On the contrary; if you can be of use with the ones in English and Japanese both then that's already a fair sight better than starting from nothing. Even a summary or a simple translation guide for some of the most often recurring words would go a long way in deciphering all these.

Ideally we'd want as accurate a translation as possible... but I'm starting to suspect a lot of these records aren't quite so formal, in truth.

[ he's starting to get the feeling that none of this wizardry stuff is, actually. ]