Please comment on my translation of "Beginning is easy...

[Mei Mei]

Konichiwa, minasan, Happy 2010!

Me karate friend has asked me to give him the Japanese translation of "Beginning is easy, continuing is hard".

I tried to find it on the web, but had little luck.

I did it as: 初めは容易である, 継続は堅い (hajime wa yo i de aru, kei zoku wa tai)

Please feel free to correct my mistakes.

Arigato!
Mei Mei

[furrykef]

My translation would be:

はじめることはやさしいけど、続けることは難しい。
(Hajimeru koto wa yasashii kedo, tsuzukeru koto wa muzukashii.)

It's much more straightforward vocabulary and grammar, but it might not be the best translation (especially in a karate setting). So I'd definitely wait for other opinions.

By the way, you misspelled "konnichiwa" in your post. ;

- Kef

[becki_kanou]

Kef is right, but I would use 簡単 rather than やさしい. That's purely a style choice however, and his translation is not incorrect.

One word of advice: be careful when using dictionaries and check the example sentences to make sure you have the correct sense of the word. The word you chose to translate hard (堅い) means hard as in "solid or firm", not hard as in "difficult".

[two_heads_talking]

would 開巻 【かいかん】(opening) also be a good way to state beginning? I seem to remember that kaikan means opening (as in opening of a play, start of a church service, start of a practice/excercise), am I misremembering?

幕開き 【まくあき】 is also another work that I seem to remember for the beginning of a festival or event or for the raising of the curtains..

perhaps I'm looking for the opposite of 閉会会 【へいかい】


would that be 開会 【かいかい】?