This paper presents an expectation-based Japaneseto-English translation system called JETR which relies on the forward expectation-refinement process to handle ungrammatical sentences in an elegant and efficient manner without relying on the presence of particles and verbs in the source text. JETR uses a chain of result states to perform context analysis for resolving pronoun and object references and filling ellipses. Unlike other knowledge-based systems, JETR attempts to achieve semantic, pragmatic, structural and lexical invariance. .