Translation
 

Hi,

I recently traveled to Japan and stayed there with a family who spoke barely any English. Now that I'm home again, I'd like to send them emails periodically in their own language (but I know as little Japanese as they know English).

So, would anyone be willing to translate a brief email from English to Japanese for me? It's only about a paragraph.

Thanks a lot :)

P.S. And if you're looking to practice your Japanese or you're just a really, really nice person, I will want to send more emails to them every month or so and if you wanted me to I'd ask you to translate them as well when I write them.

Perhaps you could try to post your own attempts at what you want to say here, and people can help you out.
Not only will posting your own attempts make people more willing to help you, but it will help you improve on your Japanese too.

This, of course, is the correct response.

It would be wonderful if I could do that, but like I said, I barely know any Japanese. I'm pretty much looking for charity. If no one can help me out, that's ok and I'll just mail them in English, but I'd rather they could read my mail without having to have someone to translate it for them.

I don't think that this request is too much to ask, unlike most others we get here.

I would suggest posting the paragraph here and maybe a nice person will see it and translate it for you.

The point is, if he doesn't understand enough of the language to write a short paragraph, he'll be coming right back for a translation of the reply, and then for a translation of the response and so forth.

To be honest, it would probably be best if you wrote to them in English to start, and as you study more Japanese switch over.

There are services you can pay for. (Although frankly I'm shocked by how expensive they are—I picked the wrong profession by being a lawyer! $1/word?)

Good luck getting it sent either way. Even though I bristle when people come on here asking for free translation services instead of free translation assistance, you seem like a good dude.

I'd post it here anyway if it's just a paragraph. I might do a rough translation for my own practice if it's not too long and not about the legal ethics in postmenopausal Russia including the czar qua czar via deconstructivist literature.

A dollar a word? Who is charging that much? That is outrageous!

A p p l i e d l a n g u a g e . c o m (url obfuscated to keep them from getting any boost on Google)

I just googled and the first service that came up I went to and got a quote for 100 words. It told me $120, but if I paid online it'd be $90.

That's pretty sickening for a 10 minute job... 20 maybe if you word it nicely.