From scents, for example, “police dogs” pursue criminals, and “rescue dogs” locate people trapped under buildings in disasters, dogs play an important role putting their excellent noses to use.
I don’t think you need to worry about that. We’re not aiming to be Japanese translators. As long as you’ve understood the idea in your head that’s the main thing.
Hopefully with time we’ll just be reading and understanding it in Japanese, without translating in our head in the same way!
I agree with @Micki - most of us will not become translators! Personally I don’t even bother trying to make proper English sentences, and instead aim for the most literal ones possible when reading. I find this helps me better understand the grammar, recognise patterns across different resources, and focus on the Japanese more than the English
My first self-study text book, Assimil Japanese with Ease, had both literal and natural translations for every sentence - the literal ones helped me most. It used a format like this:
においが ながれてくる 方向も よく わかります。
Smell / [subject] / to flow - came to be / direction / also / well / understand.
Sloths are a creature that live in the jungles of Central and South America, hanging practically all day long high in the branches of the trees, spending their time resting idle and carefree.
それで、「ナマケモノ」と 名前が つけられました。
Because of that, the name “sloth” has been given to them.
Thanks for the comments regarding the odd sounding translations, I guess I just like it sounding correct, but by translating directly the Japanese meaning is clearer.
Edit: I wasn’t sure how to transcribe the interpunct - and hadn’t come across this in Japanese before.
Wow that め gave me some trouble in the middle! It’s a very weird grammar - a non-exhaustive list of three things, with や separating the first two, and then a comma separating the end two! I’m going to use the word “shoots” rather than “sprouts” in this context.
What’s funny though is that these exact words are in the most famous sentence in English about the role of the misplaced comma:
I would translate the first half a little differently: When eating, similar to when sleeping, it hooks a long hook-like claw from its front paw, and hangs from the tree’s branches.
Additionally, the body’s muscle is generally about half as much other animals, and they are not able to move around actively. (this sentence was tough and this translation is probably all kinds of wrong lol)
エネルギーを あまり つかわなくてすむ しょうエネの 体なのですね。
Not much energy is used, the body is surely conserving energy right?
ナマケモノは、あまりにも うごかないため、体の 毛に コケが 生えてしまう ことも あります。
The sloths advantage to not being able to move excessively, moss grows in the body’s hair.
By scent, police dogs can pursue criminals, or if disaster strikes a building and becomes pinned down, rescue dogs can track down people inside. A dog can make superior use of their nose for these important activities.
Still reading everyday! Thank you everyone to the more advanced readers translating here. It really helps me being able to check my guesses. The spreadsheet is also a big help for vocabulary.
This was a tricky sentence but the clue to it not being an advantage for the sloth is てしまう.
しまう after the て form of a verb means to do something with regret, or to do something completely. Here it has the regret meaning, so the sentence is saying “regrettably moss grows”.
So I would use the third Jisho translation for ため “consequence; result; effect”. My translation of this sentence would be something like “Due to the sloth not moving very much, moss can even grow on the fur.”
Nevertheless the moss turns out to be an advantage for the sloth, as the next page teaches us. A little ahead of schedule (but I won’t have time at Japanese midnight):
p. 59
でもこのおかげで、体は緑色近くなり、ジャングルの中ではジャガーやワシなどの、敵から見つかり難く安全なのです。
But thanks to this, its color is almost green, and it is safe from its enemies in the jungle such as jaguars and eagles which have difficulties to find it.
そんなナマケモノも一週間に一度くらいは木から下ります。
Such sloths come down from the trees about once a week.
Hadn’t read the next page yet and just quickly caught up on yesterday’s page over breakfast. I still wonder if the above sentence is using てしまう in the sense of regret. I guess it could be trying to indicate that the sloth is completely covered in moss?