Translating from Japanese into English, I feel Seidensticker's thoughts on the matter are as descriptive of the matter as can be. Even at an incredibly basic level, it's still necessary that one contemplates whether to rearrange word order in a way that is more natural to a native English speaker, or to keep the word order in the original text, even at the risk of it sounding more "foreign." Personally in deciding on my choices and sacrifices, I find it helps to note what I would not change, or what I would never sacrifice, in the original text. To translate the opening sentences of Snow Country as he did, ultimately resulting in an internal rhyme, is something I would find very difficult to do, though necessary at times it may be.
Improving on the text is something that, after all is said and done and the translation is over, is something I'm sure that many are guilty of. How often is an addition to a text an intended improvement, rather then something the translator just thinks is necessary to make the sentence work in English? If nobody ever looked over my translations, I'm sure that I would have never improved on any text.
As for intuitive judgement, the last time I used it was two days ago. Intuition is oftentimes for me the last and first resort, when there is nobody else to get a second opinion from.
Steven
No comments:
Post a Comment