When I was reading this, I was able to relate to most of the points that she made. I faced similar challenges when I was translating Japanese into English (also from English to Japanese) before. But the part I remember the most is when she raised an example of how Japanese have multiple ways of saying “you” and how it delivers the atmosphere and feelings just by the way the character says “you”. She mentioned the example of “Kimi” and how it sounds snobbish and condescending tone, but it is very hard to show that in English. This was very interesting to read because I never actually realized how complicated Japanese is even when we’re just addressing someone “you”. Another part that was memorable is when she mentioned “juku” because I have an experience of trying to explain what “juku” is to my non-Japanese friends because there is no equivalent word in English. In addition, because I understand most of the background cultural context of Japan, I never came across this thought but when she mentioned how she has to explain the background context for example, how schools in Japan start in April, I realized that that translator has to follow the story but at the same time, they have to make sure that the customs in Japan are also explained to aid the reader’s understandings. Not only that, I have never read a Japanese book that is translated into English, so it was interesting to read the difficulties translators face when translating Japanese humor into English. This made me learn how humor is deeply affected by culture. I now want to try to read a book both in Japanese and English at the same time and compare the phrases and word choices.
Mitsy
No comments:
Post a Comment