Translation help!

[ahad2k111101]

Hey, guys...

I've recently signed up and am working my way through the Newbie lessons. However, I came across this cute little Japanese childrens book, and I thought, that would be a great way to practice!

However, even at the very young level, I'm finding that translating some of the sentences is trickier than I expected. Even if I do know all the individual words, I can't get some of the sentences to make sense to me.

For example: The name of the book is "O Saru no Mainichi" (Sorry, I can't get my cellphone keyboard to do hiragana). My first thought was, "The monkey's every day", but that doesn't really make sense. Looking through the book, I can see it seems to go through a typical day in the life of this monkey. So, should it be "The monkey's typical day"? Or is there another word that's implied (there seems to be a lot of inference in Japanese)? "The Monkey's Everyday (Routine)", perhaps? It's frustrating that I encounter this big of a problem right off the get-go.

If anyone is interested in helping me with this and possibly future baffling first grade sentences, I would greatly appreciate a reply!

Arigato gozaimasu

[Teabag]

Looking through the book, I can see it seems to go through a typical day in the life of this monkey.

I like this one, "A Typical Day in The Life of The Monkey!"
I assume this book then describes how this little monkey spends his days, or maybe days of the week(?).
My native language is Chinese.
We learn days of the week with a Chinese chant about monkeys in our childhood.
It takes time to translate it into English as it rhymes!

As for the title of the book, I reckon you're right spot on!

[ahad2k111101]

Thanks for the quick reply. I have a lot of respect for someone who's native language is Chinese, but can still use words like "reckon".

And though I appreciate the approval, I'm still somewhat confused: I gave several possible translations for the title, none of which seemed adequate to me. Which of those did you reckon was spot-on?

Aaron

[Teabag]

And though I appreciate the approval, I'm still somewhat confused: I gave several possible translations for the title, none of which seemed adequate to me. Which of those did you reckon was spot-on?

Sorry about the confusion.
I meant your idea of "A Typical Day in The Life of The Monkey" was right spot on.
However, I'll probably use "A Day of A Monkey" as the title as it is briefer and sounds more powerful.

[community.japanese]

Aaron-san, Teabag-san,
kon'nichiwa

I agree with Teabag-san: "Typical day of a monkey" seems to be a spot-on translation!
We use the word "mainichi" like this title to imply it's a routine and a monkey (in this case)
does those things "everyday". In daily converstaion, we might also use the word "nichijou" and "ichinichi"
to mean the same thing, like "kore ga watashi no nichijou desu"
meaning "this is what I do everyday (my normal day or typical day)".

Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com