Yes, it is for emphasis.

In the phrase 「来てはみた」, the 「来る」 part is being emphasized in the sense that the person ended up with "just coming" and not doing or finding anything good.

I presume that what is puzzling to you is the positioning as well as the function of the 「は」 in phrases consisting of two verbs.

「変な音が聞こえたので来てみました。
来てはみましたが、特になにもなかったようです。」

"I came over because I had heard a strange sound.
Though I came over, there seemed to be nothing wrong."

You went there expecting something but there was nothing. You ended up wasting some time and energy.
________

「生まれてはみたけれど、この人生苦労の連続だった。 」

"I was born (expecting good things) but my life was full of hardships."
________

The 「は」 gives the phrase the nuance that you gave it a try anyway even though the results may not have been satisfactory. 「みる」 is also indispensible in creating this nuance because, as you know, it means "to try and see".

This 「は」 is also used in the middle of two-part verb phrases that end in 「いく」、「くる」and 「おく」 as well.

「雨が降ってはきたがすぐに止んだ。」
「探しにはいったが見つからなかった。」
「冷蔵庫に入れてはおくけど、そんなに速く冷たくなら ないよ。」

It says "Slow Down".

Ahh, I see! Thank you so very much yet again, masaegu :).

As part of my ongoing Japanese lessons, I was given a reading exercise and had to answer questions from the text. I translated it the best I could and i was wondering if anyone here would be willing to grade me on this task.

The text is as follows:

ジョンミルズさんはABCフーズのしゃいんです。　ミルズ さんは日本の食べ物が大好きですが、そのなかでおにぎ りがいちばんすきです。かいがいではおにぎりよりおす しのほうがゆうめいです。　ＡＢＣフーズはかいがいむ けのおにぎりのかいはつプロジエクトをつくりした。　 ミルズさんはそのプロジエクトのチーフです。

Let's see how close I am to the actual text:

John Mills is an employee at ABC Foods. Mills-san likes Japanese food and onigiri the best among them. For foreigners, though, sushi is more famous than onigiri. ABC Foods produced foreign-oriented onigiri in a development project. Mills-san in the project chief.

I know I didn't do it word for word, or as close to that as possible. I took what I understood and translated it to what would make the best sense in my view. How correct was I?

Here, I don't think "for foreigners" is a good translation. I know you said you weren't translating literally, but there really is a difference between the ENglish and Japanese. Foreigners living in Japan count as "foreigners," but wouldn't in the original because the original is talking about "outside Japan." A foreigner living in Japan would be "foreigner" in your English but not 海外で like in the original.

"Outside of Japan, sushi is more famous than onigiri."

Also, 開発 is development, not production. You might try something like "ABC foods is making a project to develop onigiri for foreign markets."

Also, did you mean to type をお作りする　instead of を作りする? Just curious because I didn't know you could just do 作りする by itself. I'm assuming the blurb was written by someone within the ABC company, since otherwise using 謙譲語 wouldn't make much sense.

But, in general, I think you got all the important parts. (But why did you use "-san" in your English translation?)

Thanks, Kyle, for answering. I now understand the "outside of Japan" when referring to かいがい　(overseas).

As far as your next query, I made a mistake and it should have read つくりました。 I'm still having a hard time learning new kanji and I usually don't use the convert option on the keyboard. I'm still keeping with hiragana and katakana unless I've learned the kanji within the word, if you can understand what I mean.

I used -san out of habit. Our instructor keeps telling us to use it and I don't really know why....　

Thanks for your prompt response. Little by little I'm learning a bit more and, as time passes, I respect and admire those who know so much that much more.

Just a technical point (that you probably already know). 海外 literally means something like "overseas" if you translate it kanji-by-kanji. However, if you refer to the 海外 of America, Mexico, Canada, and other countries located in the Americas are still 海外. So, for example, if you take a vacation from California to Mexico, it's still called 海外旅行 even though you cross a land border to get there. But, in context, I can recognize it's talking about "outside Japan." Actually, if we were talking about hot dogs and never mentioned where the speaker was located or contextualized the passage, we might assume 海外で was referring to "outside the United States."

I think that's fine. Also, you'll avoid what I call "hyperkanjification." Well, as of ten seconds ago, when I invented the word, that's what I call it ;)

That's weird. It makes you sound like Mister Miyagi, Daniel-san.

Keep on truckin' and you'll see great improvements. My opinion is that progress is consistent until you get to be somewhere in your intermediate level where lack of kanji knowledge really slows down your progress (you need to read things written in Japanese about Japanese grammar or as examples of Japanese like newspaper articles, and every other kanji you have to look up). Then you learn a crapload of kanji and explode in improvements again.

Good luck!

Thank you. This makes sense.

Not to confuse you, but the particle 「も」 can also be placed in the middle of the verb phrases we just discussed.

Suppose you have a gross-looking pie in front of you and you already dislike it even before taking a bite. But you decided to give it a try anyway. You may say afterwards:

「見るからにまずそうなパイだった。食べてもみたが、やはりまずかった。」

quick question.. just wondering what the - is.
for example ヘEﾒ―ﾙを

any help will be great thanks.