Try It

• Bilingual English-Japanese Random Sentence Generator.

警告、注意、危険 - Warning, Be Careful, Watch Out, Danger

• Due to the nature of random sentence generators, there may be some unnatural-sounding sentences and some mistakes.
  文生成プログラムの性質のため、不自然さや、間違いがある場合もあります。
• These are computer-made sentences (コンピューターの作った文章), so they may not always be good sentences. However, if one language makes sense, usually the other makes sense, too.

Examples of "Less-Than-Natural" sentences / Errors / Mistakes / Bugs

* Even teachers must flash Stuart a quick smile here.

* ここでは先生でもステュアートに向かってちらりと笑顔を見せなければならない。

* He was coming home for hours.

* 何時間も家へ帰ていた。

* I choose a friend two hours every day.

* 毎日二時間友達を選ぶ。

About this Random Sentence Generator (この文章自動生成プログラムについて)

• For years, I've been experimenting with creating computer programs to produce English-Japanese sentence equivalents.
• I often update this program, so as the years go by, the sentences sound more and more natural.
• This is always "Under Construction" (工事中).
  • I often change the code and the variables used, often limiting the number of patterns so I can test different variables.
  • This means that the program you are using today may be different from the program you'll get the next time you visit.
• After trying my Random Setence Generator for a while, you can find others to see how mine compares by using this Google search:
  www.google.com/search?q=random+sentence+generator

Kanji Reading Help

• To help you read the Kanji, use Firefox with the Rikai-chan plugin. Both are free.
• Earlier versions of my random sentence generator also generated a Romaji version of each sentence, but with Firefox and Rikai-chan, this is no longer necessary. However, the challenge of getting the sentences into Romaji was fun.

Bug Reports -- Help Me Improve This

• If you see any bad sentences (strange or just wrong), please copy and paste the sentence pair into the bug report form. There is a link to this form on the "generator" page.

A Brief History of My Experiments with Computer-Generated Sentences

• Around 1983, I began writing monolingual random sentence generators, one in English and one in Japanese (Romaji) on the Apple ][ computer.
• Sometime before 1987, I began working on a bilingual English-Japanese random sentence generator on an NEC 9801 computer, after also writing monolingual random-sentence generators on this computer.
• Sometime before 1993, I wrote a Hypercard Random Sentence Generator For Language Study using HyperCard on a Macintosh computer.
• In 1998, I wrote Fun with Randomly-Generated Sentences in JavaScript.
• The English Sentence Machine, written in Flash ActionScript, is a cross between a "mad-lib" and a random-sentence generator.
• In 2006, I started the Perl version of a Bilingual English-Japanese Random Sentence Generator. A lot of the code was ported over from other programs I had already written. It was also possible to use a lot of the same raw data.
• A related project that I did was to write a random music generator -- not the totally random notes thing that you may have heard before, but something to produce natural-sounding music. I limited it to only producing blues and was able to get it to sound as if a human were playing the music.

What the Program Does

• English verb conjugation
  • Takes a verb like "swim" and produces: swim, swims, swimming, swam & swum.
  • Regular verbs follow all the rules and irregular verbs are all identified.
• Japanese verb conjugation
  • A little more involved than the English, though not as many exceptions to rules.
• Things in English
  • singular / plural
  • countable / non-countable
  • a / an
  • proper pronouns
• Things in Japanese
  • を、が、に、で、
• Examples of Problems Dealt With:
  • English has one form, but Japanese has 2 forms.
    • Brian swims. = ブライアンは泳ぐ。(Dictionary Form)
    • Brian employs 100 workers. = ブライアンは１００人の労働者を雇っている。 (TE IRU Form)
  • Counters in Japanese: １本、２枚、３匹、etc.
• ... more information to come ... (Almost everything a grammar book deals with, had to be dealt with.)
  • I'll add more to this list when I have time.
    It's more fun to spend my time programming than it is to write "about" pages. :-)