Can you read the Japanese section of your JKA certificate? Neither could I when I first saw mine. What the heck did it say? After taking three years of Japanese lessons and then studying an additional two years in Japan, I sat down and translated mine. I went over the translation with my Japanese coworkers to see if I got it right. They agreed that I understood it pretty well.

To spare you having to learn Japanese just to read your certificate, I have scanned in and made an image from my own certificate and have also included scans and images of other people's certificates. Below, you'll see a copy of my 3rd dan certificate I received in Japan, and also a copy of a typical JKA/WF certificate from the year 2001. The pertinent data has been removed from each document , so you won't get confused about which parts are the filler and which parts are the actual data. These are blanks.

A Japanese certificate issued in Japan to a Japanese citizen is landscape instead of portrait, and only contains the Japanese portion. To the left, you will see a scan of a typical Japanese issue certificate. This is my 3rd dan certificate with my personal information removed. You can see that the only English on it were the letters JKA in the now obsolete logo of Asai's JKA - now the Japan Karate Shotokai. If your certificate has English on it like the examples below, then it is an international certificate intended for use by non-Japanese.

When reading your certificate, don't forget that Japanese is traditionally written top to bottom and right to left. So the words on the right are the first you read, and the words on the left are the signature.

Dai___go. These two characters literally mean number - they usually surround a serial number. The number of your certificate goes between these characters. They both are placeholder words such as the English word "No." as in "No. 2."

Sho - this character means "proof." It is an abbreviation of the word "certificate" in Japanese - shomeisho. Some certificates actually spell out Shomeisho with all three characters.

Inkan. To the upper left of sho is an orange square stamp with characters squashed up inside of it that acts as a signature in Japan. They are common, but not completely necessary. Many Japanese usually write their names rather than use these old-fashioned stamps. This one says "Japan Karate Association." Read it from top to bottom, right to left. It says NI-HON (Japan) KARA-TE KYOU-KAI (Association).

yu-sha shin-sa no kek-ka sho-dan ni retsu suru. The big sentence that contains your rank should appear immediately to the left of your name, written vertically. This sentence says - [your] superiors' examination results: line you up with shodan ranks. If the space at the top of the left column where the character sho is appears on a certificate is blank, your certificate does not have the rank filled in. It is very common for Americans filling out the English section to not know what goes in the Japanese section. It is also common for Japanese living in the West to think, "They cannot read Japanese. They don't care." and leave it blank. They never counted on someone like me showing up and explain to you what your certificate says!

Hei-sei ___ nen ___ gatsu ____ nichi. basically this is the date stamp on your certificate. The first two characters are Heisei: the name of the current Emperor of Japan. The year in Japan is calculated both by Christian era and the number of years that the Emperor has been on the throne. The Emperor's year is the more formal of the two. The current Emperor began his reign in 1989. The previous Emperor, Hirohito, went by the name Showa, and began his reign many years before. 1989 was both Showa 64 and Heisei 1. The month, which is represented by a number and gatsu, and the day, which is represented by a number and nichi appear next.

Shadan Houjin Nihon Karate Kyokai. Corporate Japan Karate Association. It's funny how when this

is written in such beautifully exotic Japanese calligraphy, everyone wants to embroider it on their belts, uniforms, jackets, and t-shirts. But basically, it says JKA, Inc. It's like wearing the logo of any company. The JKA was the world's first documented commercial karate operation. Quite a few Shotokan enthusiasts are in a bit of denial about that. Nakayama, the late Chief Instructor, helped open the first commercial karate operation intended to pull down a profit in 1955. The instructors there were the first true professionals who sold and marketed their karate training. When it comes to commercializing karate, the JKA takes the cake. It is very ironic to read or hear comments from JKA enthusiasts about how selling karate is wrong, meanwhile, the registration fees they pay for ranks are channeled, supposedly, back to Tokyo to help fund a four story complex with 20,000 feet of training space in which non-Japanese are only somewhat welcome.

To the left is a complete suffer ticket filled out from top to bottom. I used red letters to represent the portions that should be filled out for you. They are the most likely portions to be left blank when you receive your certificate. Check your certificates to see if they are completed correctly. If they are not, return them to your instructor and ask for a refund or a corrected copy. They will most likely happily issue you a new copy. I am aware that the red text in some of the fields to shown on the left is Japanese gibberish. I didn't feel like spending an hour hand-crafting a fake certificate. I think this gets the point across just fine.

The only part of the certificate that I did not cover is the authentication inkan. The little round-ended stamp in the upper right corner is intended as a form of authentication that the certificate is correct.

The little stamp that is circled is an inkan, a signature stamp with some characters in it. The stamp is stamped half on one certificate and half on another certificate or other document. The purpose is to allow the "home office" to authenticate the certificate by holding the two up to each other and seeing the stamps line up appropriately.

Notice the graphic to the left shows a certificate overlaying a sheet in a records book. Elmar Schmeisser suggested that this is how the authentication stamps are used in Cha-no-Yu, and therefore they probably work the same way on karate certificates. The certificate, if this is how this works, is laid even with the line your record is entered on, and then the stamp is applied half onto the certificate and half onto the record book. That way it can be lined up with the record to ensure that it is authentic.

I tried to make this graphic look like a certificate laying on a page in a record book with red half-stamps next to several example names. Another Guy and Some Guy and myself all have red stamps to match the other half of the stamp on our certificates on the page. That way, a copy of the certificate does not have to be kept.

The certificate could just be stamped while laying on a document such as your signed application. The other half of the stamp just needs to be "somewhere" for the authentication to work, although I think it would work best if used as in the above example. That way a copy could be made and sent out on demand from the retained original with the other half of the stamp.

Now you can read your certificate! If more people could read their certificates, there would be an increase in quality control, I think, due to the annoyance of having to do them over again. For the sake of everyone who gets one, send yours back in if it is incorrect or if it has blanks.