Thank you, that does make sense. What a trip.
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勝ちに近いと思っているところだったが「ロン」と聞いた。
Translation
Just as I thought I was close to winning, someone said “Ron!”.
六万九千四百二十は本当に可笑しい番号です。
Translation
69420 is a really funny number.
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英語を話す国に、計算機科学の学生達が初めて作ったアプリは、 たいてい、モニターに"Hello World"が書けるアプリです。
翻訳 | Translation
In English-speaking countries, the first program computer science students write is usually one that prints “Hello World” to the screen.
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ほら！先生が聞かないふりをしている内に先生に関係がある噂を教えてね。
Translation / 英訳
Hey! While the teacher pretends not listen, tell me a rumour related to him, OK?
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妻にバスケットボールサイズなダイアモンドを買ってあげました。私の財布は現金がないけど心はお金持ちです。
Translation
I bought my wife a basketball sized diamond. My wallet is broke but my heart is rich.
I am open to corrections.
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Hi!
I think it’s perfect, your wife and your heart might think so too. Nice use of は in its contrastative role.
The only thing I would comment is that both バスケットボール and サイズ are names (名詞), so it should be バスケットボールサイズのダイアモンド or バスケットボールのサイズのダイアモンド.
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So if translated literally, would that mean the concept of “basketball sized” is taking ownership of the diamond?
Edit: fixed a typo
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The particle の has many functions. It’s not just a possessive particle, so don’t think of it as only having that function.
In this case, の is simply connecting nouns, as Pablo mentioned. So “A basketball-sized Diamond” becomes バスケットボールサイズのダイアモンド. It’s not that “Basketball-sized” owns “Diamond’. That’s not it 
.
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ペンギンを見るために南極にヘリコプターで行った。それからイグルー押し入て一つをペットとして家に帰りました。今彼はフロゼン野菜とフリーザーに住んでいます。
Translation
I took a helicopter to Antarctica to see the penguins, then broke into an igloo, took one as a pet and returned home. He lives in the freezer with the frozen vegetables now.
There are a couple of mistakes here:
For one, you want to be consistent with the politeness level. For example, the first sentence is in plain form, while the others are in polite form.
The second sentence is using a general counter for Penguins, which is the incorrect counter. In this case, you’d use the 羽 counter, which is used for small birds and rabbits (I know, lol. Blame the monks for that one). The verb usage is strange too, so I replaced them.
Lastly, in the third sentence, you’re using 彼 as the pronoun, but I think Japanese people either use (name of pet) + ちゃん, or the sound the animal makes + ちゃん. When the name is not known, I believe they simply say (animal) + さん. I’m not 100% on this, since it might sound a little childish, but that’s the pattern I’ve seen. Perhaps you can just stick to ペンギン by itself.
Anyway, the end result would be something like the following:
ペンギンを見るために南極にヘリコプターで行きました。それからイグルに入ってペットとして一羽を取って家に帰りました。今ペンギンはフロゼンの野菜とフリーザーに住んでいます。
HTH!
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When you say animal san do you mean ペンギンさん or 動物さん？
The former.
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咲子は私たちを見ているふりをしているそうだ。僕はそういうことを言っているかというと、咲子が近視だことを知っているからだ。そして、今メガネをかけていない。。
Translation / 英訳
I looks like Sakiko is pretending to see us. If you ask me why do I say such thing, it’s because I know Sakiko is nearsighted. And she is not wearing glasses right now.
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南極は私を寒いなったのでガラパゴスアイランドに旅行してイグアナと泳いで決めた。
Translation
Antarctica made me cold, so I decided to travel to the Galapagos Islands and swim with the iguanas.
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Good idea!
As far as my knowledge goes, and honouring your translation, I would suggest the following, with doubts on the first part of the sentence:
南極が私に寒くさせたのでガラパゴスに旅行してイグアナと一緒に泳ぐことを決めた。
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が in place of は makes sense. I should have known better. I will now cut off my pinkie for this grave mistake.
So なる is to become, and させる (im assuming it’s probably a る-verb) is to make A become B?
If it’s multiple iguanas and not just one, should we say イグアナたち or can it be assumed that it’s multiple iguanas?
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I can only respond once I have proof that you cut off your right hand pinkie (left hand one if you are lefthanded)…
Seriously, させる is the causative form of する, a whole new experience within the Japanese learning journey. I quite like Tae Kim’s entry on the causative form and his explanation: “like Captain Picard so succinctly puts it, the causative verb means to “make it so””.
Finally, I think that イグアナたち would be better indeed to make it really clear that you want to swim with a group of iguanas, if they let you…
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The pinkie is definitely cut off.
Proof: trust me, bro
So it’s like saying “I am doing being cold because of the cause which is Antarctica”?
I thought 一緒に made it sound too much like I was swimming together with one iguana. And yeah, Galapagos iguanas probably would let a persons swim with them assuming it was actually legal to visit. Apparently all the creatures on that island are super chill because they never had a reason to develop their fear response.
I’m only about 6 months in and spent a majority of that time on Duolingo (good for vocab/kanji practice, bad for grammar) before discovering Bunpro just a few weeks ago, so it feels like everything is a new experience in the Japanese learning journey. People generally make it seem like Kanji are the big scary beast, but it’s 100% the grammar lol.
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It would be more like saying “It is Antarctica that is making me cold//forcing me to be cold”. But, as I said, I’m not so sure about this. Wiser people than me will hopefully give a sounder answer.
God to know.
Truth is, it is like the Lernaean Hydra, but it is real fun to go along and fight it.
As for the Japanese learning journey, “it is better to travel hopefully, than to arrive”, as RLS famously said.
とにかく、頑張ってね。
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