと思ったのは、自分の英語力向上のため。
でも、ブログは人が読むものです。
私の英語は、とても読んでもらえるものではありません。
そこで、私は日本語と英語で書いてから
毎回相方さんに英文をチェックしてもらってきたんです。
My idea of writing my blog in English too is to improve my English.
but the Blog is to be read by other people,
and my English is not good enough for that.
So I had my partner check my English sentences after I wrote in Japanese and English.
私が英語と日本語で書くのに時間がかかるのは、当然です。
ところが、思いの外、チェックにも時間がかかりました。
It's natural that I need long time to write in English and Japanese.
But checking it has taken longer than I expected.
彼が直してくれても、私の意図と違うこともあります。
すると、彼は、私の話をよく聞いてから、新たな表現を提案してくれます。
Even if he fixed my writing, it sometimes did not match my thinking so he would suggest a new phrase after listening to my explanation.
「それそれ！」というときもあれば、「私の日本語よりもいい！」というときもあります。
そんな場合は、私が日本文を考え直します。
There were some times when I said "that's right!" or at other times "it's better than my original Japanese sentence."
In such cases, I reconsidered and fixed my Japanese.
また、二人で時間をかけて考えても調べても
しっくりくる英語と日本語が見つからない場合もあるんです。
そんな時は、妥協できる文を見つけたり、
私が「もう削除！」と言い「そうしよう」と彼も言ったり。
Sometimes I and he considered about a good sentence for a long time with dictionary and PC, but we could not find a good way to write it.
In these cases, we found a sentence to compromise on or I told him "I'll delete!" and he answered "I agree.”
また、日本文と英文の違いから、私がノルウェーについて誤解していたことがわかることもありました。
And I sometimes discovered my misunderstandings about Norway by the differences between the Japanese and the English phrases.
読み手の立場になってみると、日本語と英語でちょっと違う文章にしたこともありました。
We sometimes had to select slightly different sentences for Japanese and English readers.
この20回は、文章で日本語と英語を近づける作業、二人の協働によってできていたんです。
So these 20 posts each came after working with the text to get the English and Japanese close, through cooperation by both of us.
日本人も他の国の人も私のブログを読んでくださっているのが、とっても嬉しいです！
彼は、私のブログで日本語をちょっぴり勉強しているのだそうです。
私は英語はもちろん、日本語の語彙力、表現力も磨かないかん、と痛感。
I'm so happy that Japanese and people from other countries are reading my blog.
My partner has learned a bit more Japanese through my blog.
I want to improve not only my English vocabulary but also my Japanese vocabulary and phrases.
というわけで
That is why...
私たちは、お祝いでオルハーレンというパブに行きました。
We visited the Olhallen pub for our celebration.
ここは、トロムソのマックというビールの醸造所直営のパブでとっても古いんです。
自前のマックビールを含めて80種類くらい置いてあって、びっくり！
It is a very old pub owned by the Mack Brewery in Tromso.
There were 80 kinds of beers including original Mack beers there so I was surprised!
乾杯！
toast!
skaal!（in Norwegian)
そして、私の相方さんからちょいと補足です。
And this is an appendix from my partner:
I'll try to explain the process I use when we edit the English part of the blog. The most important point is that although I obviously check for spelling errors and grammatical problems, I don't always try to change the sentences to how a native English speaker would write them. I try to leave the text as-is as much as possible, even if it is sometimes stretching the English language a little bit. This is because I want the "voice" to be hers, not mine, and also because we want the Japanese and English parts to match as much as possible, and writing the text on a line-by-line basis with Japanese followed by the same content in English. It is meant to be easy for Japanese students of English to relate to the English text, and the other way around for students of Japanese (like myself).
