If that is your aim and you wish to

communicate with your readers, then do so in ENGLISH!  

I agree with this. I think unnecessary japanese is jarring, especially if
the japanese word is used in a sentence with english grammar construct.
Japanese sentence construction and english ones are quite different, so
using japanese in that case just sounds wrong. However, chan, kun, san

etc

are hard to translate, so I usually leave it in. It's usages of
words/phrases like hajimemashite and arigatou that throw me, because

there

are perfectly acceptable english words which can be used in their place. 

	I have noticed that people who are learning Japanese tend to interject it
into their english sentences simply because they can.  Of course, this
generates a bit of confusion on my part, allow me to explain and you tell
me if this is unusual.

	Anime is in Japanese, which this mailing list, in general, cannot
speak/read/understand.  Thus, fanfics are written in english.  YET, people
insist on seperating certain words from translations and putting them in
japanese creating an incomplete translation.  For example, lets say Akane
is speaking to Ranma and he makes some passing comment about the
un-cuteness of her, so she says, "Why you insensitive little... RANMA NO
BAKA!"

	So tell me, if from "Why" to "little" is supposed to be in Japanese...
what language is "RANMA NO BAKA" supposed to be?

	This was always my problem with the universal translators in Star Trek. 
99% of all Klingons don't speak english.  So why, oh why, when a Klingon
commander is speaking to Picard and says, "Prepare to die!" is it followed
by "laQ!" which is Klingon for 'fire?'  Is the universal translator on the
fritz?  Or has it a knowledge of dramatic events and knows when to let a
verb or few through untouched?

	Anyway, before I go on too much of a rant, I still enjoy a bit of japanese
in the fanfics I read.  The honor suffixes make sense since I've seen
AnimEigo try to translate those and it's pretty bad, and maybe catch
phrases that everyone knows would be fine (Ranma no baka, for example), but
anything other than that gets confusing.  I had to stop my reading of
Together Again just to lookup what 'oneesama' means and I found that quite
annoying.  So, I implore future authors, be less... liberal, with your
japanese.

	(Not that I wouldn't read a fic that had lots of Japanese in it, mind you,
it just would annoy me a bit.)

Monica
-----

Adam Christopher Leigh
Omicron@sprynet.com