Hello everybody.
I am a brazilian writer currently engaged in the task of learning Japanese. It's been three tough years now, but it has been mostly an enjoyable task.
Me and another classmate of mine are working on a book to distribute among our classmates and other japanese students of our school just to have as a reference and maybe inspire other people to learn this amazing language.
He will be drawing simple illustrations, and I will be writing and editing the book itself. Once done, it will be sold at production cost (hopefully no more than $10), and it will also be available on the web for free.
What I ask of you is some help with the text. I assume you are fluent in Japanese. So, if you are, I ask if you can read it and see if it's okay the way it is, and give some suggestions.
The book will come initially in four languages: English, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish. Each word will have it's own color, referring to the word that express the same thing in the other languages.
This is how I plan it to be:
昔々、
一つ夢を見ました。
A long time ago, (I)
had a dream.
Há muito tempo atrás, (eu)
tive um sonho.
(...)
Take notice that the references are not meant to be strictly grammatically correct, but just to act as some orientation for people just starting with the language or that have never had any experience with it yet.
I also understand there's no need for 一つ when talking about the dream... I put it there to sound more poetic.
Take a look at the cover (click here); it does look inspiring and poetic that way, doesn't it?
Despite it having Kanji, there will be furigana to guide those who haven't studied it yet.
I thank you for your help in advance.
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一つ夢を見ました
昔々、一つ夢を見ました。
A long time ago, I had a dream.
私は豹を存在しました。
I was a leopard.
私は、素敵な豹を存在しました。。。
I was an amazing leopard…
自由にサバンナで走りました。
I ran free across the savannah.
良かったですよ！
It was so good!
その時、チターに始めて会いました。
Then, I met the cheetah for the first time.
チターは私より素敵でした。謙虚でしたから。
The cheetah was more amazing than I was. That’s because he was humble.
私が悲しくなりました。チターの同伴にいませんでした から。
I was sad, because I didn’t have the cheetah’s company.
私は、恥じ入りました。だから、遠い場所へ逃げました 。
I was ashamed. Therefore, I ran to a faraway place.
分からないのは、チターが私の後ろに来ました。
Without knowing it, Cheetah came after me.
チターは私を感嘆しました。私は他の豹を存在しません でしたから。
私の心に慈愛がありました。
Cheetah admired me, because I was not like the other leopards.
There was compassion in my heart.
私とチターは友達になりました。いつも一緒にいました ！
Cheetah and I became friends. We were always together!
一緒にいましたから、私達はもっと素晴らしい世界の霊 感になりました。
Because we were together, we became the inspiration of a more splendorous world.
そして、世界はより優れた所になりました。
And the world became a better place.