ReadOasis Step 2
(Part 3)

Grammar and vocabulary also make a difference. In English, you can say this strange sentence. “The man bit the dog.” This sentence uses five sound units. But look at the Japanese version. “Otoko wa inu o kanda.” In Japanese, the sentence uses ten sound units.

The point is this. The Japanese haiku form is hard to translate into English. Sometimes it works, but most of the time it doesn’t. If a writer counts sounds, she ends up focusing more on the form. If a writer foc...